A Learning Journey: Sampling the College buffet
Paul Harvey
Issue date: 6/10/09 Section: Opinion
Through the course of the college learning skills class, Jan polled students with how they were doing in their other classes and wove it into her curriculum. More importantly, she took an active role in following up with where she perceived problems. Many times she would pull aside students after class time, but her demeanor during these times was never accusing or reprimanding from my perspective. When the reading glasses came off, the channel of communication flung open and she was there not only to listen, but to assist. When it was my time to stay after class and speak to her, she recognized what I was experiencing in my other classes and she encouraged me.
It was a joint effort of both Jan's encouragement and Steve Olsen's recognition of my writing ability that resulted in me being catapulted from English 90 to English 111 four weeks into the quarter. Despite being considerably behind my fellow classmates with four weeks to catch up, the encouragement I received from Jan and the teaching of Matt Teorey, my English 111 instructor, got me through with a 3.4.
My experience in math class surprised me the most. Having a childhood learning experience filled with temperamental teachers that treated the math challenged as educationally handicapped rejects, Math 54 taught by Sue Norris, former statistician for Peninsula College, was a outlook changing experience. Her cheerful demeanor and class-wide exercises encouraged all of the students, from class clown to the quietest wall flower, to take initiative and work out problems on the board. First week hesitations dissolved as light-hearted teaching methods never shamed students for wrong answers, but encouraged team work and step by step problem solving to get the correct answers. I still recognize quite a few people I took that class with and say hello when I see them on campus, something I would have never expected from a class in my least favorite subject.
With a tremendous first quarter achieved, the initial awkwardness of a young man who hadn't even attended a proper high school had subsided greatly. Inspired by good grades, great teachers and new friends I had met, I decided to throw myself into the difficult quarry of a major. Philosophy and Computer repair, my two great loves, took up my life for the better part of my second quarter. Greater mysteries of the universe be damned, working with my hands and learning the finer points of modern technology won out against Kant and Aristotle.
It was a joint effort of both Jan's encouragement and Steve Olsen's recognition of my writing ability that resulted in me being catapulted from English 90 to English 111 four weeks into the quarter. Despite being considerably behind my fellow classmates with four weeks to catch up, the encouragement I received from Jan and the teaching of Matt Teorey, my English 111 instructor, got me through with a 3.4.
My experience in math class surprised me the most. Having a childhood learning experience filled with temperamental teachers that treated the math challenged as educationally handicapped rejects, Math 54 taught by Sue Norris, former statistician for Peninsula College, was a outlook changing experience. Her cheerful demeanor and class-wide exercises encouraged all of the students, from class clown to the quietest wall flower, to take initiative and work out problems on the board. First week hesitations dissolved as light-hearted teaching methods never shamed students for wrong answers, but encouraged team work and step by step problem solving to get the correct answers. I still recognize quite a few people I took that class with and say hello when I see them on campus, something I would have never expected from a class in my least favorite subject.
With a tremendous first quarter achieved, the initial awkwardness of a young man who hadn't even attended a proper high school had subsided greatly. Inspired by good grades, great teachers and new friends I had met, I decided to throw myself into the difficult quarry of a major. Philosophy and Computer repair, my two great loves, took up my life for the better part of my second quarter. Greater mysteries of the universe be damned, working with my hands and learning the finer points of modern technology won out against Kant and Aristotle.
Be the first to comment on this story