University: Goals and Purposes (9.13.2005)

In elementary school, I loved to bounce on the air-pogo stick that dangled on a branch in my front yard. My best friend, Elissa, and I would sit out there for hours discussing the most random aspects of our young lives. One day, I brought up a question that I, as an elementary school student, found quite interesting. Red, blue, green and yellow polka dots decorated the air pogo stick. I remember asking her if the polka dot that I saw as blue was the same color that she called blue. Or, was her version of blue what I call green? The same idea can be applied to language because of the possibility that when one uses a word “ ‘it means just what [one] choose[s] it to mean-neither more nor less” (333). For me, this relativity and uncertainty is the most mind-boggling aspect of education.

If everything really is relative, are we as college students just in a mass of chaos, “in a situation where no one knows the answers” (336)? How do our professors, even as experts in fields, really know the truth? Is our education really going to provide us with a foundation? We’re engaged in this construction process, similar to the physical construction around campus, a process of structuring our knowledge, our beliefs and essentially ourselves. But in a subjective world, what does it take for that construction to come tumbling down when one nail or board of knowledge is found to be untrue? In essence, the biggest challenge of being a college student is learning to develop ourselves independent of the knowledge we are taught.

Just as we each have different interpretations of phrases and emotions, I’m sure our responses to the above questions are quite different. Through this reading, I think I have developed my personal response. As freshmen, we are trying to find an identity, an identity that we can support even when all knowledge is possibly subjective and untrue. I think this is the biggest reason that Amherst’s discovery learning based English class is amazing. In writing, the students are asked to “find something in [their] own past experience to talk about” (336). The past is concrete. Something that I experienced five years ago is a part of me that cannot be taken away with the subjectivity of knowledge. Similarly, my economics, government and calculus classes are based on knowledge that I am taught, while my world literature class is based on communication. No matter how untrue “facts” are ever found to be, communication and our past experiences that we use to interpret literature will remain. Experiencing things makes them more of a part of us than just being taught them. By knowledge becoming a part of one’s experience, “you will do your own learning” (336). We learn through discovery learning that “knowledge can be constructed by you rather than received by a higher authority” in “a process, not a set of facts” (332). This is why education must be an end in itself. It is through this type of education that “the whole to ever separate portion, till that whole becomes in imagination like a spirit, every where pervading and penetrating its component parts, and giving them one definite meaning”, giving our education and lives a meaning independent of facts (310).

In essence, to answer “I am a college student” means to answer that I am a builder, a constructer, engaging in a possibly impossible quest to find some solid or certain ground on which to build myself.

My Discussion Board Responses

May Flam

Since there’s only so much each of us can say in our entry, it’s great reading other people’s entries. At points, I feel like we’re on the same page in our responses, and at points, we might not be.

I think your discussion of the idea the “education is humility” throughout your entry is interesting and ties into the strengths and weaknesses of UT (298). While you as a non-honors freshman felt a sense of community at UT, I completely agree with your later recognition that “the university does not do enough to cultivate most undergraduates self-discovery, mostly focusing on its graduate and honors students”. Maybe the root of this lies in students views of “education as humility” (298). As Plan II students, I’m sure most of us would agree with the statement. We take difficult classes with the knowledge that we are not perfect and we will not always complete perfect work. If, however, someone did not feel that “education is humility” and instead took a different approach to education, their experience at UT would be completely different from ours in a self-directed way. Is it maybe because the honors and graduate students seek out classes that will “humiliate” them that they feel more of a challenge and sense of self-discovery than students who seek out less demanding or less humbling classes?

Thomas Lopez

Your entry basically summarizes how I felt upon arriving to UT. I wasn’t sure how much of a sense of community I would find, and I felt even worst for the people in huge programs. When I began thinking about it, though, I realized that a sense of community is achieveable almost anywhere. At Gone to Texas, the phrase “get involved” was repeated more times than I know. I believe that it doesn’t take a small honors program to feel involved at UT. Instead, it takes a active effort. As Plan II students, we were proactive by applying to a small program within a large school. Even for those who might not have been able to gain admissions to Plan II or another honors program, a proactive effort can still be made in other areas, such as spirit groups, athletics or other extracurricular activities. Essentially, that’s all Plan II is: a bunch of smaller groups- world literature class, Plan II Student Association, the honors dorms. I wholeheartedly believe it is possible for all students to feel like UT is their “alma mater” regardless of the diverse programs they might be involved in.

I’ve also thought a lot about the discovery learning process and it’s impact on higher education. Is it feasible for all students? I’m still not sure. On the one hand, it could be considered more work. But is it really more work? In my economics and government classes, which definitely aren’t based on discover learning, I still experience lots of reading and comprehension. I think the difference lies in the types of assignments. Whereas classes based on discovery learning ask questions and force the students to find the answers, students in classes not based on discovery learning will still read the same material, they just won’t full experience the knowledge. If experiencing the knowledge really does make a student remember it, then as classes build upon each other, would discovery learning would make the process easier since students won’t have as much of a tendency to have to re-read information?