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In Class/OutClassed
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Welcome to InClass/OutClassed: On the Uses of a Liberal Education, an Emily Balch Seminar offered in Fall 2011 @ Bryn Mawr College. This is an interestingly different kind of place for writing, and may take some getting used to. The first thing to keep in mind is that it's not a site for "formal writing" or "finished thoughts." It's a place for thoughts-in-progress, for what you're thinking (whether you know it or not) on your way to what you think next. Imagine that you're just talking to some people you've met. This is a "conversation" place, a place to find out what you're thinking yourself, and what other people are thinking. The idea here is that your "thoughts in progress" can help others with their thinking, and theirs can help you with yours.
So who are you writing for? Primarily for yourself, and for others in both sections of our course. But also for the world. This is a "public" forum, so people anywhere on the web might look in. That's the second thing to keep in mind here. You're writing for yourself, for others in the class, AND for others you might or might not know. So, your thoughts in progress can contribute to the thoughts in progress of LOTS of people. The web is giving increasing reality to the idea that there can actually evolve a world community, and you're part of helping to bring that about.
We're glad to have you along, and hope you come to both enjoy and value our shared exploration of class, in education and outside it. Fee free to comment on any post below, or to POST YOUR THOUGHTS HERE.
![Anne Dalke's picture Anne Dalke's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-39.jpg)
ALSO! PLEASE BRING...
... a PHYSICAL copy of your "access map" to class on Tuesday, so we can compare notes in small groups.
![LittleItaly's picture LittleItaly's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-909.jpg)
My Second Writing Assignment
One or the Other
I grew up in a middle class home with a family who believed that I was destined to be great. With that set predisposition, I was placed on an assembly line of the public education system and before I knew it I was already separated from the other students. My ideas were in more demand than the others and I was marketed to the adult audience as gifted unlike all the other kids who were marketed to their fellow classmates as cool. Luckily, my parents didn’t neglect my artistic side and I didn’t have a problem with making friends unlike all the other nerds. Once again, I was separated from another group of students and I began to be a rare commodity. But I wasn’t the only one transforming; the environment around me was too. Every time I moved onto the next level of education, the student body became more diverse. When I reached high school, all the products of Battle Creek Public Schools collided with each other. We were then packaged and labeled over the four years. This was our last stop before we were all shipped out to the colleges and jobs.
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Educational Map
Everyone -
In my map in addition to the road I have taken, I include possible alternates and other elements (in my youth) that affect my education. I hope it isn't too confusing.
- Sx
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Map of my Education
Hi everyone! I'm new to serendip, but as we talked about yesterday in class, I've uploaded my map of education. I added it as an attachment to this post, so I'm pretty sure you'll have to click it if you want to see it. If there is anything you can't read or have questions about, feel free to ask :)!
![Anne Dalke's picture Anne Dalke's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-39.jpg)
How to Add an Image to Your Post
As you map your "access to education" this weekend, look to
How to add an image to your post for assistance in getting it up on Serendip.
![kganihanova's picture kganihanova's picture](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/41fce1c6d81fb817762804e454c6519b.jpg?d=https%3A%2F%2Fserendipstudio.org%2Fexchange%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2FSerendipStudioAvatar.png&s=85&r=G)
A verbal history of my access to education
Kamila, Age 1: Sleeping without mommy, school of crying
Kamila Age 2: Potty training, school of hello kitty mini toilet seat
Kamila Age 3: Eating without getting anything on myself, school of sage old person aka grandma
Kamila Age 4: First plane ride, school of mommy's lap
Kamila Age 5: learning english, school of mommy
Kamila Age 6: adding and subtracting, school of candy
Kamila Age 7: pretending my halloween costume didn't rip during the halloween costume parade, school of life
...
Kamila Age 16: How to drive, school of worried father and
Kamila Age 17: How to pretend that I love learning about the same things we learned about on college tours,
school of senioritis.
There are many milestones missing but only because those were my VERY active years. Everyday I learned something new. As things calmed down, the learning process slowed down as well but bigger things were explored, life skills. School was my place for learning theoritical things not practical things, thus I have no major memories of it.
![kganihanova's picture kganihanova's picture](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/41fce1c6d81fb817762804e454c6519b.jpg?d=https%3A%2F%2Fserendipstudio.org%2Fexchange%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2FSerendipStudioAvatar.png&s=85&r=G)
education in its purest forms
Education in school pales in comparison to education in the real world. There are things that cannot be learned from a book but must be learned the hard way. Self confidence for one, one cannot learn self confidence from a book, one must learn self confidence from life experiences (and hard knocks). I, like every teenage girl, struggled with my self image for that brief horrible time in my adolesence. It took not school but personal experiences to teach me that I indeed was beautiful.
![thamid's picture thamid's picture](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/9ebb34847330c3626f717b23fed252e0.jpg?d=https%3A%2F%2Fserendipstudio.org%2Fexchange%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2FSerendipStudioAvatar.png&s=85&r=G)
Thoughts on Education (re-post)
After leaving today's class, I realized that education is not just what is written by scholars in published work or what teachers or professors teach you in class. It is much more than these two things put together. Education is also the experiences that we learn and grow from day to day. It comes from the people we meet, people we know, and people we see.
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Reaction to Educational Autobiography
I was at first anxious to write my educational autobiography for an audience because, while I do think about the details of my formal and informal schooling often, I don’t usually share these thoughts with others. As always with my written work, I was worried that I would come off in a way that I had not intended, for which reason I opened my writing with a less formal anecdote, though in reading the essay again, I’ve found that I soon after fell into my old formalities that often accompany my writing. When speaking of my writing, my English teacher would often say that it comes across as if I am trying to impress someone, or that it is more or less pretentious, two things that I would not like my readers to feel; I simply do not know how to write in any other way.
![melal's picture melal's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-886.jpg)
Reflection and Confusion
When I looking back my educational experience, I am not surprised to find that I spent most of my time sitting in the classrooms and listening as carefully as I could to every word the teacher said. Yes, I learned a lot from various kinds of lectures delivered by teachers and successful people, however, for my educational autobiography, I wrote a dialogue happened between a street cleaner and his daughter, which I consider as one of the most important lessons that I have ever had.
The conversation between the father and the daughter provided me with a great opportunity to redefine success. Now in my perspective, success has nothing to do money and fame, it is something with personal contribution. Some people, especially those from lower-class, have much less resources and opportunities than most of us, and therefore it is nearly impossible for them to move up to the upper class. Of course they are not the “successful people” according to the traditional definition. But, they are still making their own contribution to the world: clean the streets, for example. As a matter of fact, a meaningful life does not equal to a successful life
![nbnguyen's picture nbnguyen's picture](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e719036f38d7b23d8b96545f130c6947.jpg?d=https%3A%2F%2Fserendipstudio.org%2Fexchange%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2FSerendipStudioAvatar.png&s=85&r=G)
My reflection
The topic of my first paper is how the formation of my personality has been affected by the gender of my classmates. When I was in grade 8, my class had 14 students. 12 of them were boys. Frequent interactions with them has created my strong personality. Then, a few years later, I moved to another extreme gender environment - an all girls' dorm. It somehow made me become more gentle and caring. Overall, my personality is a mixture of boys' and girls' characters.
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My Education, Class, and Thoughts on our Discussion
When I first started to write about my education, I automatically knew that I wanted to write about some of my education outside of the classroom and school, partially because I feel that that part of my education has shaped who I am as a person more than my education within the classroom. I also feel like we have the semester to get to know each other within the classroom, but not necessarily as individuals around and off campus. (Even though, I know Anne is only one who is reading our papers as of yet). After thinking about what I chose to write about, I now wish that I had included a few more things that were central to my education growing up so I am definitely looking forward to the rewriting process for this paper.
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Reflection on Educational Experience
For my educational background paper, I tried to talk about the different stages of my eduational experience and my feelings about it. Apparently, different stages have their different effects on me. I would like to say the whole process is interesting because it contains my thoughts and the reflection of the different ideas of my generation. Maybe I started my cliche about improving educational system at some point in the middle and I ended up with my feelings about my first 100 days experience in United States. I don't know why I talked about the different classes of my primary school but it seems to be a little redundent for me now. OR maybe I should have compare the components of my high school class mates.
![gfeliz's picture gfeliz's picture](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b408061071f60e638933b5c7da947e83.jpg?d=https%3A%2F%2Fserendipstudio.org%2Fexchange%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2FSerendipStudioAvatar.png&s=85&r=G)
Reflection on Educational Experience
For my educational background paper, I chose to write about my experience as a child who has a parent in the military and how that has affected me both positively and negatively. Initially, I was planning on writing about how I have struggled a bit to accept who I am through my educational experience; I have been to many schools where there hasn’t been much diversity or people who look like me. I have often found myself mixing in/blending with either my caucasian friends or my African-American friends and isolating myself from my race. But once I got to high school and opened my eyes to all the diversity that surrounded me, I then realized the importance of embracing one’s ethnicity and race and not just “mixing in”.
![jrschwartz15's picture jrschwartz15's picture](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b094a248f8f02517380ad3848494316d.jpg?d=https%3A%2F%2Fserendipstudio.org%2Fexchange%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2FSerendipStudioAvatar.png&s=85&r=G)
Reflections on My Educational Autobiography
My autobiography focused on the education I recieved through interacting with my peers. It is true that the classroom taught me a lot, but I definitely believe that the lessons from my friends explained in my essay are just as valuable as the bookwork. The writing process was very straight forward for me as I am very passionate about my high school experience and can easily go into detail. It was a small, all-girls school with an academic structure very similar to a university. Our scheduling was more flexible than most high schools and the teachers were very accessible. The type of student at such a high school was also very different which is why I focused my autobiography on my classmates.
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Educational Background Reflection
When I wrote my educational biography, I chose to write about my experiences as an ESL student and my suspicion that it may have contributed to my loss of my native language. I wasn't planning to write about it initially, in fact, I think I was just frustrated at the moment. I'm convinced I'm having an identity crisis. I reflected on my experiences with assimilation into American culture despite being born as a U.S. citizen. I also ended up talking about the racial makeup of my high school, how it affected my own education, and I'm starting to realize how different it was there from how it is here now. Until this essay I hadn't really realized how many sacrifices my parents have made in order for me to receive a good education.
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Reflection
For my educational autobiography, I chose to focus on an individual who has largely shaped my education and the person I am today, rather than an experience in my educational history. I think that I chose this particular topic because I strongly believe that we are largely shaped not only by significant experiences, but also by those people that we meet and have the privilege of knowing in our day-to-day lives. I chose to write about a former teacher who certainly did have a profound influence on me, yet there were many other people that I could have written about as well. Most of these other significant individuals are not teachers in the formal sense of the word, but still they have taught me many life lessons, and I wish I could have written about all of them.
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Education Reflection
I wasn't sure what the topic would be for my essay on my educational experience until we did a little bit of reflective writing in class on Thursday. I ended up focusing on the difference in education between myself and my cousins because I realized we really did have quite different experiences from one another (particularly because they live, literally, on the other side of the world!). It wasn't until I really began writing, though, that I understood (or at least, acknowledged) the extent of our differences. In the essay I focuses on their social education as compared to my more book-centric experience. I'm still unsure which of us found more use in what we learned.
![S. Yaeger's picture S. Yaeger's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-905.jpg)
Reflection Post
In reflecting over my educational biography, I have been considering what I put in, and what I left out. First, I decided to focus on what I learned outside of school. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that I wanted to focus on some of the more practical things I have learned. However, if I am being honest, another part of the reason for this is that I have just, like everyone else here, gone through the application process for dozens of schools. As a non-traditional student, this process has almost always included some section where I've been asked to discuss my schooling at length, as well as provide an explanation as to why I interupted it. This means that I am kind of sick of writing about school.