My reaction to A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger
Before coming to Galloway, I attended a large public elementary and middle school. My elementary experience was very positive with teachers that really cared and wanted me to love learning. Middle school was a very different experience. The teachers wanted to talk while we sat quietly and listened and took notes. Questions were frowned upon, and we were not allowed to truly learn. Instead, we were expected to memorize and recite information back to the teachers on their tests. Assignments were never short answers that required thinking out of the box. Questions were rarely opened ended. Everything seemed to be black and white. If we answered a question wrong we would be penalized, and by the time the school year ended, we had forgotten a majority of the information we had “learned.” It was easy to forget information that I never connected with or really understood. I found reading A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger very interesting because it was the most relatable of the readings I have done so far this summer. The reading made me realize that I need to take advantage of the opportunities I have to explore and question at Galloway, because not everyone has these opportunities. I know my friends that I left behind in public school certainly do not. One idea that stood out to me was the comparison of the school environment to a factory environment. This is a perfect comparison. In factories, you do as you are told with little opportunity to talk or ask questions. There is not much to think about when doing the job. Factory workers simply memorize the steps needed to complete their specific task. For many, the school environment is no different. Students memorize information needed for one test or assignment. They “spit it out” on the test just as they were told and then move on to the next task. Just like a factory worker, there should be no room for mistakes or discussion. This is a problem that needs to change in our educational system. A part of the reading that I found most intriguing was the section where Deborah Meier discusses questioning and it's relation to social and economic status. Students who come from lower income families are trained not to question and students who are battling stereotypes are less likely to ask questions that expose that they do not know something. This saddened me to read this, because lower income students only resource for learning is school, so without taking full advantage of it they are missing out on learning opportunities. In my opinion, there is one main reason why students battling stereotypes do not question: fear. Fear is the last word you want to hear in a school environment, but it is very present. For students who are constantly profiled, it is legitimately frightening to ask a question. Not knowing something should not be seen as negative. Instead, it should be seen as room for growth and exploration, and the only way to do that is through questioning. At this point, I am feeling more confident as I complete each section of my summer work. I feel like I am getting more out of each section that I read. At first, I did not know how to approach the commonplace book, but now I am more comfortable commonplacing and thinking outside the box. As I looked through my CPB, I noticed the improvements from my first page to my most recent page of thinking. It is getting easier to pull out important points and relate them to prior knowledge. Sometimes reading passages require a second reading to fully understand, and I now know that is okay. I am very excited to see my improvements throughout the school year.
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