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I AM A SEEDLING EMERGING FROM THE PROTECTED AND CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT OF
MY SEED INTO THE NEW AND ENTICING WORLD OF TEACHING.
Anne-Marie Davidson
Dr. Lock
Education Seminar 403
October 12, 2011
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As a learner, I am a seed, one that is sheltered, programmed in one way of learning
and one way of knowing what it is to know, one seed amongst many others with no
remarkable or distinguishing traits. My time as a seed is slowly coming to an end after
sixteen years of being the learner. I am transitioning into a new phase in my life; I am being
planted into the world of education. I am transitioning into a seedling, sprouting new shoots
and leaves while developing deep roots on my path to becoming a teacher. By reflecting and
trying to define myself as a learner and who I am becoming as a teacher, I have come across a
few prevalent differences that can be reflected in the image of the seed and the seedling. The
first fundamental difference is that my style of learning, how I approach new knowledge, and
how I undertake tasks in a learning environment is directly shaped through the industrial
model. As a developing teacher, an inquiry model is what I believe would be more beneficial
method of teaching not only for the teacher but for the students as well. Another difference
between how I am as a learner and what I hope to instill and promote in my teaching career
are the ways one can learn and retain information, through surface learning or through deep
learning. The last difference is the degree through which diversity and inclusion were a part
of my education and how much I hope to make this an important aspect in my classroom.
The school environment that I grew up in was highly influenced by the notion that
learning is about skill building and standardization. The schooling practices in place were
developed to be efficient, uniform, and competitive. I was fostered in the behavioral ideals of
being compliant, punctual and accountable (Flint, 33). The assessments of my knowledge of
the standard curriculum were based significantly on standardized tests given in intervals of
three years and on standardized assignments and tasks like English grammar worksheets. The
use of group collaboration was minimal at best and never was incorporated into a meaningful
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task. Instead, working individually was promoted and often times mandatory for tests and
assignments. This type of environment has instilled in me as a learner a sense that I should be
at the same level as everyone else. I compare myself with other students frequently and have
found that I do not have many of the necessary skills required for group activities and
collaboration. I feel more comfortable in an individual setting because that is what has been
instilled in me as the appropriate way of learning. I have developed a feeling of insignificance
as learner due to the standardization. I am just a number, a figure, or a stat in the education
system or in the “assembly line” as Sir Ken Robinson states in his talk called Changing
Educational Paradigms. As a learner, I have developed a thick and protective outer shell like
a seed, which has enveloped my views of learning and teaching through my years of
experience in the system. I have not been exposed to different methodologies of teaching
other then the industrial model until fairly recently through my study of education. New ideas
and models of teaching have begun to sprout from my seed that I hope to incorporate into my
classroom in the future.
As a prospective teacher, I have been exposed to new ways of teaching other than the
traditional industrial method, which has sprouted one of my shoots as a seedling. One way of
teaching that has caught my attention that I hope to instill in my actions as a teacher is the
inquiry model. This way of teaching was presented to me through the textbook Literate
Lives: Teaching Reading and Writing by Flint. The inquiry model adheres to promoting the
notion that schools should represent one’s real life and that learning is best achieved when
students are encouraged to make decisions about their learning process like choosing topics of
interest to study, choosing the materials to use and how they will represent their learning
(Flint 34). This model values and affirms a student’s funds of knowledge and recognizes
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diversity and the multiple ways of knowing (Flint 34). The diversity of the multiple ways of
knowing is not only beneficial for learners but also a necessary change that needs to take place
in education. A teacher has to recognize that knowing cannot be understood in terms of
dispassionate academic exercises or production of goods for sale like the industrial model.
Knowing is rather “about who you are and what you are doing, and it unfolds within
interlaced sets of political, social and environmental conditions” (Davis et al 11). I find that
these beliefs and values are what I needed in my education but were not present. I wanted to
feel like I had valuable knowledge and experiences and that I had the option or the power to
choose a topic that I wanted to learn more about and how I would represent my learning. As a
developing teacher, I have found that the inquiry model suits a student’s curiosity and makes
them feel like an asset instead of a deficit. The model addresses all the attributes and ways of
learning I was missing but that are essential for deep and meaningful learning, which I hope to
incorporate in my ways of teaching.
The ways in which I have learned how to acquire and understand new information as a
learner and the types of learning strategies I would like to promote and use as a teacher
differentiates greatly. As a learner I have made it through most of my schooling through
surface learning characterized by rote learning and memorization. Rote learning, which is
characterized by learning information primarily through verbatim repetition, without attaching
any meaning to it, has resulted in a bad habit of mine of memorizing only the information I
need to know for a test, spewing out that information on the test, and then not being able to
remember the things I wrote down or how I did it a week later (Ormrod 141). As a result, I
only can remember small pieces of isolated information from many of the classes I have gone
through. This knowledge that has been maintained in my long-term memory has been added
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there through rehearsal, a cognitive process in which information is repeated over and over as
a possible way of learning and remembering it (Ormrod et al 141). By characterizing myself
by rote memorization, rehearsal and surface learning as a learner, one could describe me as
not having very much depth or complexity like a seed. I have the potential to grow into
something extraordinary but have maintained the same ineffective learning strategies, thereby
keeping me in a seed-like state.
The learning strategies I have newly been exposed to, the fertilizer for my personal
growth as a teacher, are characterized not by surface learning but by deep learning. The
strategies that I would want to promote and use as the fundamental ways of learning
declarative knowledge in my classroom are meaningful learning, organization, elaboration,
and visual imagery. In meaningful learning, the student makes connections between the new
information and prior knowledge (Ormrod et al 141). This helps students see and understand
the connections between the new information and the things they already know. Organization
is characterized by making connections among various pieces of new information in an
organized manner. Elaboration is adding additional ideas to new information based on what
one already knows, which in turn encourages students to go beyond the material itself like for
example making inferences or speculating (Ormrod et al 141). Visual imagery is about
forming a mental picture of information and can be used to transform written material or
verbal instruction into a visual representation (Ormrod et al 141). These learning strategies
are important to me to incorporate into my classroom because they help to develop the
knowledge needed to be learned through making deeper understandings and connections
instead of through the memorization of small un-relatable facts. These new ways of learning
have helped me sprout another prominent shoot from my seed.
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The final important differentiation I hope to make from an aspect that has not been
given importance in who I am as a learner and will have a major role in my ideologies as a
teacher is the concept of diversity and inclusion. For my primary twelve years of schooling I
went to a Catholic school due to my mother’s desire for me to follow the same religious path
she and her family took. The environment of a Catholic school does have some aspects of
diversity and inclusion but for the most part the issues surrounding diversity or even
acknowledging the idea of diversity were avoided and ignored. In the Catholic school, there
were paradigms that functioned deliberately to repress, to belittle other ways of being and
sometimes made those alternative ways appear threatening, requiring censorship or
prohibition as (Greene 214). This could be seen through our enforced dress codes and the
stances taken by the schools on gay marriage and abortion. To this day, I feel like I am over
exposing myself in a classroom if I wear a shirt that does not cover my shoulders. As a
learner in this type of environment, I was closed off from other ways of knowing and
interpreting the world. I was encased tightly in my seed with no idea of the world around me.
As a developing teacher I find that this environment is harmful to students and
restricting their individuality. I want to create an atmosphere where diversity and inclusion
are promoted, discussed, and examined in my classroom. I would like “a wider and deeper
sharing of beliefs, a enhanced capacity to articulate them, to justify them, to persuade others
as the heteroglossic conversation moves on, never reaching a final conclusion, always
incomplete, but richer and more densely woven, even as it moves through time” (Green 212).
This type of environment respects students as individuals, in which everyone is regarded as
important. Multicultural teaching would enhance this environment by requiring the teacher to
have the ability to consider multiple and constantly shifting factors about cultural identity
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(DiAngelo 98).
Diversity and inclusion are essential factors in developing a student’s
confidence in their identity, their sense of self, and their awareness and respect of other
cultures. This concept has helped developed one more shoot in my growth as a seedling.
As a learner I was a seed, encased in a hard and thick shell by important factors that
have influenced my educational experience like being taught in the industrial model, learning
declarative knowledge through rote memorization and rehearsal, and having a lack of
diversity and inclusion in the classroom. I was not exposed to different ways of knowing and
I was one amongst many seeds without any highlighting characteristics. As I am becoming a
teacher, I am being exposed to new ways of teaching and learning. I am developing into a
seedling through the help of new ideas like the inquiry model, effective learning strategies,
and the promotion of diversity and inclusion, which I will incorporate in my teaching. I am
still starting out, I have a lot of growth that needs to be done but I am on the right path by
coming out of my shell and developing new growth in the area of education.
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Works Cited:
Davis, Brent, Dennis Sumara, and Rebecca Luce-Kapler. Engaging Minds: Changing
Teaching in Complex Times. Second Edition. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.
DiAngelo, R., & Sensoy, O. (2010). “OK, I get it! Tell me what to do with it!”: Why we can‟t
just tell you how to do multicultural education. Multicultural Perspectives, 12(2), 97-102.
Print.
Greene, M. (1993). Diversity and inclusion: Toward a curriculum for human beings. Teachers
College Record, 95(2), 211-221. Print.
Flint, Amy. Literate Lives: Teaching Reading and Writing. United States: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc. 2011. Print.
Ormrod, Jeanne, Donald Saklofske, Vicki Schwean, Jac Andrews, and Bruce Shore.
Principles of Educational Psychology: Second Canadian Edition. Toronto: Pearson Canada,
2010. Print.
Sir Ken Robinson. “Changing Education Paradigms.” RSA Animate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U Accessed October 12, 2011. Web.