As educators, we all know that the most powerful education is a meaningful education. Students who experience this kind of education own what they have learned, go through a metamorphosis of sorts, and are transformed. They take their new knowledge out from their classrooms and into their daily lives and reinvent the society in which we live. The authors in our first MCCC interdisciplinary journal have written of classroom strategies that connect, in one way or another, course material to real-life experiences or issues. How could education be any more meaningful?
Kathy Frederickson, in the first essay, "Reading and Writing (and Teaching) the Personal Essay," discusses combining the critical, analytic thought process with the personal. She acknowledges the pedagogical debate regarding the use of personal narratives but responds to it by making a case for their use as a "basis for developing analytical skills." At the same time, she points out the angst students may experience when writing of personal experiences, the impact an instructor's response may have, and the sensitivity required when using this educational format.
"Going Beyond Teaching (and Writing) the Conflicts," by Howard Tinberg addresses, head on, the practice of presenting course material in an objective, detached manner without considering the emotional, subjective nature of human beings. He questions this "academic stance" and offers a reflective, integrated approach to teaching that encourages students to construct their own "beliefs." He invites all of us into a dialogue regarding the formation of our beliefs that transcends the boundaries frequently placed on us by the academy.
The nursing classrooms of Patricia Schuldenfrei and Cynthia Zafft create "a bridge" from the traditional classroom to the clinical site with the use of role play simulations as described in their article, "Role Play: The Flight Simulator for Management Education in Nursing." Students are able to "try out" and refine their "newly acquired interpersonal behaviors" needed in nursing management. They are assigned to groups, given situations with partial information, and are directed to develop an action plan.
Engaging students in active learning situations as part of the process of making education meaningful is the focus of the next article. James Brosnan in "Primary Research Through Questionnaires" describes his teaching of the research paper, a method of teaching that encourages integration of primary and secondary sources and discourages plagiarism. Students in his classes develop questionnaires that provide multiple learning experiences. They write and revise, gather and interpret data, and integrate their own findings with the information acquired through library research. They also learn how to work cooperatively with fellow students.
Arianna Abelli connects the classroom to the global world in "The New Environmental Education: A Challenge to Educators." Her passion is cause for reflection: what is the good of all we teach if the earth's ability "to sustain human life will be ... compromised?" She suggests that educators and institutions develop curricula and incorporate an ecological component in courses for the purpose of teaching students how they are personally affected" by environmental degradation. The hope is that they will become critical and creative thinkers, problem solvers, and leaders in the generations that follow.
John Nelson's classroom comes alive to the sound of the judge's gavel. In his article, "Criminals in Literature," he writes of teaching literature where "stories of crime and punishment" provide the foundation for mock classroom trials. In addition to analyzing and comparing literary characters and literature, students become familiar with the law and courtroom proceedings.
And finally, a discussion of the personal narrative is advanced in Thomas Laughlin's article, "Beginning With Where They Are: Thinking Critically Through Student Narratives." His use of ethnographic analyses helps students understand differing modes of communication. Through a series of assignments, students observe, record, analyze, and reflect upon both oral and written communication; a process that includes an examination of their own language experiences; a process that examines the frequently experienced tension between home and school; a process that ends with a reflection of their semester's work..[of] telling their own personal stories of their semester's experience."
We hope that you enjoy this first volume of THE MCCC SCHOLAR. We believe these useful, appropriate discussions can, as Howard Tinberg suggests, help us help our community college students "make sense of their world." We are encouraged by the concept that as their world changes, so will ours. We thank the contributing authors and look forward to receiving future articles from you, our MCCC colleagues.
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SPRING 1997 |