What I am learning

I am learning in Aquinas especially this week that learning is miserable. It includes trial and error and erasing and re-doing and realization. Learning in Aquinas seems to be about a certain level of responsibility. I am attempting to adjust to these new standards. And the tricky thing is that they are not that tricky at all I am just realizing that learning is not something I did before I just acquired a certain level of knowledge and spewed it back up in the form of a paper. Learning is about doing something in a way that challenges you. Learning for me lately has been about getting it wrong and I am having hard time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

But at the same time I have a hard time believing that we are doing this course and not learn anything. I now know that I do my best learning outside of the classroom. And I feel like if I want to learn that I will because the best way to figure something out is to do it yourself.

This might be totally off beat but I don`t think that it is. Aquinas is kind of like dancing, when you just let the person who knows what they are doing lead you will be fine and maybe even have a good time.

Confrontation

I hate confrontation. I am not even kidding it makes me really really upset.

Today like 10 minutes ago in class the profs were confronted. I wasn't even involved and I was almost in tears. When it comes to people getting all hot and bothered about pretty much anything I have a really hard time with it. I have problems with anxiety and just being around a situation like that makes me feel sick.

I am not upset with anyone and I am not just saying that either I really am not upset by anything in particular that was said or any answers that were given I just am upset. Thom talked to me after and I know I should be learning but in all seriousness I am going to be distracted by the rest of the day. Confrontation makes me so upset. I am frantically thinking about ways that I am learning from that painfully awkward situation and once again I am just feeling one way. Upset. It sounds so dramatic but I was just about ready to get up and leave in the middle of that.

Each time I find myself in a situation similar to that one I simply get upset. As soon as Justin started talking I knew how I was going to react. Sometimes it's as simple as the tone of someones voice I just know its coming.

I am most troubled I think by the fact that this course is about personal learning and not just academic stuff. I am not trying to say that I don't want to learn about myself I just don't feel the need to do that in front of my first year university class.

If I am asked to learn about pirates I'll do it. I am a people pleaser. I always have been I always will be. Confrontation even an isolated incident effectively ruins my day and makes me want to leave and go home.

Pirates? Really...

This week in Truth in Society Russ made his long awaited come back! And failed to bring us home any presents... whatever I'm over it. We started an inquiry in piracy. At first I thought "Johnny Depp!" After that I thought wow I really don;t know anything about real life pirates. I was a little embarrassed. I am learning form Aquinas that the things I thought I knew and the things I know are two completely different things. I find myself more inquisitive and less likely to just accept the answers I get. I like it. I am learning by asking questions in an effective way.

We read an article called "Bootylicious" and after we were finished discussing any questions we had about it and we were assigned questions to answer Thom explained something that bothered me, but in a way that helped me understand. He said that the first time you read something that you just take it all in, but then you look at it and say why was this information picked out for me to find? And at first I felt a little betrayed. If I was being honest when I read an article from The New Yorker I trust it to be the truth thats all there is to it. I never thought about questioning someones motives to write what they wrote. Now that I am I think it's a great skill but at the same time I am feeling very strange looking at everything with such a skeptical view, makes me feel all sketched out.

I am now beginning to understand what the profs were saying in the beginning of the course that learning something new isn't fun it's painful and it should be because learning something new means you have to let go of something else you thought you knew. I am just experiencing this now. I hope that I am not the only one just figuring this out.

Intense Learning Reflection #1

LearningReflection

Stephanie Cunningham

Before entering Truth and Society I had a very different picture of what I would be learning. I thought that we would be doing loads of content with extra studying complete with long difficult essays. I had assumptions about everything; without even knowing it. Belief I now know is not simply a word or a term to be taken lightly. Beliefs dictate our lives. The three individual disciplines included in Truth in Society; Religious Studies, English, and Journalism are interesting not because of the subject matter, but because of the perspectives that come with them. When I am in each class I now know how to attempt to switch my thinking from my everyday lens to that of a Religious Studies or English or Journalistic lens.

When I was presented with Paden’s “Interpreting the Sacred” I couldn’t appreciate. But now that I have had the chance to put some of his techniques into practice I am realizing what an effect it has had on my day to day living I don’t think that I can ever go back to the way I saw the world before. What I gathered from Paden’s text was that he wanted us to realize that no matter who you are or what background you come from you have lenses through which you see the world. You have a different perspective on everything and that it is best to look at things from the perspective of which they are intended. I realized this in class but then last week in my Western Philosophy class I realized that the reason I was having such a difficult time trying to understand it was because I was looking at the subject matter from a scientific lens and not that of a philosophical lens. When I thought of this and tried to switch my point of view it worked!

Paden’s frames and lenses are shifting my reality and forcing me to see how things could be another way.

In English class we worked with ‘Doubt: a parable’ for a long time. I now understand why which is great because now I understand why I look for a deeper meaning and how to differentiate between coincidental placements of terms, words, sentences, or even character descriptions. I know that in order to see if someone is placing a particular president in a play it’s maybe not for the reason you first thought. For example when we were talking about Father Flynn’s first sermon I was intrigued by the fact that this was a play about Catholicism so Shanley used the only openly Catholic president while talking about national tragedy. Before Truth in Society I would not have given that choice of President anymore thought, that’s just one huge thing that I am learning and that’s the art of properly asking an effective line of questioning in order to get to the most important part of the text or situation for us which is of course “how do people come to believe what they do?” Studying ‘Doubt: a parable’ also helped me to appreciate a writers craft. I honestly never knew how much work it was to write stories that you could study intensely like Shanley’s ‘Doubt’. I was concerned that maybe some of it was coincidence or chance but it was apparent after almost all of the examples were linked together that these were no accident.

Journalism class is so revealing. Each time I go into that class I leave feeling as if society has been deceiving me for years. The stories we read at the beginning were important because they showed me things that I think maybe I was choosing not to see in modern journalism. I now am aware of the fact that journalism is not just about delivering facts in a clever way. After seeing Michael Harris speak I now know that journalists have a commitment to their communities and society to give a voice to those who desperately need someone to fight for them, like in the case of Donald Marshall. This part of the course has taught me that things aren’t always as they seem. And of course I thought that I knew this before, as I thought I knew how to be a journalist, but I didn’t realize to the extent that this was true. I know never to assume things but when it came to the news I was being provided I trusted CNN or CBC to me they were reliable to give me the facts I needed to be properly informed about the world around me. Now I know that journalists can only say some much and sometimes as a consumer I am not getting the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have also learned that journalism has a purpose even when it’s not being used to broadcast the latest headline. When we watched the movie in class “College Days, and College Nights” I noticed that maybe there was no immediate demand for a story of that kind, but it still had some wonderful elements of relevancy.

I feel like the most important things that I am learning are hard to figure out, but once I understand it is as if a light bulb has gone off. I know that I am gaining appreciation for academics, journalists, and religious scholars. I know that I am more interested in most everything I am doing in finding the root cause and effects of any issue, for example when a classmate comes to me and says “I hate that NB power has recently been sold to Quebec it’s not right”, instead of thinking ok sure that’s your opinion and you are entitled to it I ask “well what makes you believe that it’s a bad thing?” I am learning that beliefs are powerful and as tangible as knowledge they are the cause for wars, loss, victory, protest, and the moral structures of society just to name a few. I am a formation of my belief and I respect that I am marinating in a different society than someone my age in university in Hong Kong.

It has taken me what I feel is a long time, but as I look back I have learned how to effectively question things, when and where to find the meanings behind what is being said, appreciation for things I thought I previously understood, and that what people believe will be fascinating to me forever more because of these courses and there focus.

Entry #5

So these past few class sessions for each discipline I feel like I have been learning more than I have thus far in the course. I am learning to appreciate things that I didn't think about before. Like in Religious Studies we are learning about some aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, and I have in all honesty never even realized that there were different types of Buddhism. Also we are reading their "Book of the Dead" it's not easy but I don't want to give up I think it's important for me to finish it and try my best to comprehend it.

In English we have effectively kicked the dead horse with this whole "Doubt" situation, but I was impressed that Russ could explain to me in a way that I clearly understood it why he was doing this and how it's not to torture but to teach.

I love love love Journalism class. This turning point assignment is really interesting I love how challenging it is. It's my kind of assignment just because I love working on it. I am realizing that as cliche as it sounds everyone does have a story that can break your heart.

Entry #4

So this week in Truth in Society we are getting a little more intense. The assignments are a pretty tough. I am learning lots from them, I wish I knew of an effective way to communicate that. I am presently working on an Aquinas assignment. When I get a chance I will elaborate.

Entry #3

This week in Truth in Society we finished our discussion on the Rwandan genocide and we split off into our individual disciplines. I like the split classes I find them more interesting then when we were together as a group. I liked how we had some really interesting discussions and I liked Russ' first assignment. We had to read about 1/3 or so of the play Doubt. The next night I went and saw it, I thought that the acting was fantastic and it was a real struggle to decide 'who do I believe?' In the end I believe that Father Flynn was innocent and that the nun who accused him acted to quickly and without evidence.

Entry #2

So this week in Truth in Society we have been researching the Rwandan genocide. This is a result of choosing the article from CBC.ca about the Rwandan- Canadian man on trial for war crimes committed in Rwanda, but being tried for them in Canada. So far I like this assignment enough to pursue it, I must admit that I am getting a little bored with it, but I think it's important to following through with it.

I have learned a lot about academic resources as well as the most appropriate way to use sites like "Wikipedia". I was not aware that it is best used as a starting point. I have been using until now as a reputable source while researching for school projects or if I just wanted a more clear picture of what something is. It makes a lot of sense that using the citations in Wikipedia is more useful than just using the presented contents. I guess I have just not really questioned where the information was coming from I was always just happy to find it.

I like that I am learning that questioning things helps you better understand the world I live in. I knew that asking questions was really the only way to get answers, but I am now seeing that I haven't been asking the right questions. If had just re-framed my questions I may have found the answers I was looking for.

Entry #1

What I have learned since September 10th is that I am not as off beat as I thought I was. In the last few years I have been questioning a lot of things in my life and in the world of which I lived. Whenever I would talk about these questions I would almost always be blown off or told 'not to worry about it so much' or to 'just go with it'. That wasn't good enough for me. When I heard about this course I was effectively stoked, and I rightfully so. The day that we all went over prompt #4 three different people commented on my passage as being the one with the most impact for them that made me feel really great for a few reasons first that I was so scared that what I had written was meaningless when I was it on the prompt I was shocked. Then after that I chose someone else's because I didn't want to use my own I still felt insecure about it. After I spoke three other people talked about my section that taught me to not be so insecure and showed me that maybe insecurity was my 'fatal flaw'. In high school I usually didn't participate in discussions in fear that something I said would make me look stupid. After that discussion I went home and thought about what a disservice I did myself and my class by not sharing my opinions. I made a decision that night to start telling people what I think and not being afraid of developing my own ideas and concepts. I found that I learned when we worked on the articles in groups on Thursday Sept. 17th. In my group all the articles were so diverse we had the most interesting discussion that I had ever taken part in. And that was the key I really explained what thought and was prepared to back it up as was everyone else it made it so dynamic I learned not only about the evolution of fairy tales, someone who went to jail for throwing his shoe, and revolutionary sight technology. I got to see from the perspective of someone other than myself I got to see how my colleagues had interpreted their articles and mine. When Justin told our group about how ill his half brother was the entire group was even more engaged and it exposed some more issues about society then illness it brought up questions like "Why aren't there more medical innovations like this one?" and "Where is all the funding going if not to the people who can't pay for there medical treatments?". And that is what I have learned so far in Truth in Society.