Before and After

Prior to taking the course, I believed motivation was an underrated and important tool in the game of learning. I also believed that those with more money were in a better position to take full advantage of the technological advantages that have recently transpired. These were beliefs that were reconfirmed as I went through TE 800. Areas where I was challenged were in the areas of “globalization” and cultural heritage, as well recognizing and utilizing quality online exhibits and websites.

In Gardner’s “The Disciplined Mind”, motivation is recognized as important for human learning and pedagogy. This is something I believed in before entering the course. I believe in the importance of motivation because I have witnessed many of my friends from high school who had more talent than me academically and sports-wise. Unfortunately, most of them did not achieve the great things they possibly could have achieved. I attribute a great deal of that to motivation.

On page 77 of the “The Disciplined Mind” Gardner says: “if one wants something to be attended to, mastered, and subsequently used, one must be sure to wrap it in a context that engages the emotions. Conversely, experiences devoid of emotional impact are likely to be weakly engaging and soon forgotten, leaving nary a mental representation behind.” I see that fitting a good friend of mine who had achieved a scholarship to attend the University of Cincinnati and study physics. He was a student that was very talented academically and was doing wonderful all the way until the middle of his junior year of high school. As friends and his social life started to climb on the importance chart, he simply became less interested in school. I could see how his Physics and Chemistry classes could not compete with the emotional enjoyment of socializing and being recognized as a “cool” person in school. I can’t help but think how his life would be different if one of his Physics or Chemistry teachers sat down one-on-one and told him how much potential he had. Or even if somehow they could have made the material more emotionally engaging then maybe he would have chosen to stay focused and to continue mastering his scientific knowledge. Something in the form of motivation from his teachers could have helped. As it turned out he stayed weakly interested his senior year of high school and he dropped out of the University of Cincinnati after just one year, forfeiting a good 4-year scholarship. Having the insight of being his friend, I could completely see that he had lost the motivation to learn. And I do believe a good part of that is the emotional excitement in the “normal” physics classroom lessons could not compete with the emotional connections that teenagers make in their socializing worlds. Gardner is completely right when he says, “any portrait of human nature that ignores motivation and emotion proves of limited use in facilitating human learning and pedagogy.”(Pg. 77)

Another confirmation gained from this course was the belief that technology is not as great as we are all made to believe. Neil Postman’s “Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change” was in my viewpoint a brilliant article that properly presents the realities of technological change. His second idea that the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population couldn’t be closer to the truth. For instance, first graders at neighboring Yokohama International School have access to Mac laptops to be used in the classroom for various projects and they are provided by the school. First graders at my school do not. Simply put, the rich-western students have more technological advantages at their fingertips than do my middle-class/rich Asian students. It is a sad reality, but at the end of the day, Y.I.S. students are “up to speed” with the advantages of new technologies where mine are left with a computer lab tightly surrounded by two often normally noisy grade 2 classrooms.

An area where my beliefs have been challenged are from listening to Kwame Anthony Appiah on NPR making his case for “contamination.” Living in Japan and Korea as well as having many friends from different countries, I have had the opportunity to see firsthand the reach of the U.S.A. and the global impact its military and corporations have. And to be honest, I had been very skeptical of my countries multi-national corporations who tend to focus solely on making as much money as they can each quarter. But as I listened to Mr. Appiah answer caller’s questions, especially those that challenged his position, he made some good points that made me question what I believe. The second caller in the radio interview expressed my viewpoints about how you can go to Mexico and see many advertisements for American companies but if you are in the U.S. you see hardly any Mexican corporations advertising or selling their products. The caller then made the point that the call for cosmopolitism is made from the premise that everyone is on a level playing ground, but in reality everyone is not. I think Mr. Appiah’s response where he said it is up to the people in that culture to decide what is important to them is a good one. If Japanese people want to eat imported American beef, they should be free to decide. If Native-American Indians want to own casinos, then that should also be something decided amongst the Native-Americans. It really is up to the people in the world’s various countries to decide if they are going to use and how they will use products and business ideas outside of their existing culture. The decision should not be made by an outside party.

Mr. Appiah also made some good points about how something taken from one culture can go to another place and have a new meaning and cultural experience attached to it. I never thought that Coca-Cola would be something that people from Ghana see as formal, something to be offered as a sign of respect to someone at a funeral. I also never considered the idea that items like a Yankees hat may come to a country but may not come with an interpreter. Therefore, the hat survives through a different meaning in the given country, as does the Coca-Cola. I can see how this is important for creating new, authentic experiences within a culture. And I can see how this also gives people from completely different cultures something to talk about and appreciate their take on the products.

Another area where I was challenged in the course was in regards to the quality of online exhibits and websites. Prior to the course I had little interest in online exhibits and had little interest in reading about historical figures online. After Units 4 and 5 though, I had seen some great exhibits and websites that helped me change my stance. In particular, the The Life After the Holocaust online exhibit really did a great job of combining audio of personal stories as well as displaying of personal pictures that gave the exhibit a much more intimate feeling than I imagined could be produced online. The chance for people to leave reflections of what they thought about the website was also a beautiful thing.

As far as websites, I really found the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill website with as much good information on it as I have found in some of the books I have read on Eleanor. I was surprised to get as much detail about her life from an online website. The ease of finding different information on the website was also a plus.

In conclusion, motivation as a key factor in the act of schooling was something I believed in heading into the course. The same could also be said for the uneven distribution of technological benefits. Kwame Anthony Appiah did a great job challenging what I believe about “contamination” of cultures. The introduction to some quality online exhibits and websites has also challenged me to get out on the web and take advantage of some nicely done work. It has been a good class in regards to challenging me about what I think is important in not only education but the world. And it has also helped me rekindle some of the beliefs I held before heading into the course.