Studying, Writing, and Learning

I'm home now in the wintery north (Minnesota), and have finally read an article my father had waiting for me upon our arrival. He clips and saves newspaper articles, and often sends or saves ones he thinks will interest me (or that ought to). This one certainly did. I am especially lucky in that he reads newspapers that I can't afford to subscribe to, such as "The New York Times" and the "Financial Times" (my personal favorite). I might add that my father is an agricultural economist, so he has an "eye" for articles on economics!

Robert Frank, in an article called "Students Discover Economics in Its Natural State, writes that "there is no better way to master an idea than to write about it." This is a truism that I have been putting into practice in this blog. In fact, it's the very PURPOSE of this blog, for me. I've been writing here about ideas I've been studying in an introductory business class, and I write SPECIFICALLY to learn what I'm studying! Also, not so coincidentally, I'm trying to pass on a little bit of my learning to others. I am trying to engage my Union activist friends in an application of economic insights to our "field". Thirdly, I am trying to assimmilate, extrapolate, and even, in some cases, exorcise, my career as a letter carrier and as a Unionist. In short, I am writing to learn, and using economics as my medium.

That brings me to the other key point, for me, in Frank's article. "Learning economics," he says, "is like learning a language." That's precisely what I've discovered, and how I've approached my studies. If one learns the meaning of the words that economists use, and learns the syntax of how things are put together, one is half-way towards understanding the principles upon which they're based. And that is what I've after - the big picture idea of how this applies to me, and to us. If economics is to mean anything to us, we have to first learn how to speak it. Then, hopefully, we can begin to think it. And if we're lucky, we can use it in a way that makes our lives more meaningful. If we apply it correctly, of course, there's even the possibility our lives will become more economically "rewarding".

So, thanks Dad! This one was a winner.