English 111 - Week 10

Ways of Thinking that Get in the Way of Learning

by Kelsey Rhind - Tuesday, November 3, 2020, 12:11 AM

 

    Ways of thinking can get in the way of learning. Usually these things come from experiences you’ve had. Some major ways of thinking that have changed going from high school into college can change the way you learn. Things like doing the bare minimum is fine. Or, some things may seem easier than they really are. Or, doing every class in person is better than doing classes online. 

   One thing that gets in the way for me is the notion that doing what is asked and that’s it is good enough. Usually, in high school if you do what is asked in the assignment and that’s it you’re good. You get either an A or B and you were happy with that. Now though in college, more is expected, you can still do bare minimum but it won’t get you nearly as far as it did in high school. Besides you don’t want to do bare minimum now because we’re the new kids like Leamnson said. As the new kids we want to impress these new teachers and perhaps even our peers. So we do everything we can to appear articulate and smart. 

  Another thing that gets in the way for me is that some things seem easier than they really are. I struggle with math, but once I started my online math class this semester it was really easy for me. I thought that maybe I was missing something or not doing enough or something of that nature. Something similar happened with my other classes that I do online. They seemed really straightforward and for lack of a better word “easy”. From what I had heard from my friends that were already in college it was really hard. So when I felt as though I was breezing through things I thought that maybe I wasn’t doing enough or was missing something that I was supposed to be doing.

  When I was going to high school I always thought that I wouldn’t do well if I had classes online. I took an ASL class online as my foreign language in freshman year and it was horrible. I did fine in it but, overall it was awful. Half the time I couldn't do the work at school because there was no webcam that would work. I had to wait until I got home and had to rush to get finished on time. So, when Covid hit I was worried about taking online classes. I wondered whether or not the technology was going to work or whether everything was going to be clear without being actually in a classroom with a teacher. I am happy to say that everything has worked out for the best. I actually love doing my classes online. I can do things pretty much whenever I want to, I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to get ready to go to school and stay for however many hours. I can start something and then take a break. A few weeks in I literally said to my parents” I wish I had done online school in high school, it may have gone better for me”.

  I really enjoyed the most of the reading and the videos. For me the video of Paulo Freier was hard to watch. The content of it was good but, his accent and subtitles made it hard to listen to. The comic strip by Lynda Barry was very confusing for me. I think it might have been sensory overload. There was a lot to look at so getting the point of the whole thing was difficult. I had previously watched the TED talk video and I enjoyed watching it again. I liked the section of the book by Robert Leamnson. There are some things that he said that resonated with me, things that I’ve experienced and felt but didn’t have words to. We are the new kids, we do take a minute to be comfortable. He’s right about how most kids are so done with school by the time we hit college. I feel like that is so true but for me going to college has been a great experience so far and I feel like a different person than who I was in high school. I feel more prepared to learn and things that didn’t really “stick” in high school, “sticks” now. That is such a good feeling.

Struggles of Thinking

by Shawnee Sprowls - Wednesday, November 4, 2020, 12:57 AM

 

For me, and I'm sure many other students, there are quite a few ways about my thinking that can interfere with my ways of learning.  The main one for me is that I sometimes stress myself about assignments (especially important and big ones), to the point where I can't focus. I worry too much about passing and doing good that I overthink what I am doing and start second-guessing. This has been something I always struggled with, I guess a sort of failing anxiety I tend to get. Although that is a big blockade for me some days, another issue I can have is if I have no interest or enjoyment in an assignment, I sort of lose motivation for it and do the bare minimum. As we read a lot about this during this course, bare minimum may have been acceptable for me throughout my previous school years, but for college, it is not. That is not only a bad way of thinking, but a bad habit to have as well that I have been working hard towards eliminating. Thirdly, this one is more common than we realize, I tend to catch myself thinking of learning as simply completing the assignment as needed and going on about to the next thing. Sometimes us students think that because we are doing what we are asked that is good enough and we need to educate ourselves no further. It is great to have such "curious" people in the world, like Paulo Freire, to influence us to expand our minds beyond this.

The reading and videos this week (and I'm so glad to say every week) grabbed my attention, as they always do, but one article that stood out to me the most was "Language: Teaching New Worlds/New Words" written by bell hooks. One of the many quotes that stood out to me is when she says "For the incorrect usage of words, in the incorrect placement of words, was a spirit of rebellion that claimed language as a site of resistance." For us western civilized people, we would have never thought of it this way. This incorrect usage  and pronunciations of words were considered illiterate and uneducated, not a way to take back what little parts of themselves(slaves) they had left. She so beautifully explains this in her article and I enjoyed reading this is most! bell hooks does a wonderful job breaking down the cultural barriers of language that we as Americans are not used too. "The Two Questions" cartoon by Lynda Barry was another wonderful read. I felt like this one related a bit to bell hooks. By not drawing only "good/good enough" cartoons Barry was able to take back her old self she had nearly forgotten about, just like the slaves with their incorrect usage of the English language.