Feature Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Hello to everyone in EDCI 339! My name is Christopher Drew and this is my first blog post for the semester. I am a 5th year Political Science major at the University of Victoria, and I am very excited to get going with the educational content in this class. I have a lot of hands on experience in education as I have worked for various summer camps in the past few years, and while they can be a place where kids go to get away from school, anyone who has worked on a professional level with children would know that the learning never stops. I can count a handful of times where I have had to sit a kid down to discuss their behaviour and teach them new and different ways to be able to express their thoughts and beliefs, which as I have gotten older and started to look at the world from a different perspective, I have noticed that ‘some’ adults could use the same tips too. In my second year of post-secondary learning I took an introduction to education class which really inspired me to focus on how to not only teach others, but also myself. As we all get older, social norms like to tell us to find a steady job, settle down, and always respect your elders. However from this I theorize there is a certain underlying problem that arises when people stop attempting to learn, and that results in stubbornness, harmful status quos, and negligence to real life issues. My goal by taking this class is to learn new and different ways to be able to educate others in a way that does not belittle their ideas, however instead creates a spark in them to continue to learn. The moment a person becomes content with their skills and abilities, is the moment I believe that person stops wanting to learn, and others will begin to surpass them in any field of expertise presented. As a Political Science major I heavily rely on old and often times outdated ideologies and theories brought forward by some of the most famous philosophers in history, yet this can feel very restricting as the media and format that these people used are very different from what we consume today. For example, trying to read front to back Plato’s ‘Republic’ is a very dull task, however with a form of Open or Distributed learning, there is a whole new plethora of options that become available for people to learn the ‘Republic’ . This could mean students living in one area of the world and another can both learn the same information in a digital format that emphasizes the use of different languages and is freely available. The ideas and knowledge from this class will hopefully allow me to find new ways to educate and also learn in the future, and I cannot wait!
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