Category: Essays

In thinking about this final essay, I thought it would be best to respond to the prompts in the form of letter to myself as a learner in the past, a learner in the present, and a learner in the future. Through these letters (or rather journal entries), I will reflect on my own experiences while also drawing on course materials. In each letter I will explore my definition of an empowered learner and what about those definitions make me feel empowered. These 3 letters directly and indirectly use texts from the course in forms of direct quotes or mapping concepts onto my own thinking.

 

Dear Past Learner,

What was the most important thing to you in school as a learner and what made you feel empowered as a learner? For me, the most important thing was demonstrating my learning through grades. I spent a lot of time living up to my reputation of being smart and did that through maintaining my GPA. For me, this was empowering. I was very much drawn to the feeling I would get when I would see my report card and a GPA over a 4.0 because I was taking all Honors and AP classes. I would be proud of what I had accomplished in my grades and although I didn’t brag about my achievements, internally I would always be jumping for joy. I would be excited to see my hard work pay off in the form of grades. I was also drawn to the admiration from my peers and teachers for being able to manage all of my schoolwork while simultaneously being an active leader in extracurricular clubs. I was also satisfied by hearing my teachers talk about their teaching and being glad that they were able to see students excel in their classes. I think this was important to me because it seemed like my teachers felt like they were facilitating student learning and I felt like I was actually learning something. To this day I can still remember concepts from AP Biology, which was one of my favorite classes. I was always excited to go to school and as a student, I felt like I was accomplishing my goals. I think that accomplishing goals, those set by myself and those set by others, is an integral part to me feeling empowered in traditional learning spaces.

What was the goal of learning? At a young age I committed myself to being a lifelong learner. For me learning wasn’t a simple process with a distinct end. I always wanted to be actively expanding my mind and my knowledge base. At this point in time, a lifelong learner meant someone who was always learning, with learning taking place in academic settings. I have always wanted to go beyond just getting a Bachelor’s degree – I wanted to get a PhD. I felt empowered by knowing that there were steps that I could keep climbing and honors that I could keep receiving just for learning in school. I think I’ve just generally had a desire for knowing more and it seemed like I only had access to knowing more when I was in school.

 

Dear Present Learner,

My definition of a learner, let alone an empowered learner has changed so much since high school. Instead of being driven by grades, I have focused my attention and energy to things that are happening outside of the classroom. The significance of grades in my life has been simplified to, “Did I pass? Okay good.” In reflecting on my time at Bryn Mawr, I realized that the learning that I have done has not occurred in the classroom. I think this for two reasons, one being that I have spent more energy on being black first than being a students first (and that’s okay/natural) and two being that I no longer understand what I’m supposed to get out of my classes (especially when a lot of those classes are fillers for meeting the number of credits I need to graduate). It was difficult transitioning from being a straight A, overachieving high schooler to and average achieving, not-so-motivated college student. In high school I understood the game – I knew how to study for the tests, I knew how to write to impress my teachers, and I’m sure I actually understood the material that was presented to me – however in college, I understood the game, but I no longer felt like playing. The emphasis and external pressures placed on learning in the classroom were no longer of value to me. The learning I did outside the classroom felt more tangible and transferable to life outside of the bubble of Bryn Mawr.

When I reflect on the learning that I did outside of the classroom, I think that I switched from a damage-centered approach to a more desire-based approach. As a first year, my initial experiences with the college were centered around Perry House or rather the absence of Perry House. I spent a lot of time talking to students of shared racial and cultural backgrounds about all of the things that we didn’t have on this campus, the spaces where we felt disempowered, and the feeling of not belonging in the community at large. I learned a lot in these spaces. I learned how to advocate for myself and my peers, how to effectively build relationships with both peers and administrators, as well as about my ability to lead and facilitate important conversations. However, this learning came from a place of damage. Most of my inquiries revolved around what I didn’t have access to or where I could see my peers being at a disadvantage. While I admired folks for their bravery and their tenacity, I oftentimes still focused on the things that led them to having to be brave and tenacious rather than the people and their attributes themselves. When I look to how I approach the opportunities for learning in these spaces now, I think my focus is more desire-based. I think this approach came on naturally as I started to interact with more alumnae/i. In hearing from alums as far back as class of ‘68 and as recent as class of 2014, I began to see my experiences as well as theirs as more than the damage caused by the college. Instead my inquiries shifted to what they are doing now (as graduates of the college), their advice on healing, and asking for their oral histories. In this approach I learned about hope and community encouragement.

What is an empowered learner now? For me in this moment, and empowered learner is one who finds learning anywhere. I think this in moving beyond the classroom and getting to learn more about myself, my histories, and my present, I have become a learner who seeks to know more about the self and myself as I relate to the world. I also think that being an empowered learner is tied to vulnerability. I think having choice in how vulnerable I am as a learner is also critical to my idea of what an empowered learner is. For example in writing this letter, I speak from first person, similarly to what Tuck and Ree define as a composite narrator or combined I. In other ways, I use my vulnerability to challenge, complicate, or unlearn things that I once knew. I find this to be important to my idea of being an empowered learner because throughout my time at Bryn Mawr, there have been times and spaces where my vulnerability is forced (forced meaning I was put into a situation like the confederate flag hanging, or my vulnerability was unexpected)  by an external pressure and thus leads me down a path of burnout rather than a path of learning. So when I think about myself as an empowered learner now, I think of someone who isn’t confined by the classroom and external approval of achievement.

 

Dear Future Learner,

At this point in time you may be working in a college setting on the side of student life. How do you hope to continue to be an empowered learner as well as provide spaces for other people to be empowered learners? Where does learning fit into your work? I think that learning is important to your work especially given your experiences in college. Whether you end up in residential life, student life, or academic advising, it is important to remember that each person you interact with has come to this place (this place being the college/university) for a different reason and will engage with it in different ways. It is also important for you to remember that while you may have some shared experiences with folks that you cannot let your experience dictate someone else’s. In other words, you should always be allowing and creating space for people to self-author their own experience. I think this is essential in creating space for people to be empowered learners or supporting folks who identify themselves as empowered learners. In creating or providing that space I think it is important for you to consider two things that are related to your own experience: 1. The spaces that you create or provide will not be the only spaces in which people will learn or feel like they can learn and 2. People may enter this space vulnerable or they may enter the space with a security lock on their person. Your job is learning how to let both (or multiple) of these start point coexist and be accepted and welcomed into spaces that you hope to create.

You also have the duty of pressing. As Crawley had said, “Yet, I must press. My colleagues must press. We all press. We cannot be comfortable. We have to figure out ways to inhabit these spaces while pressing for justice.”  Pressing is more than existing but rather a continuous push towards something. Working  in higher education, an area that is built on and capitalizes off of marginalized and oppressed peoples, can be complicated and conflicting but you have a duty to continue to do the work that you started in college. You also have the duty of holding yourself and your peers accountable. In doing so, you will help sustain the learning spaces that you hope to create and do so in a way that’s reflective of both the damage and the desire.

When thinking back to your learning in the past (past, present) it is important to keep the idea of being a lifelong learner in mind. You have responsibility to yourself to continue finding the places that you thrive in while learning and use those to continue the expansion of yourself into a fuller understanding of yourself. In being an empowered learner, you must continue to challenge yourself and complicate your ideas and continuing to be vulnerable with yourself as well as other people.

Oftentimes in education courses, I find myself growing increasingly frustrated with the pedagogical strategies and educational tools that we discuss. The primary reason for my frustration is that I always find it difficult to map these seemingly ideal techniques onto a classroom in my hometown (Cleveland). The schools in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District are typically urban, public schools with overcrowded classrooms, out-of-date, textbooks, low teacher retention, and poor funding. Thus coming to the Mainline was a major culture shock for me, especially as I looked at the elementary and middle schools that are near Bryn Mawr. The ways in which we talk about education don’t always seem to be grounded in my “real world.” In its design, the field placements would help aid in grounding our classroom discussions in practical and tangible school settings. However only one of the three placements (including this one) that I have been in has been similar to schools back home. So I still find it difficult to apply this knowledge in a different context. These observations from my past experiences in education courses and field placements leaves me with a lot of questions. The overarching question is: What does holistic education look like in different contexts? Can the systems/structures in which different schools exist support a holistic model for education? In thinking about these questions I hope to address my frustrations as well as check the assumptions that I have going into my placement at Thorne Preschool. For this essay I plan to primarily discuss the reading about expulsion in preschool and how the ideas and cases from that article map onto Thorne as well as my other school experiences.

In thinking more about my placement at Thorne, I’m hoping to answer the questions I presented above as well as check any assumptions that I have about the school. Some of the assumptions that I have are related to the demographics of the students.  The school is described as a self-structured environment that has play rooms and art rooms where children have the ability to make their own choices. There is a traditional preschool program as well as a language enrichment program.  Based on the information I saw on the website, it seems as though the majority of students are white, middle to upper-middle class. I also think that a good number of the students are “typically developing” although the school website does say that, “children with special needs can be considered for admission if their needs can be met in the regular classroom.” [insert more]

I was immediately drawn to the reading, “Empathy not Expulsion” because I could not wrap my mind around three and four year old children getting expelled from preschool. In the case that was described a young boy, Danny, was exposed to abuse in the home which resulted in some behavioral issues in preschool. The teacher in this case was afraid that Danny was a danger to the classroom and instead of learning more about this child and his history, she had started to make the decision to remove him from the program. Walter Gilliam who was interviewed for this article said that, “expulsion is not a child behavior, it’s an adult decision.” This statement leads me to thinking about how a holistic view of education, especially at a young age, requires extensive and thoughtful work by the teacher. If Danny had of been viewed as a whole child, with a family and home life, a myriad of e [insert more] I find myself questioning if this type of expulsion would happen at Thorne Preschool. [insert more]

Credit/No Credit Course

Credit/No Credit? Grades? Assessment? In thinking about whether or not this course should be offered as Credit/No credit, I hope to open a conversation about how learning is assessed. I plan to talk broadly about my own experiences with learning and my changing views on grading as well as talk specifically about how the learning goals for this course don’t necessarily map onto a grading system. I also want to acknowledge that there are as many complexities in offering a class as credit/no credit as there are in offering the class as gradeless, or assigning numerical grades. I’m not necessarily arguing that grades should not be apart of a classroom but rather urging us (as a community) to think about learning as an experience that is unique to the individual and only truly measurable by the person who is doing the learning.

For me, the discussion of grades leaves me with many questions about what does it mean to learn and how do we assess it. Is it measured in grades? What does pass/fail mean? What is passing? Would each assignment be pass/fail? Does simply doing an assignment mean that you’ve passed because you experienced the assignment? What does it take to not receive credit? I think that these questions highlight some of the complexities of grading but I also think these questions highlight just how arbitrary grading is. What’s the difference between a 2.7 and a 3.0? According to Bryn Mawr’s website (https://www.brynmawr.edu/node/4074), a 2.7 is a B- or “Good -” and a 3.0 is a B or “Good” If a professor is assigning a grade to a student that is “below merit” that faculty member must be able to provide information about class attendance, performance on exams, communication between the student and professor, failure to turn in assignments, and quality of written work. While these seem to me to be fair measures of student work in the class, there doesn’t seem to be room for the student to explain their work in the class or how they believe they should have been assessed. This leads me to wondering where’s the student’s agency in grading and assessment?

I think that this question of the student’s agency in grading and assessment still looms even when the criteria for assessment are co-constructed with input from students and the professor. The criteria can be seemingly clear regarding the difference between a 3.0 and a 4.0 and there is shared power in determining those base level differences. However, when it comes time to grade the project, a professor may be the sole person interpreting the co-constructed criteria and thus assigning the grade. In my experiences at Bryn Mawr, it seems that when grading criteria are co-constructed, that it may be for one project and not necessarily a process that happens for each individual assignment in the class. Oftentimes, students are encouraged to take charge of their learning, however the part of their learning that gets reflected in documents, such as a transcript, are not determined by or in the control of the student. The professor has their own discretion as to how to grade and interpret grading criteria. Again this leaves me questioning to what extent do students have agency concerning grading.

 

Specifically for this course:

From my understanding (generally over the course of my academic career), learning goals are assessed throughout a course in various formats including papers and exams and specifically for this course essays, postcards, class discussions, and field notes. Below I have copied the learning goals from this course. After each learning goal, I will discuss ways in which I see these learning goals being evaluated. I also plan to draw on some course readings to help analyze the goals and how these goals are assessed. I hope to be able to address the critique that I posed in the beginning of the paper about whether or not  the learning goals for this course map onto a numerical grading system.

 

• To recognize and draw on individual and community funds of knowledge, strengths, assets, and aspirations as resources for learning and thriving
  • One thing that comes to mind with this learning goal is a quote from the Grace Boda talk that is, “…but we need people at all development levels to make humanity whole.” My understanding of this quote relates to this learning goal in the sense that there is an appreciation for the difference in histories, knowledges, and experience that individuals or groups may bring to the class and that each of these is needed in order to make the class whole. I think the way in which this learning goal is assessed or accomplished is through class discussions. Whether we are in small groups, pairs, or large groups, there is typically opportunity for students to draw on their “funds of knowledge” however this portion of the classi isn’t necessarily graded. While attendance is required and multiple absences can affect a student’s grade in this course, the discussion component that highlights this learning objective (in my opinion) is not apart of our formal grade. In that case, a numeric grading system can be mapped onto this learning goal if attendance is the outcome, however if attendance is not the assessment measure, then this learning goals isn’t necessarily assessed. Could this be a pass/fail item? Would it be based on a student’s participation (or choice not the participate)?  (Note: I want to be clear in saying that I don’t think each learning goal needs to be assessed, but I did want to discuss the ways in which I see these learning goals being approached and connected to the overall experience/evaluation of this class)

 

• To gain a critical vocabulary for defining, analyzing, using, and assessing a range of holistic teaching tools inside and outside of classrooms (including uses of breath, art, and movement)
  • In thinking about this learning goal, I am drawn to a quote out of the Stages of Adult Development reading that says, “The same objective experience and the same conversational content will be understood and expressed differently and predictably depending on the complexity of the meaning making.” For me, this quote reflects the fact that as a class we may all sit and be apart of the same discussion and reading the same texts, however what people take away and choose to focus on is different. I also think that this quote highlights that the way that people express what they’ve taken in is different and thus needing to be assessed differently.
  •  I think that this learning goal is assessed through field notes and the analytic reflective essays. In both of these assessments, we are connecting language and techniques that we discuss in class to our field sites, course readings, and experiences. The criteria for both of these kinds of assignments have some guidelines, but how they are graded (and in the case of field notes, if they are graded) seems to be unclear. In thinking back to the reflections that we have done for this course, there seems to be consistency in students asking for clearer guidelines for these assessments. In thinking about the quote I mentioned above, I think that differential assessments based on students meaning making of the materials is necessary, however that becomes a lot of work for one professor. If these assessments were graded credit/no credit I think there would still be confusion about the criteria for grading. However I think the important takeaway is that each student presents their learning differently.

 

• To gain the capacity to understand and to practice being a healing presence, and to create conditions for self-empowerment for yourself and other learners in a field setting and in our class

 

• To clarify your own values about the significance of holistic approaches to educating with empowerment in mind
  • I think that this learning goal is assessed largely through the final essay. However what I think is important to notice in this learning goal is that it’s focused on the student clarifying their own values. With this goal being focused on the student, it doesn’t seem to me that there should be or would be an assessment attached to this learning goal that would be graded by someone other than the person writing it.

Conclusions

I think that one of the tensions that comes up for me is the fact that many of the learning goals (at least 3 out of the 4) are based on the student’s individual experience in the class, but the ways in which are grades are assembled, this learning is not necessarily reflected in the numerical grade. This leaves me wondering what our grade is based off of and if this grade is representative of the learning that has (or has not) happened throughout this course. If my assumptions are incorrect about one of the purposed of learning goals, then I’m curious as to how the assignments that we do connect to one another, the learning goals, and our grades in the course.

Finally I’m drawn to two quotes from the Grace Boda talk. The first is, “…at advanced stages of adult development we are able to self-author our experiences” and the second being, “what I like about how spacious the adult development framework is that it does not define normal.” In the first quote, I think that the idea of self-authoring our experiences can be extended to grades in a classroom. In this case, self-authoring my experience would be determining if I felt like I learned anything in the course. As a student, and even more so now as a senior, I am very aware of how I am processing and learning in a classroom and I don’t always find it necessary to display that learning through writing or other mediums that allow for professor critique. In the second quote, I think that this idea of not defining a normal is important. I think that ultimately, grades impose a certain standard that all work is measured by, that’s not unique to each student, and inserts a normal for expectations of student performance.

I think that how we assess our own learning is unique to us. Maybe the tension of a grade lies between what a professor understands learning to look like and what the student understands their learning to look like. In this respect, I don’t think that it matters whether this course, or any course for that matter, be offered as credit/no credit but rather the focus should be on the agency of the student to engage from co-creation of assessments all the way through to the grading process. I also think that in collaborating through the entire process, the arbitrary methods for grading (that are often left up to the professor to decide) become a shared responsibility between the instructor for a course and each individual student.