Learn By Doing (Revised)

Zachary Ferderer

September 7, 2013

English 326

Learn By Doing (Revised)

When it comes to schooling, the general public will be quick to blame any lack of understanding from the student on the teacher.  This is very true in some cases, but like anything in this life, there are always two sides. It seems like everyone considers a teachers [MISSING THE “S”] job to be one thing: to regurgitate some idea or concept to a student or students in a way that allows them to regurgitate that information back to the teacher (but in “their own words”) so that they can remember the answer when it comes up on a test (because apparently that’s how students show “understanding”).  I find this to be missing the point [CHANGED TO MAKE THE WRITING MORE APPROPRIATE].  The point of school is to learn, and the job of the teacher is to show students how to learn. Instead, most of us will sit down and pretend to understand what some instructor is verbally throwing up so we can cipher through the mess and hope to some deity that we pass the final test in a class, which we will then inevitably forget all about during summer… It’s not a pretty scenario but that doesn’t make it any less true.

            In Cordeiros “Dora Learns to Write and in the Process Encounters Punctuation”, Dora [NEEDED TO INSERT THE TITLE AND AUTHOR] was lucky enough to find a rare gem as a teacher instead of the walking textbook that most get dealt. Learning anything at a young age is difficult, everyone knows that.  Now, throw in some sentence structure and punctuation into the mix and add a little dash of their short attention span and these kids may as well be learning the mechanics of Shakespeare (if that’s even a thing).  What Dora’s teacher does that works [CHANGED FROM PAST-TENCE] so well was that she let Dora ponder the ideas of punctuation little by little on her own. When Dora has a question she goes to her peers and they bounce ideas off of one another. Then, when the time comes for Dora to present her writing, her teacher tells her what she has done correctly and then simply adds new information for her to consider. And as time goes on, Dora begins to understand.  She learns what works and what doesn’t through experience. That experience will stick with her longer than anything and much easier than trying to just remember the facts. Learn by doing.

            Of course there are downsides to everything and teaching methods are no exception. Students will revert back to a certain way of thinking if they get to confused or frustrated while attempting to understand any new concept. In Dora’s case, she went back to end-page styled periods when she struggled with the end-line concept. Eventually she would grow back to the end-page method and continue growing from there. Sometimes three steps forward can result in one step back, but in the end she will be more the wiser for it and as previously stated, those concepts will stick with her better because she experienced them instead of having to regurgitate some amount of facts about it.