Meaningfully Involved?

"Meaningful.....Involvement....."

What does it mean to be involved? I mean like really involved in something. Can you ever be involved in everything as a student? As a teacher, can you really involve all of your students? All 30-40 students in each of your 2-3 classes which you are required to see at least 3 times a week for 3 months at a time!!!

To be frank, not once had it never dawned on me that there would be different types of involvement. I mean to me either you were involved because you chose to be, or you weren’t involved, again because you chose to be. This narrow minded way of thinking is something I am very happy to be growing out of more and more every day.

What is meaningful inclusivity though, I think to me it’s more of how the person whom it concerns feels rather than a set list of rules or guidelines. The emphasis for something like this is placed more on the word “meaningful”. Who is it meaningful to, what is the definition of meaningful and so forth. This essentially boils down to the learner and this learner’s experience. While as a teacher it is near impossible to try and make a classroom environment which will cater for every student in it, it is still possible to allow for MEANINGFUL involvement. Meaning that though a student may only be employed to answer a single question, said question should be of such a nature that the learner would feel involved and not isolated, no matter their answer or interpretation of it. Educators should include many different methods of promoting meaningful involvement, such as making use of the learner’s opinions and views on a subject. Being a facilitator rather than a teacher of knowledge is what it is all about. The long and short of it all is that a student needs to feel as though they matter, whether it be in a class or in an extramural activity, it is the educators responsibility to make that learner feel like their voice matters. This applies to all students, from the loud mouth child who has to be told to keep quiet, to the shy student who has to be begged for an answer.

Inclusivity, although difficult to achieve on many levels is most probably the best education tool one could ever make use of as it draws on the learners own personal wealth of knowledge and resources and allows for that to be shared with everyone and not just a select few. Because all students have something to contribute, no matter how small the contribution may be, this exercise allows for everyone involved to benefit one way or another.

Not just Thinking but Learning Outside the Box

It pains me to say that in my journey through the education system, having been put through multiple curricula and making the many transitions from pre-primary school all the way to tertiary studies, that I have not once questioned what I was doing or why I was doing it. I merely followed the rules and did what I was told because it was what was expected of you at schools and in society in general. With the knowledge that I am so grateful to have obtained as of late, I know I would make better decisions regarding learning if I could go back and make those choices again.

The education system has become less of a means of raising intelligent thinkers and more of a method to box up people into individual categories which not everyone will fit into. It is undeniable that not many fit into the boxes that education has set up and if you do, then you are part of the lucky few who has not had to give up their identity in order to move forward in life. As far as the system is concerned, we all face these issues and must grapple with them in silence. The art student who failed math and was held back because of it but makes the most amazingly creative art pieces one could imagine, or the math genius who failed biology because the concepts were just too difficult to grasp for his mind. All held back and had their potential stifled because they did not fit into the predetermined box. Why would a person willingly choose to be graded and judged on something they have no interest in, or do not perform well in, and why would a system choose to judge a person based on their weaknesses alone.

This is the flaw in the education system today, a new means of education needs to be put in place, one which is flexible and allows learners to do what they are passionate about and not restrict their learning to textbooks or the extent of an educator’s knowledge. To understand the world you are in you need to be involved in it and not isolated from it.

The independent project is a student orientated way of learning, it is dynamic, it is flexible, it caters to the individual and allows from that individual to express who they are and do what they are interested in. this system creates an openness whereby students are not afraid of criticism because they understand that it will help them do better, and who would not want to do better in something they enjoy.

The knowledge is out there it just needs to be found. Another great aspect of this independent project is that students come to find that they do enjoy certain subject which they previously did not, and this is because they find the parts they enjoy and focus on that rather than be forced to do an entire subject and only enjoy one small part of it.

The sheer vastness of possible learning areas and subject matter is so immense that learners can find themselves wanting to know more rather than simply doing what is required of them in order to get through. This is the beauty of self-mediated learning, allowing the students to grow in their curiosity and have a desire to learn more. Essentially the students are learning how to learn rather being told what they needed to know. This dramatically influences the potential for learning and opens so many doors to a real world education. It has also placed the learning in the hands of the learners themselves which ultimately allows for the obstacles of “teacher-learner” roles to be overcome so that the learner may benefit even further than the teachers knowledge would allow.