WI:Learning and Thinking

Education is a very important topic in the world today. How are we educating our children from the time they are very young to going through college? There have been many changes in the way that we are teachers and professors are educating. In the YouTube video "The Future of Learning, Networked Society" made by Ericsson there are several participants who point out different ideas some of which I would like to point out. Seth Godin who is an American Author, entrepreneur, marketer and public speaker said that schools have become like training a factory worker. The school trains them on how they want them to be and if they fail you punish them and make them go through it again. If the kid doesn't conform to the school then he is punished. He states that some kids are able to be engaged and take notes and then 2 weeks later regurgitate the material back but other kids can be engaged but not learn like this (1).

I believe that he is correct in some of his thinking. I believe that students learn differently and teachers and schools must conform to students to help them learn. They need to help cater to other needs that their students may have but if a teacher has a class size of 25 or more is there really enough time to cater to each student, when does it fall on the parents of a child to help him understand a math assignment? Being married to a teacher I see how my wife tries to teach in different styles depending on the students she has and tries to help each student. Schools are trying to provide interventionists to help those students that struggle in a certain area and try to help them learn in the way that is best for them.

During the video Sugata Mitra a professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University in England says that teachers need to point students in the direction of asking the right question instead of finding answers (1). I completely agree, answers are easy to find if you have a good question. Albert Einstein said "If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions (2)." If we spend our time with frivolous problems then the answers we find wont have any meaning. Teachers need to point students in the right direction and help them think critically. I believe that some teachers are doing this but even more need to start. In one course I have this semester the professor will present the class will give a situation and then say you have been in school and learned how to critically think, how do you solve it. We then as a class must come up with different questions that will then lead to finding ways to effectively solve the problem.

Later on in the video it is mentioned that education use to be limited to only the teachers knowledge of the subject and the small textbook for the class. But now with group working and technology students can learn so much more (1). Each student has a smartphone, tablet or laptop and essentially have information on just about anything at our fingertips. We need to be able to be able to actively use that technology in class to not waste time on finding answers that we can easily find and learn more to critically think and think of bigger and more important problems we can solve.


1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quYDkuD4dMU
2. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/60780-if-i-had-an-hour-to-solve-a-problem-i-d

On The Media: Safe Places and Trigger Warnings

When I began to listen to the episode “Kids These Days” the second story was titled "Free Expression Takes Work", Brooke Gladstone interviews Cameron Okeke. To add context socially, culturally and psychologically in this story Cameron is a recent graduate of University of Chicago, who is an African American and looks to advocate for safe places. When he went to school there he said that he felt unsafe to express his ideas or opinions and needed to go to the office of Multi-Cultural Affairs in order to find peace and feel safe. The University of Chicago in their freshman welcome letter stated that they did not support safe places nor trigger warnings for students. This bothered Cameron and he wrote a piece entitled "I'm a Black UChicago Graduate. Safe Places Got Me Through College." When they started discussing safe places I was confused and unaware of what they meant by safe places. According to an article on the Washington Post states, the phrase “safe places” was first used about 50 years ago for women’s rights forums and included those looking for relief from harassment for being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Now it means a place for group of people who feel ostracized can be comfortable sharing their beliefs (1). I believe that students should be able to have places where they are able to go and meet among those that have the same beliefs as them. They should be able to meet together and discuss their ideas just like there are any other kinds of clubs on campus such as the Multi-Cultural Diversity Club. In the episode they explain that some universities have ultimately cancelled scheduled speakers to their university because they may present information that may offend another person or may not be politically correct. Our country was founded on a Bill of Rights and the first amendment in it is free speech. Each of us has the opportunity to share our viewpoints and opinions just as much as the next guy. Our society is now evolving and it chooses to become offended by just about anything. We need to go back when people could express their opinions, disagree on the matter and then walk away and respect the fact that we disagreed. If we are going to grow as a country we must be able to freely give our opinion without someone telling us that we are wrong and cannot do that. In the example of Colin Kaepernick kneeling or sitting during the national anthem, I believe that he has the right to be able to take a stand for what he calls oppression of minorities. I do not agree with how he is trying to gain attention on that matter because people are now only taking about the action of sitting down or kneeling instead of the real issue of people killing cops and cops killing people. I do however understand and see his role in expressing his view points and trying to get his message heard.

After the section of the show discussing safe places they then move to discussing trigger warnings. Once again I was confused by what they meant. Later in the article of the Washington Post, which was mentioned earlier, states that trigger warnings are to alert students of information that will be presented and may be disturbing (1). In this section of the episode Brooke Gladstone interviews Kate Mann, to add context socially her role here is as a philosophy professor at Cornell University. She believes that trigger warnings are to just prepare students for material that will be presented and are not used to have students skip class. I also believe that faculty members should give trigger warnings before presenting information that some might find offensive or disturbing. After giving a trigger warning the students then can choose to participate in the discussion or leave if they would like because that is their right. This should not impede the faculty member to go ahead and present this information although it be disturbing because as a student at a university we are there to learn and become more educated. We are able to learn through other people’s opinions and different viewpoints to widen our scope of thought. I believe that we all have different experiences that shape our lives and there are some things that may bother us and we can have the chance to choose not to listen but this cannot stop the instructor from presenting that information. Trigger warnings are generally used when talking about rape or other traumatic incidents. I personally know someone who was raped about ten years ago at the age of 12. That day continue to haunts her and she can’t escape it. It happened and she can’t go back and change the fact that it happened but she can reduce the effects of the trauma to come back and haunt her again and again through trigger warnings. Many people think that there is no need for trigger warnings and that if a person reads, hears or watches something disturbing they should then make the decision to stop reading, walk out or stop watching. An article in the Huffington Post gives a wonderful response to those people. As a direct quote from the article she writes “by the time we reach triggering materials in an article, it is too late. Stopping at that point doesn’t not help. It makes no sense to have read halfway and encounter a particularly traumatic passage before stopping, when a simple trigger warning at the top of the article would suffice and prevent unnecessary pain and memories. A trigger warning gives us a tool to regulate our emotions and for us to set the content aside, until we are ready to process the content and engage with it in beneficial ways (2).” It is critical to give quick warnings which can ultimately help someone else from feeling unnecessary pain and trauma. It is very important to do your best to know those around you and try to understand their circumstances in order to be more sensitive. We each have the opportunity to speak freely but it also important to respect those others around us. 

Sources

1.  Christina Paxson. Brown University President: A Safe Space for Freedom of Expression. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/brown-university-president-safe-spaces-dont-threaten-freedom-of-expression-they-protect-it/2016/09/05/6201870e-736a-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html?utm_term=.7c3d0f35e067
2.   Jacqueline T Lin. Why We Don’t See a Need For Trigger Warnings. The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-we-dont-see-a-need-for-trigger-warnings_us_57ce3c8fe4b06c750ddb87c2