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Adam Griffin – Weekly Writing & Blogs

Author: Adam Griffin

9:00 AM

Response to Isabella Bedore

12/5/19

Sam, Isabella and Adam

How did the course content of WRT 120 change or not change our point of view of higher education?

Freire and Percy have solidified in my mind that you cant learn in a traditional classroom setting. We discussed that the course did change all of our points of view on higher education. After doing peer reviews and reading different essays, it all made us feel more connected. It made us realize that a lot of our ideas and morals are similar to each other. For example, we all talked about similar ways students can learn outside the classroom. This discussion made us think more about having student connections and how they are beneficial to us. Discussion groups were a major part of this because they helped us meet new people also see anew point of view on different ideas.

Project 2 Topic Proposal

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uPp1hdq0gLUIcOKavUF8CGnDUAWy9B8FaiNRqFbVzqk/edit?usp=sharing

Adam Griffin

Topic Proposal

Learning outside the classroom. Although it’s a cliche to say that what goes on outside the classroom is as important as what goes on inside each class, do the math. Each 3-credit class you take involves 37.5 hours of class-time across 15 weeks, or about 2.5 hours a week. For a full load of 5 classes, that’s only 12.5-14 hours of class time a week, far short of what should be expected in a work situation (40 hours) or what you did last year in high school (30 hours). How should students at WCU, and the institution itself, leverage that time for transformative learning?  Identify the problem and then use the work of Percy (and Freire if desired) to assert (at least) four ways in which learning beyond the classroom supports, or could support, something at the core of the student experience at WCU. Your ideas must be supported by four critical ideas from the work of Percy.

Team: Just me

Topic: 2 “Learning outside the classroom”

Thesis: The transition from high school to college affects many students, one main thing that affects students the most is the amount of outside of classwork needs to do. In highschool students spend on average 30 hours in school. In that period students would talk to peers about assignments and socialize in school as well as keeping up with their education. Compared to college where students only spend 12.5 – 14 hours of class time in a week, they need to spend more time outside of the classroom. At West Chester University students can learn outside the classroom by discussion groups, tutoring, and internships/studying abroad.

Discussion Groups: Discussion groups help students learn outside the classroom by socializing and bouncing ideas off of each other. Students can work together to open the package of education that they have been banked from the professor.

Tutoring: Seeking a tutor can help students in many ways. Students can ask questions that they did not present to the teacher during class time. Tutoring can also help clear up confusion of notes because the tutor can present it to you in a different way that the student might understand better.

Quote 1: “Does this mean that we should get rid of museums? No, but it means that the sightseer should be prepared to enter into a struggle to recover a sight from a museum” (Percy 6).

Quote 2: “In this process, arguments based on “authority” are no longer valid; in order to function, the authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it. Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other, mediated by the world, by the cognizable objects which in banking education are “owned” by the teacher.”(Freire 4)

Quote 3: “It is only the rarest student who knows that the sonnet must be salvaged from the package”(Percy 4)

Response to Amanda

Discussion Participants: Amanda, Mia, Laura, Isabella, and Adam

In the group discussion, we talked about the negative impact of social media on the daily lives of people. We discussed how, instead of enjoying the moment people start recording the moment and drift away from the actual experience. We also talked about how social media distorts reality. For example, Instagram shows people living a happy and perfect life but behind the curtain, they could be sad and depressed. Therefore, we concluded that social media takes the happiness out of people and puts pressure on the people to display a perfect life. We also talked about how ironic social media is because the purpose of social media is to socialize but people rather get distracted by social media and don’t actually socialize in real life. At last, we talked about how all of these problems can affect a person’s mood and attitude. I think the use of social media should be minimized and more focused on the fact to socialize and not to judge other people.

Writing Draft

Student Power
Have you ever felt oppressed by a teacher or a professor? Freire conveys a message to students to use their power while maximizing it and as well as presenting new ideas to teachers and other students. West Chester students can use their powers in many different ways. One main component of student power is that for a movement to be successful, the student will need each other, therefore, with the power of many students the results are inevitable. One thing every student can agree on is that teachers are sometimes very wrong in what they say. There have been some experiences on campus that the teacher gives students tests that have nothing to do with the past lesson plan. In Paul Freire’s, “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” he clearly points that in all circumstance’s teachers are like oppressors and students are the ones oppressed. At West Chester University students can use their power by boycotting professors by boycotting to take the test.
In Freire, his goal is for students to understand their power and how to use it effectively. In, The Banking Concept of Education, the author, Paul Freire denotes, “Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings, and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world.” (pg. 4) So if all the students stopped going to class all at once, the attention would turn on the faculty. Instead of it being the student’s fault of not showing up to class, the school would investigate the class itself. Therefore, this supports the notion of Paul Freire that students working together to use their power can greatly impact the situation. Essentially with common goals, students can use their power to stand up for unfair tests.
Another way students can show their power is by boycotting certain places on the campus. For example, students can boycott Lawrence dining hall for having food that is bad for you. Freire describes that students are the core of the institution and that they keep the institution running. Freire states that “To resolve the teacher-student contradiction, to exchange the role of depositor, prescriber, domesticator, for the role of student among students would be to undermine the power of oppression and serve the cause of liberation.” (pg. 2). Students usually undermine their power because they are constantly being oppressed but with the help of other students. Students can recognize their strengths and therefore standup for unfair testing.
Enclosure every student needs to recognize their power and how to maximize it effectively. Therefore, in different ways, students can have themselves heard and their problems solved. Some might say the teachers are still more powerful because they are the ones who teach and have a direct connection with the institution but in fact, students are the ones who are essential for the teachers and institutions because they indirectly need them. Freire analytically describes education by describing teachers as oppressors. So basically he states that if students are able to recognize their strength then their voice will be heard.

Writing Project Proposal

 Team Members: Adam Griffin

Topic: Student power. It’s easy to see the role of the teacher as an oppressor in Freire’s analysis of education and to recognize the ways in which teachers must change those oppressive behaviors. But Freire argues fairly directly that teachers can’t produce student learning or student freedom. On page 6, Freire says “people subjected to domination must fight for their emancipation,” suggesting that progress–where it occurs–is going to result from student power, not professors changing their actions. Use your understanding of Freire’s ideas to analyze the role of student power at WCU, identifying and proposing ways in which students can achieve their own emancipation.

Thesis (working): In Paul Freire’s, “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” he clearly points that in all circumstance’s teachers are like oppressors and students are the ones oppressed. In society, there’s a common misconception that teachers are responsible for a student’s success in a classroom. At West Chester University students can learn from each other through connection their knowledge with reality and learning from themselves by not directly teaching themselves.

Quotes:

“In this process, arguments based on “authority” are no longer valid; in order to function, the authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it. Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other, mediated by the world, by the cognizable objects which in banking education are “owned” by the teacher.” Page 4 pr 4

“Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings, and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world. They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world.” Page 4

“Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information. It is a learning situation in which the cognizable object (far from being the end of the cognitive act) intermediates the cognitive actors—teacher on the one hand and students on the other.” (P.4)

Response to Nick

Group Participants: Kyle, Mimi, Abbey, TJ, Adam,

In our group discussion, we talked about student power in which students and teachers can benefit from each other. We discussed how we could educate each other by sharing past experiences and ideas. Students usually do this by talking to past students and getting advice about which courses to enroll in. Another topic we talked about was current events, we discussed how students and teachers can tell each other about current events happening in the world. This conversation led us to discussing how a traditional classroom setting is more beneficial to students than a lecture. We said a traditional setting provides for more deep communication and new viewpoints through communication. One last thing we talked about was how younger students can help teachers with new technology.

Response to Isabella Bedore

Group Discussion: Gabe, Jenna, Lauren, Luke, Sam, Michael, Bella, TJ, Emily, Branden

            In our discussion, we talked about how space impacts our education. In this case, we talked about how small spaces are better for a one on one connection rather than large spaces. For example, a traditional setting of a classroom is better than lectures halls because lecture halls are too distracting and everything that is taught is assumed to be applied to everyone. Therefore, students get off track and different ideas and different opinions distinct from the discussion start showing up. We also talked about how West Chester University is set up in which the academic buildings are dorm separated. We came to the conclusion that Dorms and Academic buildings are separated because learning and your comfort zone should have a distinct line. This also connects to the fact that for many students it is easier to study in a dorm lounge or a library. Some cons that were brought up in the discussion were that Students are still studying in their dorms rather than academic buildings or library because they are too far from the dorms. At last, we discussed generational space between teacher age and student age which creates a conflict in reality.

Response to Mackenzie Neiderer

Discussion Participants: Isabella Bedore, Mackenzie Neiderer, Adam Griffin, Jenna Schreiber, Josh Rogers, Luke Jarvis, Emily Foley 

In our group discussion, we focused on the fact that school is solely based on memorization instead of learning how to use the information for reality. School ‘s care about their reputation and want their students to have good grades for a push for more funding for example, schools want their rankings to look good for standardized tests. This domino affects its way down to the teachers because they care about their outlook as a teacher essentially just showering the students with information with no context of how to apply that information. We also discussed how high school has become a competition for memorization in which teachers want you to become a better student rather than a learner. For example, in AP classes you can get an A in the course but when it comes to the AP test many students bomb the test. This further supports the notion that teachers teach how to be a better student rather than a student who actually uses and learns from the knowledge the teachers provide. The difference between a student and a learner is that a student studies to do good on a test in comparison to a learner who studies to get a better understanding and knowledge. At the end of the discussion, we talked about how the teacher is not to blame for this since they were taught like this. 

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