The End?

This class was challenging in ways that were different from other classes. It really challenged me to think outside of the school box that I’ve been trapped in all my life. We were encouraged to wonder why we do any of the things we do for school. Why do we do school if not for the good grade? And what happened to learning for the sake of learning, not for the sake of a grade?

            In so many of my other classes I learn everything for the semester. I get through the work and seem to do enough to make it through the class with the grade I want. But then it’s winter break or summer and every little fact I learned slowly fades away. This class was different. We weren’t required to memorize anything. Even some of the assignments weren’t exactly ‘required’. We were told we could choose just not to do something as a class. We were told we had the power, but still we sat and listened, just like we are conditioned to do. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing; it’s just something to think about. I didn’t really want to ever skip class and miss out on the discussions. The only thing we were really required to do was think about what we read and form our own ideas, not merely listen to someone else’s. As a result, the ideas in this class extended far beyond the classroom or an essay. We turned to our own lives and thought about why we made choices and why we might let ourselves be manipulated.

It was clear from the start that grades didn’t matter. But even when I was given an A on the first paper, I wanted to earn it. I still put a lot of effort into writing. On the blog all semester I could have wrote random things that had no thought or effort and then given myself an A for the blog. But I didn’t do that. It’s funny that the class that I could have tried the least in and still probably done well, I actually might have put the most effort and thought into. I guess that’s a bit of manipulation there.