Self Evaluation and Reflection

Ecological Imaginings is a Bryn Mawr English class like none other, at least that is what I have surmised after having taken English classes on this campus for four semesters now. In this class I have learned about the importance of the class as a team. It may be true that we are individuals who all ended up having to work together because we all signed up for the course, not necessarily the people, but even still, I have come to realize that, to an extent, we are responsible for one another’s education as well as our own.

I started the class thinking on my own multicultural educative experiences as a bilingual student and my own struggle to be a “successful” student. Having a good understanding on what multiculturalism meant in my life coming into the class, the exposure to the different ways multiculturalism appear in and out of the classroom has broadened my understanding of what it means to be multicultural. Specifically dealing with student teacher-interactions, I think I gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of the role of the teacher in multicultural education through both the readings we had in class, visiting my Praxis field placement, and volunteering at Puentes de Salud.

When I began this class, I wasn’t quite sure where it was headed or where I was headed. I’m still not quite sure, but as someone aims to be a life-long learner and a responsible citizen, and who sees very shortly the day when she’ll have to start figuring out her own career and professional goals, this class has offered a lot of tools to approach that future. Some aspects gave me words to describe something that I already had a sense of, like the interconnectedness of everything. In other ways, this class definitely pushed me--for example, just looking at environment, and what that word means. Before, I had only really used it to refer to the ‘natural’ environment, locations away from urban and suburban areas.

This class has provided materials and time to challenge me in my own assumptions and perceptions of the world. At the same time, it has opened up my thoughts on the possibilities of pedagogy. There were times during the semester, where, for many reasons, I became increasingly frustrated with the institutionalized constraints of our liberal arts colleges. I know this frustration will continue in my time here. But I hope to harness it, as we did in the classroom, for something better than a wallowing in what we are told is “just the way things are.” There are other ways of tweaking academia to value other forms of engagement—through our site sits, open-ended web-events, and active democratic discussion.

Paola Bernal

May 10^th, 2015

P. Cohen, Education 266

Self Evaluation and Reflection

            As part of the teacher certification program, I have taken a few other education courses in previous semesters, however I have been able to see more academic and personal growth through the Schools in American Cities course than in previous education courses due to the unique classroom environment and classroom activities set by the professor.

I had no idea what to expect walking into this “Ecological Imaginings” class--would I be writing beautiful prose about the natural world? Would we investigate issues such as hydraulic fracturing? Would we be “imagining” what the world would look like in 5, 10, 50 years? So as I was eagerly awaiting to find out the “goal” or “purpose” of this class, I was thoroughly surprised that we spent the first ten minutes of the course alone and silent in Morris Woods. Throughout the course I realized that the goal or purpose of the class was shaped and change by the students, the professor, and the different spaces we used as a classroom.