Communication, Technology, and Environment

Education incorporates communication, technology, and environment together in order to create an atmosphere suitable for learning.

Communication is vital to interaction between people, and without it, it would be difficult for education to have full potential. Colleen and Jessica both had a strong focus on communication; they shared their knowledge about deaf communication and how it is so different from spoken language. Even though these forms of communication differ, they can both be used in order to gain knowledge. Education requires communication for discussion, expression, and sharing of ideas. Lauren’s topic ADHD focuses on involvement and responsibility in education, reiterating that communication is necessary and vital in the classroom as well as at home.

Technological advances affect education, and in particular, Joey discussed educational technology. This is extremely pertinent to daily life, because computers and tools used in the classroom are becoming increasingly common. Technology has helped shape education in the ways in which teachers are teaching and the students are learning. Greg’s explanation of geography in education showed how different subjects are taught more or less than other subjects, and how the subjects that students are not well informed about end up having an overall impact on knowledge about things as simple as knowing where a particular country is located. Technology and the invention of the Internet have definitely affected what material students learn, and what they are taught to simply look up online.

School environment really does play a role in education, as shown by Joyce’s presentation on holistic and child-centered education. People view learning from different perspectives, and when the students are taught in differing ways, their knowledge bases and view on education differ as well. Jess’s presentation about coed housing incorporated the discussion of outside factors that affect the educational experience, explaining that there are both positive and negative effects that will impact education. Lisa’s presentation about inclusion and co-teaching also relates to environment because students who have particular strengths and weaknesses are going to be affected differently by whom they are surrounded by. If the students have that extra person to help them, they may perform better in the classroom, but their social skills with their peers may suffer in effect. Maggie’s topic of disproportionality in special education also connected with the environment affecting the education that the student receives.

How do communication, technology, and environment interact in order to create educational experiences?

Subjectivity

What is education? As demonstrated by the wide breadth of topics covered through research and in class reading, education is omnipresent. It is constantly changing. It is unique, and differs dramatically between cultures.

Education is simply too broad to define correctly in a brief sentence. Education can be defined as the process of acquiring necessary skills through academic teachings. Learning, however, is not confined to the classroom, or a time of year.

Higher education is portrayed as the process in which students acquire necessary life skills. With a well rounded education and a pretty diploma, students are expected to obtain highly toted occupations and earn significant amounts of money. According to this logic, students obtain institutions of higher education in the hopes of obtaining money and power, through the completion of set requirements. As our country’s economy is currently established, those with degrees in higher education numerically earn more money than those without such honors.

There is such great value vested in a graduation certificate. It is a simple piece of paper, but it holds a greater value. It represents the integrity and tradition of its corresponding institution, and the education standards of the university. Those standards are set by the individual University, as every institution of higher education is different. Education is subjective.
Some schools require different classes or emphasis different aspects of education. A college education is unique to the individual.

Different cultures also affect the perception of education. Spanish or English, who is to say what, is correct. Language both limits and expands the cognitive skills of the student. Knowing multiple languages opens students to diverse perspectives.

Education also includes the ability to social interact and the ability to artfully express oneself. Are those that are fantastic artists, yet unable to deduce chemical formulas inferior? Education is a broad aspect that defines definition.

To better understand what education is, I believe that we must consider, “What is intelligence?”

http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/images/7/74/Multiple_intelligences_diagrammed.jpeg

Redefining Education as a 'Challenge'

When I wrote my first assignment about education at the beginning of the year, I chose to define education by calling it a life-long mission because it was unavoidable and every human experiences some form of education. I never realized how vague that definition was until now – there are so many more aspects to education than what can be seen on the surface. Throughout the year we have looked into so many details that we cannot just say that it’s a life-long mission. It is more like a challenge that demands to be met with an argument and a confrontation.

This is reflected throughout all our assignments and our ongoing research projects. We continuously search for an “ongoing conversation” about education so that we can familiarize ourselves with the topic of education. This could be referred to as the stage where we are searching for the challenge. An example of this is our in-class readings, such as “Living Savage Inequalities”, where we read the article hoping to find something that will spark a conversation, or a ‘challenge’. Most of us were struck by the low quality of the inner-city schools of Chicago and the empowerment these students had to make a change in their schooling conditions. Once we have found a conversation-starter, the ‘confrontation’ between yourself and the article begins. We will never agree with everything we read, so it’s only natural to express our thoughts on something, whether negative or positive. Some of us acted negatively against the fact that the Board of Education lets this happen in schools. We develop an ‘argument’ that expresses our thoughts on paper and, by doing this, we have continued the cycle of an ongoing conversation. We have met the challenge eye-to-eye, and ‘fought’ to succeed. What marks our success is if the argument you posed created conversations from other individuals –such as feedback from our research papers – this is when you know you have succeeded!

Education could be redefined as a ‘personal challenge’ to your mind. Whatever way an individual chooses to face the challenge is up to that individual, and no individual ‘fights’ the challenge in the same way. A challenge allows for many detailed ways to ‘attack’ education. Using what I’ve said, one could research how it benefits someone to challenge/argue the normal way of thinking in education to personally enhance an individual’s way of thinking. Finding out how this works would largely benefit the field of educational studies.

Teaching to the Test

In Diane Ratvich's article, she describes the unjust regulations presented by our former and current serving Presidents for teaching to the test. Teachers are now being judged on how their students do on the tests. Bonuses, tenure, and extermination of a job are all beginning to be based on the students ability to succeed with regards to standardized testing. I for one was horrible when it came to standardized testing in elementary school. I had no idea what I was doing, and although I succeeded in the english portions, I found math extremely troubling and difficult. I would not have found it fair for my teacher's abilities to teach to be based on the fact that I just plain sucked at taking multiple choice tests. My mother is a middle school and high school teacher and I marvel at the fact that she tries on a daily basis to deal with some infuriating students who don't want to work and don't care about learning. This is not within my mother's capibilities to teach. Yes she can do her best to motivate students, but it ultimately is a decision the student has to make within themselve as to whether or not they're going to do the work necessary to succeed.

I guess that education is really more of a cultural thing than a fixed ideal. That being said it makes it much harder to say what kind of education is better. I think people tend to look at statistics and test scores when trying to evaluate education way to much. However I personally can't think of a better way than a test to measure how much someone has learned. I think that education epitomizes the culture of the people learning. It shows you how they think because how else do you teach someone than to cater to how they learn best? Yet this does present some problems because everyone is different and people can fall through the cracks in our current education system. I believe that the European system of education has won out predominately around the world. Looking at the reasons for this system winning out is explanation enough for why it won. The Europeans went out and explored the world, taking anything new back with them and then focused on teaching those things to one another. Not many other cultures ventured out and stayed spread out for that long to really create a global community. So in the end we have to ask ourselves. If a country has the best education system in the world, will that make it a future world power?

Logic and Reason

When I think of education, I don't think of textbooks or desks or even the traditional classrooms. I've learned a lot over the past 13 years of my education and most of this information I will never need to use outside of the classroom. To me, that's not education. In the article "Living Savage Inequalities" underpriveledged children were given a chance to make a difference in their community. I believe that this is what education should be about. Learning shouldn't just be about equations and definitions, it should be about taking the information you learn in school and using it in your day to day activities. I think this really defines whether or not you actually learned something in school. Equations might be useful for a math test, but when you're faced with a problem outside of school, you're not going to stop and solve it using an equation. You're going to use logic and reasoning which I believe are the two most important qulatities you can achieve in school. If you don't attain these qualities during your time in the classroom, your teachers have failed you.

I have heard a lot of people say, you either have street smarts or book smarts and I've come to find that this statement is very true. This however, is unfortunate. I think that people should be allowed to have both. if teachers started handing out more application problems and less memorization problems, maybe book smarts could turn into street smarts. Education, to me, should provide you with book smarts as well as common sense smarts. I don't want to graduate college feeling scared of the world. I want to feel prepared and confident that I can solve any problem that comes my way. My schooling should prepare me for this next step in my life.

The image that I selected shows a person taking a problem and using their logic and reasoning to solve it. I believe over the course of your education, you should be learning these important life skills. i always hated when I would ask a teacher how I was going to use this information later on and they would yell at me for being a smart ass. At the time, I probably was, but now thinking back, I'm starting to realize that the teacher probably didn't have an answer to my question and that's not right. I understand that some information is required to be taught but I think every teacher should at least try to come up with a useful life skill from this information.

To me, this is what education should be about.

Endless Definition

At the beginning of the semester, I must admit that I had a narrow minded and typical definition of what education is. Still, I cannot fully define what education is because there are so many aspects to cover. I do, though, have a much greater understanding to what education is.

I came from a small town Elkhorn, WI and before that I lived in Milwaukee, WI. I did have experience with smaller and bigger schools, but that does not mean I could fully grasp all the differences in education. Reflecting on past articles and the presentations throughout the semester of English 100, there is so much more to education than what I had been exposed to. Education is not just merely going to school 5 days a week, sitting in class and learning, trying to get good grades, and having goals of going to college.

Education really can differ from one person to the next, especially if one has a disability or is considered a minority. The ways people learn have to be accomodated for in our education system. Education changes all the time like in the article "Floating Foundations..." when Hurricane Katrina hit. The curriculum and ways of teaching had to change with the changes of the environment and peoples' lives. In the article "Living in Savage Inqualities..." (I believe that's the correct title), students show their passion for wanting better education and to have better schools. It's sad to realize that not everyone receives the same equality in the education they receive and their facilities. It's even more upsetting because one of the articles discussed higher education as a natural resource, expressing that education is crucial and expected especially in our nation. If young children do not receive the education they should, how should they succeed in a nation that demands for people with higher education?

Though there is much more I didn't mention that we have learned throughout the semester, bottom line is that education is such a broad term. I don't believe it can be simply defined in one sentence. I mean, we took a whole semester to scope out the different aspects of education. But here, I'll try my best to define what I think education is. Education is individual to the person who receives it; it's the way they learn, what they want to take out of the education they receive. Education is broad in the respect that there are so many possibilites and options and broad in the respect that education really differs from place to place. Education is not defined by the grades one receives but the knowledge and tools for their future, like the children who fought for better schools. Their education was not necessarily curriculum based, but they learned to make goals and how to achieve them. Education is a natural resource that is renewable; it's a resource that we should not worry about if it will ever run out. The definition is simply endless.

One research question that I think is important to look into relates to some of the later articles we read about the quality of higher education. Colleges should not be just based on numbers, but we do need to look at the qualitative data to judge the quality of colleges and universities. Though the articles say that it is a very expensive process, I think the money is well worth it to evaluate whether or not these colleges are actually "good".