Last night I attended the 8th annual Poehler lecture called, "Teaching the Children Well: One Educator's Perspective on Integrating Faith and Learning" by Carl J. Schoenbeck. The first thing he made sure to point out is that teaching does not always lead to learning, it is effective teaching. Effective teaching comes when the learner is addressed as a whole person, connecting the physical with the emotional, social intellectual and spiritual parts. It also is effective learning if faith is the core. The analogy he used for this is a rope, with the 6 different strands of learning and faith being the one in the middle which helps bend and use all the others. Ways of gaging effective teaching is if there is a passion for learning, or if the learner felt that the teacher believes in them. I have found that passion is the largest indicator of learning, and that happens when there are connections, applications, and questions in the learning process. The main connections are made to the whole person and to all the other disciplines, with no hierarchy. Application comes when learning and life are connected. This truly does increase understanding. Another way is to question the questions and to be critics of what we learn, and not to just ignore the tensions in life.
The connection I'm about to make is going to be very obvious. The Honors Program! This whole time I kept thinking about how much Honors is like what he is describing, and how blessed we are to be a part of the program. I hope that others may be able to experience this. It especially reminded me of last semester, during the time of looking at the "ways of knowing" and experimenting with all the different disciplines, not just one over the others. This brought up many tensions in my own life, and there for tying it the connections and questions part of learning. This past semester has been about refugees and immigrants, and during this time of learning I have felt such a passion and such an application to my own life. This is something that I want to do in the future! How blessed am I to experience this sort of teaching in a general education credit setting.
One thing that I remember the most, and has really made an impact on me is that "Learning is the process for living, not preparation for future living"--Dewey. It challenges me not to think any longer that my education will one day be useful, or that I'm not ready to go out and live in the world because I have not completed my degree. This is a challenge for me to remember that what I'm learning right now is applicable right now. There's a passion for learning that I have found in Honors, and I recognize that it is because of the faculty, and the substance of the learning, and also the students with me (as we're all learning together). That quote, and the thought of not avoiding conflict but instead questioning it, is also a very good point that I need to work on and want to think about more often.
The connection I'm about to make is going to be very obvious. The Honors Program! This whole time I kept thinking about how much Honors is like what he is describing, and how blessed we are to be a part of the program. I hope that others may be able to experience this. It especially reminded me of last semester, during the time of looking at the "ways of knowing" and experimenting with all the different disciplines, not just one over the others. This brought up many tensions in my own life, and there for tying it the connections and questions part of learning. This past semester has been about refugees and immigrants, and during this time of learning I have felt such a passion and such an application to my own life. This is something that I want to do in the future! How blessed am I to experience this sort of teaching in a general education credit setting.
One thing that I remember the most, and has really made an impact on me is that "Learning is the process for living, not preparation for future living"--Dewey. It challenges me not to think any longer that my education will one day be useful, or that I'm not ready to go out and live in the world because I have not completed my degree. This is a challenge for me to remember that what I'm learning right now is applicable right now. There's a passion for learning that I have found in Honors, and I recognize that it is because of the faculty, and the substance of the learning, and also the students with me (as we're all learning together). That quote, and the thought of not avoiding conflict but instead questioning it, is also a very good point that I need to work on and want to think about more often.
