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 Yo!

I’m Simone, a Haverford sophomore and Anthropology Major. I am from San Francisco, where I have some experiences with education that have lead me to be particularly interested in this course.  I have taken biology in the past, and enjoy it! I have also taken a psychology course that covered some basic brain functioning.

At home I worked for Youth Speaks, a literary arts organization. We ran/ organized open mics in the city, and after-school spoken word workshops. Seeing kid’s relationships to education in and out of the official classroom was fascinating, as we saw people who thought of themselves as poor students flourish in a classroom that told them “there is no such thing as a wrong answer” and rewarded creativity.  I worked at my old preschool, as well as T.A.ing in a special education classroom.  When I was a kid I was told I was an “alternative learner”, and was put me in classes that had me associate my multiplication tables with different colored pieces of felt, or had me remember stories by associating each section of the narrative with a color.

Why did these methods work for me? Does it matter? How can we approach education in schools in a way that takes advantage of how many different approaches there are to understanding learning, education, and the mind?

Just some questions that I do not expect to be answered, but certainly explored in this class.