At first when I was reading ‘Thocmetony’ I started to wonder how her story related the book it came from How Lincoln Learned How to Read. As I saw in class the other day, a person’s an education comes in many different forms. Before this discussion I had not thought of many different forms that an education can come in, but considered them experiences that influenced how people lived.
What is an education for me? To me education is not just sitting around in a classroom and being taught, it is exploring and understanding the world in which you live in. As I went through college and graduate school, part of my education was learning and practicing how to be a more social creature. Growing up I was teased a lot by other students and I took it really hard, so though most of my schooling (elementary through high school) I kept to myself and didn’t feel the need to go to social events at school. When I went to college and especially graduate school I made a huge effort to hang around other students and enter into different conversations that were going on around me. Another part of my education comes from traveling around the United States and other part of the world, attending Japanese language school, going to art museums. One experience that can define my education is six week trip my family took across the United States. The trip expanded my understanding of the history and vast landscape of the United States. This trip lead to the path I have taken in my life by being involved with history. My parents exposed me to many types of art and the exposure has lead to an appreciation of the different types of art that is out there.
I agree that an education comes from more than just a student's school; it also comes from the culture around them. You relate in your anecdote that since your school situation was difficult, you used the lessons learned outside of school (notably, it seems in your case, from your family) to acheive a sense of self-worth that was seperate from negative peer influence. I think that we as teachers should be able to recognize the cultural factors that are taught to our students that don't have as much to do with class lesson plans, and then incorporate these ideological aspects into our teaching methods and expectations.
ReplyDelete"exploring and understanding the world you live in"...children are constantly doing that. How we shape that exploration influences learning. It sounds like your explorations positively influenced yours. Wouldn't it be awesome if every student had the opportunity to see a different part of the world in their studies, or even travel the U.S. like you did?
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