Response to Tony Gurr's blog

Tony Gurr's blogpost about "Motivation" explains how teachers should motivate students towards their own goals and help them create their own learning. From my understanding about his belief in freedom and education, he believes that limited freedom in learning prevents students from further development within themselves. In other words, limited freedom in education prohibits students' abilities to extend and reach for their own motivations and goals.

           Finding a motivation or a goal may be a broad topic for many students. How are they supposed to know what they want in life if they have only experienced such little part of "life" and the "world". This is where teachers kick in to help.

           There is, indeed, countless number of ways teachers could properly educate students. However, rather than searching for the "BEST" way to council students toward their goals and superior education, investigating some of the "WORST" educational method may be a better start.

 This is one of the many pictures Tony Gurr used to explain his opinion and position in "Motivation and Education." "Kids' don't LEARN (from):" this got me thinking, 'why are teachers struggling/trying to find ways to best educate their students, when really, all they need to do is to avoid the worst ways.'

           I believe that every educational method has its purpose (pros and cons); however, some methods are outdated and no longer useful. Before the development of technology, memorization was the key to success. Therefore, tests and quizzes were mandatory. However, the advanced technology we have today makes every fact "googleable." It is now the matter of how one chooses to use the knowledge internet provides, which determines their success or failure. It is time for teachers to open up their eyes upon a new skill of creativity and helps students properly use the knowledge provided for them. As easy as it sounds, this does not happen without students and teachers bonding together.

           "Kids' don't LEARN: .... from people they don't like!" This has to be the best statement I've heard in a long time. It is Very (times 100000) true that students don't learn from people they don't like. Think about it, even talking, or looking at a person you hate sometimes makes you mad which makes learning IMPOSSIBLE. This makes the positive bonding relationship between students and teachers CRUCIAL in education. However, there are many obstacles that can easily break the good relationships.

           Some educators believe that students are irresponsible and should only do what they are told. This is one of the most common ways teachers lose their positive relationship with students. It is true that most students in high school are not yet ready for complete freedom. However, high school students certainly deserve to have a voice in the educational system. With the intelligence of teachers and free minds of students, I believe, the "BEST" education can be formed.

           Teachers try to motivate students to reach their goal. However, I believe helping the students to realize what their goal is and their high potentials is more important than just motivating students who may be clueless about what their goal is.

          As mentioned in previous paragraphs, limited freedom does prevent motivation towards one's goal. Nevertheless, the process of realizing one's goal and learning about oneself may be just a little bit more important. Overused limitation in education a fence that blocks students from learning about themselves and constantly changing world around them.

 

 

 

Tony Gurr's way of blogging is very cool. I definitely found it less boring than reading a paragraph after another. The pictures were also very fascinating, they really helped me get a better look into his position in the topic. However, there were some pictures I did not fully understand.

 

Tony Gurr's blogging techniques also reminded me of a recent project I did in English class called "Poetry in Motion" It was very cool to see that putting words into an art of pictures and being able to express one's opinion through blogging was possible. I would definitely want to try this method of blogging later on =)