by Kristin Davidson

Spring 1998

When I was a high school senior looking for a college, I am embarrassed to admit how little attention I gave to my selection process. I had heard of the then Northeast Missouri State University, had read about it in Money magazine as being great education for a great price and figured out that it was a perfect distance of three and a half hours away from home—close, but not too close. NMSU seemed like a smart choice. Its tag phrase, "School of Liberal Arts and Sciences" did not enter my mind as being important. "Just a subtitle," I told myself while filling out registration papers. Upon arrival, though, I discovered that I was in for a very complete and diverse education.

The different texts I have read this semester have helped me define what it is I have been learning, or at least how I have been learning. Sheila Harri-Augstein and Laurie Thomas’ book Self Organised Learning as well as many other authors’ works and even this school’s own Mission Statement have been helpful in my analysis of my education here at Truman State University.

We, as a class, have read different sources this semester, but nothing as extensively or as deeply as Self Organised Learning (SOL) and Learning Conversations (LC). For this reason, much of my insight comes from these texts. The Harri-Augstein book about SOL brought up many ideas about becoming a better learner by understanding oneself better. On a related note, LC presented a learning model that required conversations between the learner and teacher, but also between the learner and herself to aid in understanding knowledge. Some of the more specific ideas they brought up related directly to the Mission Statement and the kind of education I should be receiving.

Though quite detailed, the Mission Statement of TSU did list several simple things that the staff and faculty hope to pass on to the students. In general, the university states that it wants to advance knowledge, encourage freedom of thought and nurture the intellectual growth of its students. It also seeks to "cultivate" in its students’ intellectual integrity, tolerance of diversity, critical and creative thought and problem solving, among others.

SOL devotes text to the discussion of personal myths (Harri-Augstein & Thomas, 1990). According to the authors, these myths are created by learners or taught to learners by teachers. "I’m not good at math" or "Girls are better than boys at sharing their feelings" are myths people may use to impede their learning. Breaking down these myths encourages intellectual growth, a Mission Statement goal. In addition to that, SOL claims that although many believe learning is the ability to regurgitate facts, real learning involves critical thought and making meaning.

Where SOL leaves off, Learning Conversations seems to pick up. In this text, learners are likened to robots under traditional systems where all the learners do is go through the motions and try to end up with the product that the teacher expects (Harri-Augstein & Thomas, 1991). In its Mission Statement, TSU tries to avoid that by making free thinking and problem solving goals to be met. LC draws a difference between being taught and learning, and states that meaning must be personally significant, relevant and viable (Harri-Augstein & Thomas, 1991).

All of the ideas in the books and chapters we read and the goals of TSU in the Mission Statement are helpful in looking at learning in general, but do not say much about my own personal experiences. Naturally, I have had both positive and negative experiences in the almost 40 classes I have taken here at this university. But it took the reading from this semester for me to be able to articulate what the problems have been with some of my less than favorite classes.

My freshman year I took the basic speech course. I was on the Speech and Debate Team in high school and enjoyed public speaking, so I thought, "No problem." I was wrong. We took laborious, tedious notes almost every class. The only time I heard the other students’ voices was when they were delivering speeches.

What I remember most, however, was sitting at my desk for hours before a test, memorizing and copying my notes over and over. Our test was our notes—except we had 30 pages of notes and five pages of test. Answers were to be duplicates of our notes and there were no essays or opinion based questions. The message sent to me was that I was not capable of producing original thought and had to be spoon-fed the answers and questions.

In this class there were no learning conversations because the teacher spoke and no one responded except to mimic. There was no extension of knowledge because I forgot everything five minutes after the test was completed. There was no creative or critical thought because there were no thoughts in that class—only the regurgitation of facts given to the students from the teacher.

Speech may have been a kind of nightmare, but luckily not every class was so restrictive. Last semester I was in Concrete Behavioral Math Foundations which taught me, as a future elementary teacher, basic math. It was not meant to teach me how to teach math, but to give me the skills I would need when I did learn how to teach. Parts of the class seemed very simplistic; often times we would study things I had learned in grade school. What made it such an incredible learning experience was the way the instructor went about teaching.

We very seldom sat and took notes while he lectured. Instead, we were up at the board, in small groups and using manipulatives. It was never enough for us to get the right answer. We had to know why it was the answer, how we got the answer and another way we could have gotten the answer.

I remember doing an activity involving bases of numbers other than ten, the base we use. It was extremely difficult and frustrating at times to try and learn base 5 or base 8 systems. After we had all mastered the concept (and grumbled a little), the instructor told us the purpose was to put us in the place of the children to whom we would be trying to teach the concept of base ten. It was an experience that truly made a light bulb go off in my head. By literally putting me in the place of my future students, I became a better learner.

In that class, I was also free to think and inquire about things that had just been rules such as "invert and multiply." Rules that had always seemed silly and senseless were explained to us and as we thought about it and worked through it, the rules began to make sense. My curiosity was aroused, I learned concepts and not just facts and I solved problems.

My four years here have been the most memorable of my short life. I have had both good and bad experiences, and if I am smart, I will learn from both. I have been challenged and have grown, but I have also been frustrated and disappointed. Truly I have learned more than book smarts—I have matured as a person and become more knowledgeable about the "real world" I keep hearing about. The reading this semester, and Harri-Augstein and Thomas in particular, has helped me discover so much about myself as both a learner and a future teacher.

Works Cited

Harri-Augstein, S. & Thomas, L. (1991). Learning Conversations. London: Routledge.

Harri-Augstein, S. & Thomas, L. (1990). Self Organised Learning. London: Routledge.