Student 59

Object 1: Japanese language textbook

Japanese for Busy People: Revised Edition by Association by Japanese-Language Teaching is the Japanese language textbook I bought during my early release period last year to try to improve my Japanese. The motivations related to and contents within this book help explain why we seek knowledge.

Within the book, the pages cover vocabulary and sentence structures as objectives to achieve learning. Providing one with new vocabulary and sentence structures adds to the extent of language one can communicate with. With the perspective that these are objectives the reader is aiming to learn, these objectives symbolize how knowledge is sought by individuals in order to further their ability to communicate their own ideas. Additionally, the description on the cover states that this book is the “new version of the most effective course of spoken, everyday Japanese” and the book has sections describing Japanese in different everyday situations. This dialogue along with these divisions of content within the book implies that this book is intended to give readers the ability to speak Japanese on a day to day basis. The fact that this is the aim learners are supposed to pursue in reading this book supports the idea that people can seek knowledge in order to communicate to navigate their lives. Aside from the points aforementioned, there are exercises to practice with concepts within the book. Exercises allow people to gain further knowledge of their mistakes by allowing them to test if their knowledge is the truth. Some people seek to buy language learning books in order to gain access to these exercises. Considering the significance of these exercises, the fact people seek them out indicates that people may seek certain knowledge in order to determine the certainty of their current knowledge.

Object 2: Bike

This is the bike which I got in middle school and I periodically rode around the neighborhood while learning and even after. The process in learning this bike provides an explanation to why people seek knowledge.

When riding this bike, there were several instances where I fell off. Yet, after every one of those instances, I managed to get back up again and try again in order to understand how to ride the bike. Wanting to surpass this obstacle and succeed pushed me to learn how to ride a bike in this situation. Similarly, seeking to obtain knowledge stems from a desire to advance successfully, indicating we seek knowledge in order to progress forward and gain more power. Additionally, biking is a pastime used by individuals for exercising. In other words, people learn to bike, initially or better, for the sake of being able to exercise. Learning in this context originates from a desire to better one’s health, overall showcasing how we may seek knowledge to improve our lives, particularly healthwise. Aside from that, bikes are an alternative mode of transportation. People who may learn biking for this reason can travel from place to place easily without having to pay for gas. This purpose of learning how to bike emphasizes our desires motivating our wish to grasp knowledge of a particular skill and hence symbolizes how the pursuit of knowledge is based on our wish to navigate the world more conveniently. On top of what was mentioned already, biking can allow one to be more environmentally conscious, as biking has a lower carbon footprint than other vehicles. People choose to develop their understanding of how to bike for this purpose. As a whole, this motivation for learning how to bike communicates how people aim to obtain knowledge for their values of being more socially conscious.

Object 3: Photo album

This is a photo album from my mother’s college days which I looked at in eighth grade. The history behind and relating to these photos and the qualities embedded within the album itself are evidence of why we seek knowledge.

Some of the photos within this album illustrate small glimpses of my mother’s lifestyle during her college days. For example, in one photo, she is biking around campus with friends, while another has her depicted relaxing in her dorm with her friend. Wanting to understand conditions of her past prompts me to obtain knowledge of the elements within and the context of the moments of these photos. Considering wanting to understand my mother’s college days stems from wishing to connect more closely with her, this desire to better contextualize and comprehend the photos stands for how we seek knowledge to connect more with the people around us. On a more technical level, each photo appears to be film-like. This is a consequence of the time at which the photos were published, as the technology in the late 1900s produced photos with such a texture. Choosing to seek knowledge of these photos involves seeking to understand this background, so in that way, this photo album signifies how we seek knowledge to better understand the origins of and culture influencing an object. In regards to the physical album, the formatting and the style of the album express knowledge. When looking at this album, I displayed curiosity about the style of the album and the way photos were laid in it. Since these elements relate to context and organization, seeking to understand these aspects of the album displays how we may seek knowledge to gain certainty about the structures of the world around us.