Week 8 discussion summary

We started the week off with three questions from LaKrisha:

1.       Compare banking education with the K-12 systems you have knowledge of.  Do you feel this form of education is of benefit to the student in early education?  Does it hinder the student in higher education?         

                                                                                                                            

2.       As adult educators, briefly describe how you propose we move adult students from the oppressive mentality of learning to being independent intellectuals.

3.       At what point does the oppressor become the teacher-student?  Is this a realization encouraged by the oppressed?

I answered the first question talking about how I saw banking education as beneficial in certain situation, like teaching introductory courses or laying a foundation of facts for future use. I also relayed some of my experiences from college and how teachers and professors need to understand their students and adjust their teaching styles.

Claire then discussed her own experience teaching in middle school and how she saw baking education in practice. She relayed how different classes influenced how much banking education occurred. For example, when she taught social studies she had 40 students in a room that was too small so it lead to more lecture/worksheet assignments. However, when she taught journalism the projects had very long deadlines so it gave her the opportunity to get more creative with the learning. She said that teaching this way gave her the opportunity to come up with some of her coolest ideas. It was obvious from reading her post that she enjoyed the creativity of the journalism class over the structured lecture base of the social studies class.

LaKrisha then followed up our post by asking us more questions and we discussed more about how teachers should determine what type of style to use. Whether it should be age/grade based or determined by the individuals in the classroom.

For question 2 we talked a lot about overcoming an oppressive education mentality and getting students more involved in their own education. We all agreed that different learning styles are important regardless of class size. Claire talked about how she has had a class of only 7 and still has seen all four different learning styles represented. We also talked about getting both professors and students out of their comfort zones and encouraging them to try different tactics for learning information. Personal experiences regarding classes and things we have tried to break up the routine of classes were again offered to bring more substance to the discussion.

Question 3 became a summary of the topic of sorts for the other two discussions. We again talked about how to break the oppressive education system and how difficult this can be because schools are inherently setup in such a manner. We all agreed that the democratic approach is an effective way, and LaKrisha summed up the discussion with a quote from Sir Ken Robinson who state “We get educated out of our creativity.”

Our group is definitely coming together and getting much more comfortable at completeing discussions. Each member is bringing valuable personal experience and good insights to foster healthy and creative discussions based on the readings.