https://docs.google.com/document/d/17eDXSViJqy-IvysGGLNvkM_Zmcvm6SrVQyvCBr1qwI0/edit
Amanda Jiang & Leah Schreffler
Dr. Randall Cream
Writing 120
3 November 2019
Good quality teaching involves interaction and socialization between students. A good professor takes time to understand the student’s background and needs. The teacher builds a relationship with the student. In Walker Percy’s “The Loss of the Creature” and Paulo Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education”, they address the current issue that is affecting the education system. Freire explains the problem of the banking concept of education. This means that teachers feed information to students and they absorb it like robots. This way of education does not teach students. Percy talks about educational content as a “package” and explains how students do not gain or learn anything by this way of teaching. West Chester University has adapted these ways of teaching. Both authors talk about how students do not learn from the teacher, they learn from each other. Creating a learning environment where students are not taught by the teacher allows for a different way of learning. One class that West Chester offers is HEA 110 Transcultural health, a class that teachers teach students as passive objects. This class is a prime example of how a class should not be taught according to Percy’s and Freire’s ideas. We believe good teaching can happen at West Chester through trial and error, observation, and students teaching students.
A popular saying that many are familiar with is you learn from your mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable but after multiple mistakes, you will eventually find your solution. This is called trial and error. Trial and error creates new pathways of learning for students. The trial is observation of different methods to find a solution. If it does not then a new method is to be tested until a solution is reached. Trial and error is used in problem solving. In HEA 110, trial and error can be used when the teacher assigns research topics on cultural differences. Making students work in groups to identify each culture group problems and their differences in each culture. This is a new way of learning that will benefit the students.
One way to implement good teaching at WCU would be for teachers to ask students to teach themselves through observation. Activities, where students observe information outside of the classroom, allows for comprehension and an advanced way of learning instead of being fed information. By doing observation activities, students are open to new creativity and opportunities that are provided. A quote from Percy states, “…that they have in common the stratagem of avoiding the educator’s direct presentation of the object as a lesson to be learned and restoring access to sonnet and dogfish as beings to be known, reasserting the sovereignty of knower over known” (Percy 5). Percy explains that the only way a student can learn is by avoiding the teacher’s way of teaching. When students are assigned readings or video assignments, they do not learn as much compared to going somewhere and observing. Students only focused on watching videos and answering given questions rather than understanding the true concepts. Learning outside the four walls of the classroom can significantly improve a student’s academic and developing environmental awareness. By assigning observation assignments beyond the classroom allows students to think outside of the box. This allows students to take the chance to explore and expand their critical thinking. Students can not learn from the teacher and have to discover other ways of learning.
A new way of changing the way students learn is by having the teacher creates activities that will make students teach students the information. College is all about training students to be future leaders and for this to happen, students have to recognize that they have a voice and an opinion. Speaking for yourself is a hard thing to do and learn. Having interaction in the classroom and in the criteria of the course will allow students to learn to become involved in the class. Students take information from other students and begin to understand different views of things. Seeing the bigger picture of the outside world creates an opportunity for students to seek the moment, creating a new way of learning. “No, but it means that the student should know what a fight he has on his hands to rescue the specimen from the educational package. The educator is only partly to blame. For there is nothing the educator can do to provide for this need of the student. Everything the educator does only succeeds in becoming, for the student, part of the educational package” (Percy 5). Percy is saying that the students have to create their own ways of learning because the teacher is not there to provide the students what they need. Students teaching students is not the traditional way of learning. The problem with traditional teaching was that teachers feeding students the information and they absorb it. Having students teach other students allows for a better connection because there is no higher authority over the students. They are all equal to each other and because of this equality, they will listen to each other. Having this change helps students to focus and begin to learn a different way.
