I recently re-read Seth Godin’s blog post, What you can learn from a lousy teacher, and it got me thinking about the kinds of learning experiences students can have. I’ve been thinking about how out-moded much of our educational practices are for a digital mediated age and generation.
In his March 2010 post, Godin lists the unintentional lessons bad teachers teach:
- Grades are an illusion
- Your passion and insight are reality
- Your work is worth more than mere congruence to an answer key
- Persistence in the face of a skeptical authority figure is a powerful ability
- Fitting in is a short-term strategy, standing out pays off in the long run
- If you care enough about the work to be criticized, you’ve learned enough for today
I agree with all of these, and my list, too, would begin with the negative effects of the violence of grading. Success (or failure) is not a useful predictor of success (or failure) in life, I’ve observed. Grades seem to be a necessary evil perpetrated by the twin evils of standardization and scholarship and financial aid criteria. I try really hard to move us (my students and me) away from this illusory game and toward real learning, which is often messy, unpredictable and a lot of fun.
But that’s not my emphasis here.
Here I want to leverage the benefits of the blog to ask my Visual Rhetoric students to share their most formative experience of their lives in school. I want them to share these experiences with me and with each other. Let’s look for common themes. Let’s look (or listen) also for what doesn’t appear — what’s missing from our narratives.
We’ve been discussing memory quite a bit, including how it works, how it shapes who we are (or who we think we are) and our reality. How we tell our stories can say quite a bit about us, as well, so I’m interested in reading between our lines, too. As we observed Friday, we see some things and in seeing those things we fail to see lots of other things. How this selectivity works is a taproot into how we make sense of the world.
So, please share your story: What was the most formative or influential or memorable experience of your life in school (K to 12 to college) up to this point? Let’s shoot to have your response in the form of a comment by noon Friday, Oct. 8. I genuinely look forward to learning more about the things you carry.
I was homeschooled from 3rd grade until I graduated. When I lived in D.C., my siblings and I were quite active with a local co-op of other homeschooled families. We’d get together once a month and present essays or reports to each other, have a meal and play a game that had to do with whatever we were studying at the time.
I remember on one such meeting, my siblings and I decided we’d do a dramatic reading of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. There was no limit on creativity for us. We built the Old North Church out of boxes (with steeple, steps and all) and painted it. We put together colonial costumes. We even had a lantern to light! I did the reading while by brother rode a pretend horse as Paul Revere and my sister lit the signal. We were at the ages of 14, 13 and 9, and we had a blast.
I have plenty of memories of this co-op–of writing and performing monologues, teaching my friends the basics of historical fencing, listening to the high schoolers read Latin and the toddlers act out simple scenes from books. We even started a tradition of writing an end-of-the-year play that incorporated all the history we’d learned (“History: A Modern Interpretation”). We were encourage to pursue and share whatever sparked our interests. It made learning something accessible and fun.
The co-op taught me that I learn best when I bring what I love into what I am learning. This has been a priceless lesson in college, where I’m still applying it. I don’t build my own church for a demonstration (normally). But I have used my talent with InDesign and my humor to write an amusing and well-researched cure to lovesickness pamphlet for my Medieval Lit class (which was a bit hit amongst students and professor alike).
Wow, trying to pick one formative or influential or memorative experience of my life in school up to this point is like staring at a vending machine full of row after row of crisp, cold, inviting Coca-Cola Classics and trying to decide which bottle will taste the best. …Er, I love Coke, that’s all.
At any rate, I suppose I’ll try and pick one of my favorites.
I went to a pretty young, private Christian high school. When I left, they were just then incorporating AP classes and new electives. Thus, my freshman year of high school was the first year they offered Creative Writing as an elective. Being an avid lover of writing, I jumped at the opportunity, as did my four best girl friends, conveniently.
That class taught me a lot about how a class should be formatted. Throughout the year, each of us (there were about 15 of us in the class) wrote many things based on what we were learning and the prompts our teacher gave us – but it didn’t just stop at us turning in our compositions and receiving them back with a generic letter grade from our teacher. Instead, before we ever turned them in, we made copies of our work for each member of the class, passed them out, and read our work aloud. Then we would sit silently and listen to the entire class discuss and critique our work.
While this may sound mortifying to some, for me it was exhilarating. I loved nothing more than sitting there listening to people praise my work, and I knew the benefits of hearing them talk about the negative aspects of it, as well.
Only after the critiques did we turn in our work to our teacher – after we polished them with the critiques in mind.
What I loved so much about this method is that it focused more on each of us students individually. Having that time devoted to each one of us helped immeasurably more than receiving our compositions back with comments and a grade. I believe every class should be run that way as much as possible – especially at Berry, where the class sizes are so small.
My writing skills flourished that year, and I still refer to my learnings from that class when writing anything – for fun or for the classroom.
I guess the big takeaway from this tale is that, when it comes to bettering someone, individualization is key.
Although I couldn’t possibly pinpoint a single moment that utterly defines the influence schooling has had on me, I definitely look back to the independent and individualized aspects of my educational experience as the most formative. I was homeschooled throughout all of high school, and for me this meant quiet mornings poring over science, math and humanities courses, followed by long, lazy afternoons absorbing good literature.
I have five siblings and so our house was often crowded and noisy, so it was equally a challenge and a pleasure to steal away into some secluded corner with a good book. (In my younger days, I used to hide a stack of library books in our upstairs bathroom. When my mom gave me a chore I wasn’t particularly interested in completing, I would lock myself in the bathroom for hours on end.) When I was in high school, however, I had an immense amount of freedom in my studies, choosing my courses and my schedule. I discovered that I was inclined toward both the hard sciences and literature, so I ordered my textbooks accordingly. I completed over 6 AP science classes and managed to write and read prolifically over those 3 years (yes, I only spent 3 years in high school.)
In order to make the system work, I had to be entirely self-motivated but this gave me the opportunity to follow the trails my curiosity led me to. My course structure was an IDS concentration for high school, but with even more flexibility and independence, and thus, more actual education achieved.
I see this model of influence has carried over into my 2+ years of college. In the classes that only seek to give me grades, I will get grades. The classes that require and inspire me to think and think deeply grant me the coveted gift of real education. It is those classes, professors and “assignments” that teach me to teach myself a little more of what it means to be human.
I find it very hard to single out one specific memory, but I will go with my transfer of schools. From kindergarten to 7th grade, I was in public school. There was nothing wrong with public school, but I had a lot of trouble.
I have many learning problems. Public schools were just to big. There were 30-35 students in each class. The teacher was not able to worry about or help any student individually. Also, the teacher would lose control of the class easily, so it was hard to learn in many classes. I was just another face in the crowd.
Not only were the classes big, but the school was very large and easy to get lost in. Half my classes were in trailers around campus because the school did not have enough room for all the classrooms needed.
In 8th grade, I moved to a private school. The difference was huge. The classes were much smaller, so I got the individual attention and help that I needed. My teachers were more supportive and really took the time to focus on me. The teachers were also able to keep control of the classes better.
The campus was not really big, so it was easy to get to classes. All the classes were also in actual classrooms inside a building.
Moving from a public school to a private school was a huge and momentous step for me that changed my ability to learn.
It is hard for me to single out one particularly poignant school experience, in part because I am a terribly indecisive person. However, if I had to pick one single memory, I would travel all the way back to first grade. My teacher, Mrs. Powell, was without a doubt one of the very best teachers I have ever had. Her love for students permeated every activity we did in the classroom and outside of it. She was so attuned to our individual learning styles and cared so much about us prospering in life, not just in school.
One of the units we went through in class focused on apples. We read and wrote stories about them, counted how many bites it took to eat one (and then averaged the numbers for the whole class), learned about the different varieties of apples and all sorts of things like that. We examined where different apples grew based on the climate and how they got to the grocery store. The culmination of our experience was a field trip to a local apple orchard where we spent the whole day picking those Golden Delicious until our little hearts were content. We learned about their natural environment and the ecosystem before having our picnic. Upon returning to school, the next day we used some of the apples we had picked with our hands and made apple fritters!
I know it might sound a bit inane and silly that a memory focused entirely on apples sticks with me so much, but it does. After doing a bit of reflecting, I have come to several conclusions. One, I don’t remember any of the assignment being graded. It was all based on participation and discussion. I think that is a testament to the power of discussion-based learning, even as six year olds. Secondly, I have begun to comprehend how important interconnected/interdisciplinary learning is for me personally. I love analyzing material in a systemic approach rather than taking it completely out of context. How does this connect to something completely different? So, for me, having the classroom knowledge and then actually venturing into a real apple orchard was the perfect learning experience. For me, it isn’t about just getting tons of information about lots of topics. It is about extensive, quality analysis of interdependent subject matter. Because, as it was said in the Harrison Ford film “Sabrina,” (a remake of the earlier version starring Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn), “sometimes more isn’t always better. Sometimes more is just more.” I think that is more applicable to education that I used to think.
Good mix so far: kinesthetic learning, collaborative learning, independence, small classes-high attention, connectivity and interdisciplinarity.
My fifth grade teacher played a huge role in my life. Even though I was only in fifth grade a was able to do a lot of learning and growing as a student, and also as a person in general.
As a elementary schooler I was usually getting the highest marks I possibly could in those years, but science, for some reason, was a huge mental block for me. I was struggling immensely and not getting my usual good grades, as a result I felt very upset with myself, and I didn’t know how to react or what to do.
My teacher decided to sit down with me and we talked. She was able to encourage me and to let me know that everything was going to be all right. She pushed me, and encouraged me, allowing me to do a few extra things to try to get my grade up. I really was encouraged to continue to work hard and know that I could not always be a perfect grade student.
After all of my hard work I was able to pull my grade up to be average, and I felt good about myself because my teacher was there for me every step of the way. She told me she was so proud of me.
Because of that teacher, I have now found that I am never going to be the PERFECT student! It’s okay mess up and not get straight A’s all the time.
“It’s all about attitude, Darren. Always remember that.” I had no clue what these words meant when I was sitting in the back row of Mr. Lloyd’s advanced history class in 8th grade. He was a peculiar man. Very tall, stern, with a rigid face covered by enormous 1980′s glasses. He was the kind of person that was intimidating to others because he was of such high intellect. I immediately was intrigued by him, but little did I know that he would instill me with one of the most valuable lessons I could ever learn..the importance of attitude.
When I first heard him say this to me, I thought he was strictly talking about matters of conduct. Plenty of students misbehaved in our class and expressed very bad attitudes that always got them in trouble. Never did he further explain what he meant by these words, he simply left it at, “it’s all about attitude.” Through the years of my life, I have more and more come to analyze the word “all” that is in that sentence. I have come to realize that literally everything in my life is somehow affected by the conditions of my attitude. My relationships, my productivity, my potential for success, and the entire path of my life. Not only does a good attitude benefit my life, but it also can potentially benefit the lives around me. When I smile, people smile back. When I laugh, people like to laugh with me. When I am kind to people and optimistic about even the darkest aspects of reality, this can pass on like a wildfire and touch people that I have never even met. The more I have come to understand these words, the more I have attempted to exhibit a good attitude everyday before I walk out my front door, but many times I have failed.
The power of attitude has paved the smoothest paths in my life, but it has also completely demolished certain factors of it that should still be standing. Attitude has built the conditions of my relationships with people. Some good, some bad. Attitude has made me money and completely emptied my wallet. Attitude has filled my stomach and completely starved me. Attitude has made me smile and made me crumble in tears. Attitude has built what my life is today. “It’s all about attitude, Darren.” I certainly understand that now and forever I will remember it.
Quite frankly, a large majority of my school life was utterly boring. Though I was in the ‘Gifted’ program and took more AP credit classes than I care to mention, high school was one giant, monotonous blur. It pains me even now to think of how frustrated I was sitting in those classes five days a week staring at the perpetually broken clocks, ignoring all of the loud and annoying people, and wishing at least one teacher would take a break from reading straight out of the book. The only real pleasure I took was in playing football and wrestling; I learned more about life itself from my coaches those four years than I did from all of my teachers from K- 12 combined.
Well, that’s not entirely true I suppose. And in the context of the question, I believe this is the answer you are looking for.
Dr. Bowen, my AP Literature teacher my senior year of high school, is still the single most influential professors I’ve ever had. By this point in my academic career, I was on full coast mode: my most difficult decision was whether or not I wanted to sleep in class or read in class. Grades were never an issue (I never made less than a B in any class before college) and AP Literature was obviously an English class, my favorite and easiest subject. So like my other classes, I went through the motions and did what was necessary; being an AP English class, Dr. Bowen had us writing a full essay due Friday in order to prepare us for the AP exam. Essays were my forte and were usually what kept my grades at the above average level; I had never made anything but an A on an essay before.
That Monday following our first paper in that first week, I got my paper back: I made a D. Needless to say, I was completely shocked. When I flipped through the paper, I was in disbelief at how completely she had ripped through my paper and tore it to pieces. I was angry, initially; who did she think she was? I knew the paper I wrote would have been an A in any other class but this one, even if I had written it hastily Friday morning at the breakfast table with my friends. I unzipped my backpack in frustration, mind alight with less than kind adjectives to describe Dr. Bowen, when I noticed that she had written something on the back.
“I know you’re better than this. You have a lot of potential. Give me some effort and some patience, and in return, I’ll show you how great you can be.”
I was stunned. Mill Creek High School was the biggest school in the state at the time; teachers had never shown an individual interest in me before beyond being annoyed that I slept/read in class. Most teacher’s seemed content to see a student show that they have a passing grasp on the material and then push them along, indifferent if they actually learned something. Dr. Bowen was the first to seem to be genuinely interested in the individual and be utterly indifferent to the standards that the school required of us. She believed that mediocrity was a sin and to do anything less than your best was an insult not only to those involved, but to yourself. It was a sentiment shared by my coaches and something I already applied to sports; I just never really considered applying it to school before when a B average was considered to be ‘above average’.
I made a 5 on the five AP exams I took my senior year and I honestly can say that only happened because Dr. Bowen refused to accept anything less than my best. She alone, out of all my teachers, prepared me for what college would be like; she alone is the reason that I have maintained my academic scholarship here at Berry. And she alone is the only teacher in my K-12 academic career that I have the utmost respect for.
In sixth grade, I attended the local public school. It was huge and loud and crowded, and I refused to go back in seventh grade, so my mom homeschooled me, which was a complete and utter fiasco. But that’s not the year I’m focusing on. I was born and raised in Atlanta, but I’ve always been a small-town girl at heart – I refuse to go downtown unless I have a posse with me, and large crowds make my skin crawl. And I have a faulty pituitary gland, so in sixth grade at age 12, I had the bone age of an eight year old and was at least five inches shorter than everybody in the whole school. All throughout elementary school, I was basically a recluse – I had friends, but only because my mom arranged my life in an effort to force me to interact. I had read books at lunch every day since kindergarten, and no teacher had ever been successful in stopping me, until I met Mr. Stilwell, my sixth grade physics teacher. It wasn’t Mr. Stilwell’s subject that entranced me (I’m an English major, so science is the enemy and it should die), but his friendly, outgoing, and creative spirit. He took a legitimate interest in me and engaged me in any way that he could, including creating class-wide reading contests, but he also set me a challenge to only take a book to lunch only one time a week, which I accepted because Mr. Stilwell always made me want to rise to a task and try my hardest. At first, I only tentatively spoke to classmates and I relished my one day a week that I got to read, but after about a month I had actually developed a circle of closely-knit friends. One Friday as we were returning to class, Mr. Stilwell pulled me aside and told me, with the most smugly satisfied smile I have ever seen, that I had forgotten to bring a book to lunch that whole week.
Mr. Stilwell, a man who taught a subject I hated and who I only knew for one short year, managed to accomplish something that nobody else could. My over-bearing and control freak mother attempted to make me socialize by force; my previous teachers, all cowed by my mother’s orders (I love my mom, but she is a rather formidable character), tried to make me abandon who I was (basically, a hermit-nerd). But Mr. Stilwell, who I later found out blatantly ignored my mom’s demands that he outright deny me the right to read at lunch at all, taught me the power of compromise and inspiration; I learned that I did not have to abandon who I was and what I loved in order to try new things. So even at 21, you’re still pretty likely to find me reading a book at lunch, but you’re just as likely to find me striking up a conversation with a perfect stranger. Good teachers really do make all the difference.
The most memorable moments of my school career (pre Berry) were definitely my AP sciences Biology and Chemistry.
My AP biology teacher taught me to love biology. She was the first to teach “college style,” aka she didn’t teach so much as give us instruction and set us into groups. But I learned to work in groups, and made one of the best friends I have to this day. And until you have dissected a pig fetus, can one truly understand anatomy? I think not. :] Also, I truly believe that her tests were harder than any I have taken at Berry. She is an amazing teacher and person and I thank her for being one of the few teachers I had in high school to prepare me for college.
AP Chemistry also taught me to love chemistry, and also made me realize that I actually need to study to do well. My best friend and I would work for hours and get terribly frustrated but it was worth every second when we brought home that A. We got to play with chemicals and learned more than our fair share about them. I was terrified of college chem (which I’ve gotten over thank goodness since chem is my minor) due to the brief intro to various different aspects of the study.
Without these two classes and my amazing teachers, I wouldn’t have the knowledge base and love for science that I have today. And while I have changed my major and have a new focus, I am still very much science minded and it fascinates me to the core.
Like many of my fellow classmates, it’s hard to pick one quintessential moment of my schooling career. However, there was one teacher that impacted me greatly throughout my tenth grade year, and I still go back to visit her whenever I am able to. Dr. Galati is an intimidating person with her tall stature, bright, red-dyed hair, and her infamous purple pen. Many students have bemoaned leaving her English class with purple stained papers in hand and have likened her to a dragon.
Dr. Galati was my English teacher in tenth grade, as well as my journalism teacher in tenth through twelfth grade at my public high school. I was incredibly nervous as I walked into her classroom on the first day, hearing all the tales of terror regarding how hard she was, how she was a tough grader, and how she had an attitude. What I found is that Dr. Galati is a prime example of a hardened journalist and cynical English teacher, but she drives her students to be the best that they can be and will not take anything less then what she thinks her students are capable of performing. I have always had a liking for reading and analyzing literature, but Dr. Galati honed my skills and created a passion in me.
In her class, we didn’t just read common books and write analytical papers in response. She made us read books such as The Book Thief and other novels that have impacted me in their poignancy and remain my favorites, even though she encountered much opposition from parents of students that didn’t necessarily like the reading material or were offended by it (I live in a very small, country town). Dr. Galati opened my eyes up to all that goes into creating a story. We traversed through literary elements and archetypes known as the Hero’s Quest. We had to write a huge paper over Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, and I will never look at that movie the same way again, or any other movie for that matter. Instead of just watching a movie, commercial, or advertisement in a mindless numb, I find myself searching for the archetypes and symbolism that Dr. Galati taught me to look for while viewing.
Many of Dr. Galati’s assignments were just fun and creative. In one assignment, we had to pick a crew for Odysseus to travel with, and we had to write a letter to all the famous Greek heroes in a persuasive manner from Odysseus’ perspective to enlist them on his quest; we were practicing persuasive writing. This particular assignment was a contest, which my partner and I won and were treated to a lunch by Dr. Galati. This also taught me that Dr. Galati really cares about her students and creates activities where she can build lasting relationships with them outside the classroom. Her passion in caring for her students is unmatched.
Dr. Galati also had a short story unit where we had to do various different exercises. I remember staying up till four in the morning to finish this project and my mom, also a teacher, sending me to bed, disgruntled about me staying up so late for an English class (my mother is a mathematics teacher). However, I will never forget the sense of accomplishment that I had when I sat on a stool in front of the room and read a short story that I had written for the project to my class.
Dr. Galati is a grizzled, but fun-loving woman who will always have my respect. She makes her students work hard, and if a student falls short they will know it. She is the one high school teacher that prepared me for college. She didn’t coddle and babysit her students, yet she knew how to make us have a fun and exciting classroom experience. She let us foster a sense of independence that is so important as you mature. Dr. Galati is the funniest, smartest woman I know, who has the craziest stories and can make the whole room burst out with laughter. While she is tough and many students want to yank their hair out from her work, she is truly one of the most impactful and insightful teachers I have ever met and had the pleasure of learning from.
“But you seem so normal,” is a phrase people have told me a lot in my life. Apparently home school kids have a stereotype of being a little weird. I am a homeschool kid.
I was taught to be myself. I can remember days when I would finish my school work in three hours and spend the rest of the day playing outside with my brother. We got to explore the world, make scavenger hunts, and trade pokemon cards (with each other obviously). My mom would push us to explore, to adventure and to do whatever we wanted to do. Once school work ended, the world was ours.
Being homeschooled meant I had to be extremely self motivated. If I wanted to learn about something and I didn’t understand it, I had to figure out a way to understand. And I did much of my work by myself. While my mother would help when she could, there were no deadlines, no homework, so keeping up with school was completely up to me. When I went to a public high school, I was far ahead of most of my classmates.
Being a homeschool kid taught me that I was more than just a number. I was never taught to raise my hand, to stand in line for lunch, or that recess was only 30 minutes. I learned that I could do and be anything I wanted if I worked hard and stayed motivated. And most of all i learned to love learning.
I’m not certain if you would prefer our most memorable experience in school or our most memorable experience in school that actually has something to deal with education, so I figure I’ll post both.
My most memorable school memory is really the extended memory of the 5th grade. That year started a long chain of me hopping around from school to school. My father realized that his current job was in jeopardy so he started job searching and told our family that we had to be prepared to move in the near future. At the same time, where I lived was rezoned and I had to attend a new elementary school for 5th grade. I had made a lot of great friends in my old elementary school, Wayne Elementary, and I was very sad to see them go. I had only been at the new elementary school for half of 5th grade when suddenly I learned that we had to move to Greenville, SC, for my dad’s new job. Once again, I left behind friends and a sense of familiarity for a new school. I had success making friends at my last new elementary school, but at this one I had a much more difficult time. There was a boy that I hung out with at recess, but he wasn’t really my friend and we parted ways about halfway through the year. That was a very lonely time for me, and I had to adjust to big changes once again when I started middle school after 5th grade.
My most memorable education experience was in my Government and Economics class in my senior year of high school. We had a big project where we would each present a “bill” to the class and try and get it passed through winning their votes. This was an amazing educational experience because it gave us all a chance to choose topics that we were genuinely interested in and cared about. As any good teacher knows, a student is more likely to work harder on a paper or a project if they are actually invested in its topic. I chose an issue that is very important to me: gay marriage. I researched my topic for weeks, came up with my argument, formed counterarguments for points that the opposition would come up with, and wrote a speech. I gave my all for that assignment, and even though I thought that my bill would not get passed, I actually managed to win a majority of the vote in the class. It was the most satisfying project I have ever done in school.
The most influential experience of my life in school wasn’t one moment, or it didn’t happen instantaneously. It was a gradual understanding and appreciation of reading that was instilled in me by my fourth grade teacher.
I was one of the “bad kids” in elementary school. I went to a pretty normal public elementary school and up until fourth grade I would act out, not do my work and generally had no interest in education at all. However, when I got to fourth grade, Mrs. Hartzog changed my life, at least from an education perspective. During the first week of class, instead of reprimanding me after I had misbehaved all day, Mrs. Hartzog sat me in a corner with a book and told me that I couldn’t move from that spot until I had read the whole thing.
The book was Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I was angry through the first couple chapters but gradually I was drawn into the story and forgot that I was upset. That became the regular routine. I was punished by being sat in a corner with a book. After a couple months, I stopped misbehaving completely. Instead, every day I would pick a book from our class library and sit at my desk and read. The problem became getting me to stop reading. That year I won the school’s reading point contest (each book at the school was assigned a particular number of points and you had to take a quick quiz to make sure you read the whole thing to get the points).
Mrs. Hartzog laid the foundation for the rest of my education by not only teaching me the importance of reading, but nurturing a love and a passion for it.
This is going to be incredibly long. Sorry, but not really. You asked for it.
One of my favorite quotes of Einstein’s is, “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education,” and I would say that it is completely true. The things (i.e. head knowledge: not morals or wisdom or the like) that I know and remember are not those that I learned in a classroom setting but things that I learned and researched on my own, learned through mistake, or learned by example.
But my greatest learning experience related to school had nothing to do with the subject being. In fall of 2008 I was attending Georgia Perimeter, a two-year college, and was taking Early World History. The instructor for that class, one Mr. Ziegler, was part-time and utterly insane.
Instead of carrying a briefcase, Ziegler carried all of his paperwork for the class in large Ziploc bags. Instead of just calling out roll, the man had us right down our contact information (even the last four digits of our SSN) onto a note card. Then, to take roll, he would lay the cards at the front of the classroom and if you were there, then you turned your card over. Now these examples don’t mean that he was insane, they’re just eccentricities.
What was insane was that Ziegler made a deal with us as the beginning of the semester, if we would study our tails off for the first five tests, we would undoubtedly make an A in the class. That was because after the first five tests which would be incredibly difficult because what was tested on them would be completely random, Ziegler would read off the answers to each test immediately before each test. His reasoning was that nobody in that class really cared about his class because it was a gen ed requirement. He was right.
At first our agreement worked all right and I am ashamed to say that I thought it was the best deal ever. But I soon realized that everything was not peachy. Because we had both lecture and a test every week (sixteen chapters and a test for each in fourteen weeks of class, you do the math) at least once a week our class ran long. Not a little long, over fifteen minutes. But there was nothing we could really do because we did not take tests until the end of the class time and Ziegler was completely unwilling to change that. Thus I had several classmates that would get to class or work late but they could not leave or they would fail.
That was bad, but what broke the proverbial back was when Ziegler cussed a student-out for “cheating.” I knew the student and she was literally not smart enough to cheat but that did not stop Ziegler for cussing at her in front of the classroom and calling her stupid. So this student went to Ziegler’s boss and complained like any normal person would. But the next class, Ziegler comes in furious that he had been tattled on and so tried to blackmail us by saying that if anyone else went behind his back again, he make the remaining tests as hard as the first five and essentially fail all of us.
So after class was over I went to his boss and explained exactly what happened. When I did, Dr. Moon (Ziegler’s boss and head of the humanities dept.) told me to put everything in writing. They needed it on record. But when I set out to write my recap/explanation of the situation, I realized just how ludicrous our “deal” was. In all honesty, we all deserved to fail that class because we tried to take the easy way out. We subverted our learning for our “education.”
That was when I realized that education in the sense of the word that we use it is completely unimportant. We don’t need to be trained for certain jobs (accounting, business, math, science, journalism, etc.) because if that’s all college is, then those concepts could very easily be learned in the field and on the job. The goal of college is not to achieve the paper that says you know something. The goal is to change, grow and learn what the paper will say you have learned. It’s like a wedding band; it doesn’t make you married, it’s a representation that you are married.
Before that class, I firmly was of the opinion that college was merely a means to an end- to get a job. But when I had to put those words on paper and give them to a man that had a doctorate, I realized just how stupid that opinion was.
So that is how my worst class experience impacted me more than any other class ever has. That’s why I genuinely like college now. It’s even why I am at Berry (Dr. Moon convinced me to apply; I though that it was too expensive). So to end, let me paraphrase and alter Einstein a little: The only thing that has allowed me to learn is not what education teaches but the education process itself.
“thought” not “though”
The most influential learning experience I have had thus far in my schooling took place in my fourth and fifth grades. I had a teacher who started challenging me more than I had been challenged in the past. She knew that normal lessons were not very helpful with me and I get bored easily. She formed a separate group in the class with around 5 other students and gave us special assignments on top of what we were already doing. She taught me that I was able to achieve so much more that I was doing at the time, and she challenged me to think beyond my little “box” that I had always lived in. She taught me to be self-motivated, and to ask questions.
This teacher saw how unhappy I was in the classes I was taking and jumped through hoops to get me into a Program Challenge class, which was the class for children that needed to be challenged more. Through this class, I learned some critical skill that were, but not limited to, critical thinking, problem solving, how to work in a team, and most importantly, it helped me find friends who would challenge me intellectually on a daily basis and help me to grow as a student and a person.
My fourth grade year in elementary school was one of the most stretching years of my early education, but one of the most rewarding as well. My teacher Mrs Boyle taught me a lesson that I have since kept with me, and that is to maintain high expectations.
We were given a writing assignment, to partner up with a classmate to write a story together based on a single picture we were given. My friend and I became so engrossed in this assignment that by the time the due date rolled around, we had written what we referred to as the first four chapters of our new novel together and wanted to continue with the story. Instead of reacting to the issue of a due date, Mrs Boyle encouraged us to continue writing the story and asked us to keep sending her our work as we went.
In the same class, I began to develop a deep love for reading fiction. Mrs Boyle took notice, and at once sat down with me in our class “book corner” to pick out several books from much higher reading levels that she thought I would enjoy. Books that I wouldn’t have even thought to try and pick up on my own, I found that I couldn’t put them down.
She also noticed that I was doing really well with most of our spelling quizzes in class, so she signed me up to compete in the school-wide spelling bee. She gave me extra practice work and quizzed me in spare moments during the day, and I ended up winning second place within the school.
These moments immediately stuck out in my memory as formative experiences because they are so unique. Not every student is so lucky to have a teacher that pushes and encourages them like this, especially in the larger public school setting that I grew up in. But I think it stands to show that creating good expectations can be the most rewarding thing for any student. If the expectations are established that a student will do poorly, it’s so much less likely that he or she would rise above that and succeed. It’s like adding an extra obstacle; they have to convince themselves that they can accomplish something more than what their own teacher seems to think is possible. When healthy and challenging expectations are made, most students rise to the occasion and do more than what they originally thought they could. I think this is an essential lesson in an educational setting, but should also be taken to any other area of life.
I have not always been a fan of school. In Kindergarten, I used to fake stomach aches at least once a week, so I didn’t have to stay in class. To me, classroom learning just wasn’t fun, even as a little tike. However, around about 2nd grade, after my family and I moved to a new city and therefore a new school district, I started to enjoy schooling a lot more. At my new elementary school, we had a gifted program called SPACE. It took you out of class (already a major perk) to hone into your creative talents and apply them to academics you were learning in the classroom. In order to get into this program, you had to take a series of tests. In these tests, there were multiple sheets of paper with various shapes and lines grouped together. Our mission was to complete these seemingly unrelated line fragments into complete pictures. I never understood how this proved anything, but it was fun (similar to Rorschach tests, but with shapes).
Anyway, the point of this program was to tune into the creative aspects of classroom learning and to bring it to the forefront. We made cameras out of Morton salt canisters and learned how to develop the film, built and tested rockets and giant slingshots, and the prime time for every 5th grader: right before graduation, we got to put on country presentations. This was my favorite activity that emerged out of the SPACE program. At the beginning of our final elementary school year, we were given the opportunity as a class to choose and research any country of our choosing. My year, we chose Spain. The first half of the year was dedicated purely to our research. A lot of time for easily-distracted pre-teens. Then, we were split into teams with respect to whichever topic within the country we wanted to pursue more. My best friend and I chose to be the face of flamenco culture in Spain. We had to undergo rigorous (ha) rehearsals to learn the dances. However, that wasn’t all we did. We also had to have an activity for our audience (i.e. the rest of the school) to participate in. Naturally, we chose to have students make and perform with castanets. So, attired in our ruby red flamenco dresses (with jeans underneath in order to be school appropriate), my friend and I performed flamenco dances all day long. This was one of the most memorable experiences I had in school.
It is hard to pinpoint exactly what about this experience led to it becoming such a prominent and detailed memory; however, that program, which has now been discontinued at my school, was a huge development point in my school career. I still look back to things that we had learned in that class. From navigating the faux-stock market to learning palindromes, SPACE taught me how to think critically without engaging in Lewis Carroll level logic puzzles. Our experiences were mostly hands-on/interactive learning experiments, which is still how I comprehend materials and information best today.
Although not a positive moment, the most influential moment of my life in school was my fall semester, freshman year in college. I say it is not a positive moment because my grades were so poor. Believe it or not, having poor grades can actually be a good thing in the long run.
It is a common saying to ‘learn from your mistakes’. I did just that after I did poorly in several classes fall semester of my freshman year. Although it was not the best way, it made me realize I was not in high school anymore. I still had a mild case of ‘senioritis’. During my senior year in high school, once I was accepted to college, I basically sat around and did nothing. That was what all seniors in my class did. When I came to Berry, I was faced with enormous freedom which allowed me to continue this trend, big mistake. Staying up late, not going to class, and halfway studying reflected in my grades. I definitely learned from my mistakes and got it in gear for the second semester. I learned college is a lot harder than high school and, in order to succeed, I needed to play less and work more. I had to find an equal balance of school, play, and not to mention, work. Making those poor grades really showed me what I needed to do. It also gave me a goal to work towards, get my GPA above a 3.0. Being a goal oriented person, this really helped me. I have since been able to balance school, work, and play and bring my grades back to where I want them to be. This is influential for me because it is a good example of learning from a mistake and benefitting from it in the long run. Although not a positive experience when my parents saw the grades and took my car away, it turned out to be a good thing because it helped me in the long run.
When I remember elementary, middle and high school, I am overwhelmed with this feeling of competence, and of certainty of success. While I was a good student, and did spend a lot of time on my studies, what this feeling really emerged from was the huge amount of interest that my teachers showed in me– as an individual, a writer, an artist, a student of math, etc. I remember feeling as though many of my teachers personally invested themselves in my success, and knowing that I was believed in so strongly, as cliche as it sounds, propelled me on to accomplish all that I accomplished– academically and with extracurricular activities. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I had an art professor during my time at Berry who I felt had very little confidence in my abilities, perhaps because I had little formal training prior to his class. While this was reasonable, I have never felt so passionate about exceeding expectations in my life. I left his classroom after the first art critique literally saying to myself “I’ll show him,” and proceeded to spend an enormous amount of time and energy on my paintings for the rest of the semester. The point of these opposing examples is that both teachers had an opinion of me that inspired me to succeed– the first teachers motivating me with the desire to be everything they believed I could be, and the latter professor motivating me with the desire to prove myself more capable than he believed me to be. What I learned from recognizing the importance of these scenarios in my life is that I simply can’t stand apathy. I realize that teachers/professors have an extraordinary turnover rate of students, and that becoming fully involved with each one would be absurd, but where i am right now in my life I would rather be frowned upon, looked down upon or disliked (and of course liked or held in high regard) than to create no impression upon someone. Apathy, to me, is the worst possible result that your existence can create. And I find that it is the biggest killer of motivation in an educational setting, especially if the educator is (even worse) apathetic about their job and the information being taught as well as the students they come in contact with.
I think one of the most memorable things from my grade school years was when I took a creative writing class in High School. The class was completely different from anything I had ever done before, because the writing deviated from the classic “intro, three paragraphs, closing paragraph” design of papers that my high school pushed so hard. The class also was one of the first where I really enjoyed what I was doing- the only limitations our teacher gave us on assignments was genres (horror, mystery, etc.), so I felt that everything I was doing was 100% me. Not only that, but the writing broke me from that classic writing style that I had been learning all my life, and it made it much easier to move from High School to College writing to me. Its the only work from High School that I kept, and I still get out the stories I wrote sometimes and read them, and still feel proud of myself for the writing I did.