Open source learning has definitely
changed the way I view education and how I think education can be most useful.
It comes with an endowment of trust given to my colleagues and me. Did we earn
that trust? Well, that had yet to be seen, as the only thing we had done prior
to the endowment was enroll ourselves in the class.
Many of
the fictitious characters we studied over the course of the year had qualities
that some of us could find relatable. Hamlet, for instance, faced making an
incredible decision when he learns the truth of Claudius and his mother. His
reaction to facing this hard decision is almost like looking in a mirror; reminding
us of all the thinking we need to do and all the questions we need to answer
about ourselves. Where do you want to go to college? What do you want to do the
rest of your life? How are you going to afford this kind of education? Hamlet
is a classic example of a man needing to find himself. Another character from a
classic piece of literature that I can see a piece of myself in is Holden
Caulfield, from J. D. Salinger’s book, Catcher in the Rye. Holden strives to be
different from everyone else, and can’t seem to be understood by the people
around him. The only people who have a chance at knowing him are those who
somehow manage to get extremely close, namely, his sister Phoebe.
Growing
up, I’ve always spent a lot of time on the internet, watching my favorite
Youtubers every day after school until I went to bed. I aspired to them, and always
kind of wanted to become a famous internet personality myself, however, I was
always very aware how impractical the idea ever was. Good equipment is
expensive, and it’s beyond competitive. That being said, I still wanted to try
it out. This class, because of Open Source Learning, gave me the opportunity to
do just that. My friends and I had the resources to create videos and really
get to feel what it’s like to do it for a living, on a small scale, of course.
It was harder than any of us had imagined, but we were all satisfied with the
outcome, one of the videos in particular. It was a combination of our best
ideas which we put forward and presented to the class, getting exactly the
response we had hoped for. It really was fun and exciting to see the final
product after so much time working on it. That project was easily the highlight
of this English class and would not have been possible without Dr. Preston or
his idea of Open Source Learning.
Sometimes,
when learning about literature, we come across things that in any other context
would probably be considered taboo. These types of things are usually met with
a bit of an awkward lesson, or a small lecture on a sensitive subject. In some instances, however, these kinds of
lessons are met with someone who doesn’t quite remember common social
etiquette, or temporarily loses their filter on what to say, and what not to
say in a group of people. In other words, sometimes you’re in a class with Omar
Dominguez. I’ll never forget reading Huxley’s Brave New World in class and
slowing down to make sure everyone has an understanding of “orgy porgy” and why
it’s a part of the society in the book. While Dr. Preston lightly explains what’s
going on, avoiding words or phrases that would seem too inappropriate, Omar’s
genius interpretation (and his follow-up remark of that interpretation) went
something like, “Oh, he was masturbating!”
All of
the good masterpiece presentations have one awesome thing in common: they are
all perfect representations of peoples’ passions and values. Alec had a great presentation
to educate people in the use of psychedelics, Omar created a masterpiece of a
song, and Chase took a look into the minds of some passionate individuals, showing
us where they find this incredible feeling they call "stoke”. In a way,
this course turned a lot of the students into heroes. We were all called upon
to an adventure of some sort. We all ventured into something new, something
unknown. We met mentors, we struggled, and we even almost failed. In the end,
we all had something great to show for it. I came out of it with brand new
experiences that I wouldn’t ever gain in any other way.
Ultimately,
I’m glad I get to end my time in high school with the classes and people I got
to. I’ve had some of the best teachers I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting
just this year. This class gave me the opportunity to do more than learn about
literature, in that it gave me the opportunity to form new relationships with
the people around me and, even more importantly, learn about myself. All of us,
over the course of the year, earned the trust given to us by Dr. Preston and
honored it to the end.
