The character strength of the month for May is Love of Learning. VIA describes Love of Learning this way,
“If Love of Learning is your top strength, you love learning new things, whether in a class or on your own. You have always loved school, reading, and museums-anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to learn. Love of learning describes the way in which a person engages new information and skills. Love of learning is a strength that teachers would like to see in their students, parents want to encourage in their children, therapists support in their clients, and employers try to foster in their employees. It has important motivational consequences because it helps people persist through challenges, setbacks and negative feedback.”
Toward the end of 2013 Mayerson Academy was significantly changed by the VIA character strengths work. We became a stronger strengths-based organization. I watched it transform our staff and how we interact and engage with one another. Under the leadership of Jillian Darwish we reworked our vision, mission and core values to reflect them. We also live them. It isn’t just words on a piece of paper or on our website. We are actually doing the things that we agreed were important to us. Love of Learning is a key component of our core values. This is from our core values:
To promote learning every day we ask ourselves: Am I choosing to…
- Learn something new today?
- Support learning for others?
- Challenge myself to do something different or do something in a different way to amplify my learning?
This is what Mayerson Academy staff is expected and encouraged to do daily.
Love of Learning is a top strength for me. Learning every day is something that is exciting for me. It engages my love of learning strength and my curiosity strength. In the last three and a half years I have grown more professionally than I have in my entire professional career. This is a direct result of the character strengths work and being encouraged to tap into my strengths at work. Because we are encouraged to learn and grow every day I have had more opportunities to explore new experiences and have found that barriers to my professional growth have been removed. We just had our very first professional learning day where we each spent a good chunk of the day learning something new that we chose to investigate. I love that I work for an organization that encourages growth in this way. It’s something that I will be able to carry with me the rest of my professional career and personal life.
According to VIA, there are things that you can do to boost your love of learning strength:
- Deliberately learn five new words, including their meaning and usage, at least twice a week.
- Read a non-fiction book monthly on a topic you find absorbing and engaging.
- Follow an ongoing global event through newspapers, TV or internet.
Join us as we take the month of May to celebrate Love of Learning. Do something every day to allow yourself to learn and grow!
For more information on VIA Institute on Character or to take the free survey visit: http://www.viacharacter.org
