Sunday 24 February 2013

My Skepticism

These first couple of weeks in the second semester we have been toying around with a sort of independent, yet group learning idea. From day one I was skeptical. Not skeptical because I thought it was a bad idea, but skeptical because it's not the norm. Skeptical because for the entirety of my life as a student I've been told what to do, leaving it as my decision whether i was going to do it, or not. Now all of a sudden, in my final year of high school, my teacher essentially says- "how would you feel about learning about what ever you want?".

I got to thinking about it, and now feel overwhelmed with the fact I cannot decide what I want to learn about! With all of these possibilities running through my head, i ask questions like; is that school appropriate? Do i really want to know that more than this? Being so close to graduation, I don't know if i have the motivation to come up with my own projects or assignments, let alone do them! 

If this idea would have been introduced before my last semester, I would have been all over it! I still think it's a great idea, and am for sure going to give it a try. If it shows signs of being something successful, maybe the education system has a place for this in the future! If not, we know the old monkey say, monkey do method works every now and again, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. 

Now for things I've actually learnt so far in this Comprehensive LA course. We have commit ourselves to using the internet and the resources it supplies us as an advantage. This whole blogging thing is new to me, ergo it is something i have learnt. We have also been casually reading poetry as a class, followed by a discussion. Something that has shown me is that an audience is made up of different minds, which means that when a poem is read, certain lines or even just a word, could be given a completely different meaning by each member of the audience. 

I guess that has been the past couple weeks as a COMP student for me. I'm excited to see where this will end up! 

3 comments:

  1. Owen,

    I love the voice and reflection in this post, Owen. You've discovered a key issue with our education system, and it is definitely an obstacle to overcome. It's just one more sign that you can learn your entire life, so even though you're approaching graduation, I hope you can't even imagine the end of your learning.

    I want to show this post to people (students and teachers) in my life. How do you feel about that?

    Thanks for using a label, but don't forget to use a title for your posts. I see you figured out the blog list gadget.

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  2. I just ran through it again and did a little bit of editing and gave it a proper title. I think it may be presentable now... If you're comfortable sharing it, so am I! Thanks for the support!

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  3. I like this learning log, and I agree with a lot of what you were saying. I'm nervous about starting a project, but then losing interest. But I think this idea sounds kind of cool and its our last year, so why not ? :)
    I also enjoy your writing style. It makes sense, and it flows like a regular conversation.
    Good Good!

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