Hello to all my 242 blog-stalkers. My apologies for the lack of blogging I have done this week. As you may have noticed during our discussion at the end of class today, I have been really frustrated with this blogging assignment and the “Better Essay”. Today, however, I had a revelation. A vague and somewhat limited prompt does not mean that our creativity has to be equally limited. I was stressing because, to be honest, these readings don’t inspire me to write. While the theories and concepts are interesting, I really don’t have much to say. I can’t write a blog twice a week strictly about what I think a writing center advisor should be. I was scared because I didn’t see the full potential of this assignment.
I’m one of those people who has never been forced to write about something that I didn’t find super interesting. Even in my 101 class, we were given a bajillion prompts and I seriously fell in love with every one of my papers for that class. I wrote about hazing a Witt, the literary cannon/book banning, the power of photography, and racism in the movie Aladdin. I loved it.
So I have decided that for each of these blogs, I’m probably going to moderately discuss the essay we have to read or the discussions we have in class, but I’ll always be connecting it to something else that I think is really interesting. English 242 is one of five classes I’m taking right now, and I can see a way to relate these essays and concepts to each of those other classes. I will challenge myself to do so.
Currently I’m crazy interested and/or possibly obsessed with the discussions we’ve been having in my Philosophical Perspectives of Education class. The similarities between that class and 242 are awesome. Basically every philosophy of education we discuss can be scaled down and applied to the writing center.
One of our biggest discussions so far was how each person’s big picture life goal affects the way they view schooling. When students have life goals such as having lots of money, having a good job, or being successful, they tend to fail to see the purpose in going to school. Yes, going to school leads to a diploma, which leads to college, which leads to a degree and a potential “good job”, but that’s not the only way to make lots of money and be successful. Dr. Monke told us the story of this guy who was sick of the education system, so he dropped out of school, took a little bit of money he inherited, moved to a foreign country (I think in South America), and created a business. Well guess what. He became a millionaire. True story.
Or there’s the other route of becoming a drug dealer. Success, money, and a “good job”? Goal: achieved.
Kids these days often fail to see the purpose of school. So often when they ask why they’re in school, we answer “so you can get a good job”. While school may lead to a good job, there’s a lot of different ways to get a “good job”. There’s also the additional problem that once someone achieves a “good job”, they often don’t know what their next goal should be; what’s the purpose of their life after the “good job”?
Our further discussion led us to examine other purposes of life and purposes of education. We came to a purpose everyone agreed on: happiness. We were talking about how we are happy to learn when the material can be somehow related to our lives. Happiness is a goal we can strive for our whole lives, and schooling can fit into that picture.
The concept of thinking “big picture” to have more meaningful experiences can be applied to the Writing Center. In finding a purpose to come to the Writing Center, I can only hope that students are thinking “big picture”. Those who arrive at the Writing Center hoping to learn, expand the way they view an assignment, and become better writers gain much more than the student who go to the Center to have their paper simply “edited” or “fixed”.
I feel much better about these blogs now.
I can do this.
-Sarah
You definitely can.
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