Since my last post my theology courses continue to entertain me. I really enjoy my major, and it is a nice comfort to be able to say that. Right now it is jsut before 930pm on monday night and I really should be finishing up my GEN 300 take home test. Honestly you might find that there is probably something better I could be doing when I post, and I might never post if it were not for my willingness to put off my homework and post for you faithful blog readers out there.
My GEN 300 course for those of you who don't know is a course that is frustrating for me in a couple ways. It is a required course by Dordt and despite theri good intentions for the course it has yet to interest/impress me with anything we have read or discussed. According to the syllabus, the course is designed to preapare us for todays society and to approach it with a good Christian world view. Like I said, "good intentions". So in my opinion the 3 profs that are jointly teaching this course are giving an okay effort, but I disagree with thier choices of books, plus they try to entertain us each class period with a new groud breaking style of teaching called "lecturing".
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa!
Okay so in one of my other classes we have been discussing education( hence my last post) and we have discussed how many high school students and teachers today have a fatalistic and critical world view. I agree with this at least in my own experience with my high school. So I apologise for my critical sarcasm to my GEN 300 class. I have been trying to put more effort into taking a positive attitude towards my classes and profs. It is just really easy to rant and rave about what is going wrong.
So some thigns that are going well is that I do enjoy most of my classes and most of my classes have people that I enjoy being aroudn as well. I will admit also that even my GEN 300 class does require us to read one somewhat interesting book called "Brave New World". It has some good content for us to consider in relation to today's society.
For my last complaint in classes I will say that in general I wish the teachers would be so kind as to guide the students through the process of reading the books for a class in the following manner. I belive that a danger and often something that is looked over is the fact that classes sometimes seem like a game in the way that profs assign readings and responses to readings with an attitude of "I give the assignment and it is your job to do it and while your going through the book try and figure out what you are supposed to learn from it. Oh yeah and you will find out what you are supposed to learn and get out of the reading when we hand out the test and then you will discover!" Now I know that it is beneficial for the students to do critical thinking and the it is not the prof's job to spoon feed the material. But what the prof wants the students to get out of the material is going to change from prof to prof. In light of this it would be nice of profs to be considerate by saying somthing to the effect of, "This books is going to help you to understand..." or "These assignments/readings are designed to provoke you to consider...or to leanr how to... so keep this in mind when you read, type and respond." Is this too much to ask. I do not believe in "schooling", but rather I believe it is the prof's position to guide and provoke the learning fo the student (not matter what the subject) by asking good questions...NOT by taking an attitude of "I know... and you don't so listen up and learn by me hammering it into your head via lecture, notes and unguided assignments."
Sorry that was not so short. Does anybody recognize what my soap box looks like? Thanks for listening(reading) and I will tryto post mroe often so this does not become such a long experience for both of us.
Peace.
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