The Hardest Lesson Learned

The most difficult informal lesson I learned was one I learned because of my mother. I was born to teenage parents. They married young and then divorced after a short time. I was only three years old when my father and I moved into my grandparent’s home away from the city and away from my mother. My father felt that I would not benefit from a life in the Bronx at that time; he saw the community changing and did not like the changes he saw. I did not spend a lot of time with my mother, only every other weekend. My memories of these visits are mostly of spending time with my grandmother. Unfortunately my mother was more interested in drinking and doing drugs during my childhood. I spent times with my grandmother while my mother was in the hospital or simply in bed because she had either drank too much or too many drugs. When I was very young I did not know this is what my mother was doing. I just thought she was sick, which she was, but not how I thought at the time. When I was about 8 years old is when I have some more specific memories of my time with her. I remember her taking me to buy drugs and I watched her use those drugs. I also remember her drinking so heavily one day that she did not know where we were. At the time I was 12 and I was able to call my aunt who we were supposed to be visiting and tell her where we were. That was another weekend my mother spent in the hospital. Not only did I learn to never use drugs I also learned to cherish my children. What my mother exposed me to is nothing I ever want my children to be exposed to. While it is not an easy discussion to have with young children, they know a little about drugs and how bad they are. I have not shared mine and my mother’s experiences with my children yet. I do still feel they are too young to grasp what I saw. I also learned that my mother was very strong. When I turned 16 she stopped drinking and doing drugs. She finally took it seriously and never turned back. Unfortunately as I grew up, got married and had children my relationship with my mother faded. She does not know my children which makes me sad at times. However, she still has a lot of growing up to do, even after almost 20 years of being sober. For this reason I have decided that it is better to keep my children away from her… at least for now.

Non-Formal, Informal and Formal Learning Settings

My knowledge of the subjects I have learned have been developed mostly in formal settings. Learning about Photography, History, Spanish and 3D animation have all been in the classroom which I consider to be a formal setting. Learning how to juggle my many hats is more of a non-formal setting while taking online classes is more informal.

I feel that in formal settings I take my assignments and lessons more seriously. Knowing that a grade will be given at the end of an assignment or a semester weighs heavily on the importance of the task at hand. I have a lot of time invested in school and in the end I want to do well. When all is said and done, I will also have a lot of money invested in my education and do not want to waste it on having to retake any classes. These formal lessons are long term goals I am looking to achieve not immediate knowledge that I expect to understand.

Generally I prioritize my school work over my house work (just to use an example). At times I do wonder if this is the right approach. I can not leave my house upside down and in utter chaos while I’m sitting at the computer writing a paper. The upside down house leaves me sitting at the table distracted about the paper.  This more non-formal lesson of being organized and prioritizing when my studies vs. my housework should be done is an ever fighting battle. I continue to struggle with prioritizing when to do the laundry vs. the paper.  While the laundry does not have a deadline associated with it, we do need clean clothes to leave the house each day.  Life lessons are more non-formal in my opinion because they are specific to me and have to do with my environment. I do not learn about these lessons while listening to a lecture on The Civil War. It may be in the middle of the grocery store that a new life lesson hits me.

This is my 6^th online class at Marist. I also took a number of online classes through my previous employer. I even took virtual classes which were slightly different than the forum posting type setting of iLearn.  I would submit assignments directly to the teacher via fax or email.  This type of setting is more informal, although for me I do take it as seriously as a classroom setting. This alternative type of education allows for a mother of 2 children who works full time (me) to take classes that I need to complete my degree without having to adjust my work schedule.

Each setting has advantages and disadvantages. A formal classroom setting is how I learn best. Being immersed in classroom discussions each week is most effective for me. The down side for me is being in class 2 nights a week until 9PM. Simply put, it makes for a long day and I am exhausted by the time I get home those 2 nights a week. Non-formal lessons really do not have advantages or disadvantages, these lessons will happen no matter what. The lesson will have either a negative or positive connotation but I feel that the setting is neutral. What I like about informal settings is that I do not have to attend a class and can work at a different pace, not slower, just different. If I need to ‘go to class’ in my pajamas at 8AM, I can. If I am sick, I do not have to miss out on ‘class.’ However the down side is that at times I miss the interaction. There have been times when I have completely misunderstood assignments because there was no true discussion about said assignments.

While non-formal learning will happen every day for us, formal and informal settings may not. Even though I do feel that I learn better in a formal setting, I actually prefer a mix of the formal and informal classes. It allows for more flexibility for me and also allows for me to take 3 classes a semester rather than only 2 classes a semester.

Mark K. Smith, “Non-Formal Education.” 1996; 2001 Last update: September 3, 2009
http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-nonfor.htm (used only for clarification on the different types of learning)

Strengths and Weaknesses

Dr. Royal, you truly have me thinking differently about my education. I wish I took this class when I began at Marist last fall. However, I began as an education major and this is not a requirement for an education major. Honestly, I feel this class should be a requirement for ALL students no matter what their major. This class would be especially beneficial for young students who feel they are sure of what they want to do when they graduate yet have little or no experience in the professional world which can often times alter what we want out of a career and our lives in general. After many years of working in customer service positions, mostly insurance, I can say I do not want to do this forever. Actually, I do not want to do this for much longer. That is what brought me to Marist.

I am both anxious and excited to work on my degree plan. I found the last online session very interesting because I find myself trying to plan for the next semester as soon as I possibly can. I find myself planning far in advance for graduation and I feel really great when I register for the upcoming semester. Designing my degree plan is an assignment I am looking forward to completing. I feel that knowing what lies ahead helps me to feel more organized with my education goals.

Often times I find it difficult to point out my positive sides. Is it my right side, left side, front side? I just don’t know some days J But seriously, it is difficult for me to say, “I do this and I do it well.” Over the course of the last year what I can say about what I have learned is that I can take on a lot more than I ever thought. I work full time, I have steadily taken 9 credits for 3 semesters and even took 6 credits over the summer. I have two young children, I played on a women’s softball team over the summer and somehow I manage to have stayed sane. Okay, mostly sane. I thought of Eleanor Roosevelt’s saying just now, ‘a woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.’ I am the tea bag and all my hats are the hot water. I have learned about Photography, History, Spanish, various films, novels and I have even learned some really difficult 3D video animation. All of these subjects combined have given me a wealth of knowledge in a short period of time which I plan to use when I complete my Bachelor’s and move on to my Master’s.

What I struggle with the most is making all of this work for me effectively and maybe even more so, efficiently. Often times I am running on empty or waiting until the last minute to submit assignments. Each week I promise myself I will get ahead of the assignments for each class and then I find myself up at 11:59PM submitting that final online posting. One day I ran around in 4” heels on campus desperate for a working printer to print my first paper for a Psychology class I am currently taking. I did not succeed yet was grateful when my professor allowed for me to email her the assignment. Last week I simply overwhelmed myself and when I forgot my assignment for the same class, well, I broke down in tears. A 35 year old grown woman, a mother no less, cried to my teacher because I was so overwhelmed with work, school and the events of the week. I suffered from poor planning on my own part. I was alone in my office at work, coupled with some personal stress and I simply broke down. It happens from time to time.

Once again, I have made this promise to myself this week to get ahead of the assignments. So far I am feeling good about this. They say that it takes 21 days for something to become a habit, whoever they are. Let’s see how things look in 21 days and if I can get ahead of all of this work I have coming up. It really is a balancing out for me. I think that as adults we suffer from challenges teenagers do not have to deal with. It is not just about having a full time (or part time) job and a family. Simply put, as an older individual my stamina is not the same. I can not stay up until 2AM working on a paper and then function the next day. Youth is no longer on my side. And yes, there is the family and the full time job. Some areas of my life are not flexible. I have to be flexible with the areas that are and do my homework in every moment that I am able to all the while keeping my head above water.

Learning Styles

I prefer to try things out rather than thinking them through in most situations. In class, often times I find myself determining the assignment and jumping in. I will research as I go along but feel the need to have something in front of me other than a bunch of garbled notes. I suppose that I feel more accomplished when I have a paragraph written rather than an outline.

Over the summer I took a Film and Literature class. I was very excited at the beginning because I knew we would be reading books and watching movies like Harry Potter, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Hamlet. I dove in and began reading my first short story before class even began. All was off to a great start. As anyone who has taken an online class at Marist knows, classes are condensed to only 10 weeks yet material is covered as though the class is 16 weeks long. Online classes can be more difficult and time consuming than on ground classes. I waited far too long to begin my midterm, an essay on only one scene from Hamlet. I had reviewed the notes on the paper, yet I really glanced over them. I learned my lesson when my grade was delivered, the worst grade I have ever received in all of my life. As an active learner, quite possibly the absence of a class discussion about the paper is one problem for me with online classes. While I had the professor at my fingertips, I thought I understood the assignment yet I grossly misunderstood the task at hand. I saw the big picture, typical as a global learner, yet passed on all of the detail. This has me watching my assignments more closely. Because of the schedule I follow with work, school and family I do struggle with managing my time still. Maybe I work best under pressure, under the ticking clock. I loved the class, I just wish I had not spent the second half of it working as hard as I did. Don’t get me wrong, I work as hard as I can in all of my classes, I had to work especially hard these last 5 weeks though just to squeak out a passing grade. I did not go back to college to ‘pass’ or ‘get by.’ I returned to college to give it my all and get back a wealth of knowledge. You can imagine how disappointed I was when I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain. While the class itself was not difficult, this one assignment was although the difficulty was self inflicted. It did force me to realize that I can not just glance over my assignments with only a few hours to put into such an important task.

In the spring I took Nutrition. My professor was engaging and informative. All of the information she brought to the table can be useful to any one of us. She afforded the opportunity for the class to work in groups as well as individually. I feel that she involved each of us in class discussions each week which helped me to learn well. Often times she showed films about various subjects such as anorexia, poor eating habits and one that sticks out regarding a particular treatment for cancer patients. As a visual learner when it came time to take a test and write about these subjects, I could close my eyes and remember the films to get a clear picture of the subject. What made this class a positive learning experience is that I took away information I could use every day in feeding myself as well as my family. Not all classes allow for us to use what we learn every day. It is one of the few classes I kept the book for as well as all of my notes. I look back every now and again when one of my kids are sick to see if there is an alternative method to helping them out rather than grabbing an over the counter medication.  The information learned in this class will help me for years to come.

After taking a couple of learning style questionnaires I think this was probably the most accurate. I took this one http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html. The results point out that I am an active, intuitive, visual and global learner. I do not fall in the middle of any of the scales. I like to be a part of learning by doing, discover new possibilities, see the material in some way visually and I have a tendency to look at the big picture. These are very accurate in my learning style.

Maslows Needs

Earlier this year I had to take a Spanish class. I truly feel I have never struggled so much in a class in all of my education career. Unfortunately, I was not alone in the struggle in the class. The teacher changed the syllabus almost weekly and was terribly disorganized. Couple the constant changes and disorganization with a condensed class (8 weeks), working full time, two kids and taking 9 other credits bringing me to full time status for over a month and I turned into a pile of mush by the time I needed to work on my Spanish homework. Partly I feel I was having a Wonder Woman moment, thinking that I could pull all of life together and get an A in every class. I had this severely high need to achieve. However, I did the opposite of a typical individual with a high need to achieve and took more risks than I normally would. The biggest risk for me was not doing well in school during this time. My motivation was to complete the classes I needed for my degree of study at the time and do well at the same time. All without burning out!
Starting out my confidence level was high. I anticipated a great class. In the end I made an amazing friend who I love dearly, yet received a D in the class. The friendship alone was worth taking the class. The learning experience was harder for me to grasp at first. I did not want to admit to taking on too much, shhh, I still do not want to admit to taking on too much. I suppose I can say that I learned that I am self-confident because I took on a great challenge, worked hard and absolutely refused to give up in the end. I moved on, or rather moved past it. I would have to say that my motivation was extrinsic in the sense that the obvious external reward was completing the course and doing well. I am more motivated when the end result comes from within and I truly enjoy myself at whatever it is I am doing. Taking a class that I must take that ends up being a tornado of mistakes most definitely was not enjoyable for me.
I feel that Maslow would say that this not being an intrinsically motivated experience interfered with my need to achieve an A in the course, or even a B for that matter. My heart was not in it after the 2^nd class when I recognized the insane pace I was living. The grade aside, I learned very little. I have a stack of index cards filled with Spanish words, phrases and places, yet I can not put together a sentence in Spanish to save my life.
In the end I am grateful for having taking the class. I now know that it is okay to take a step back and not be Wonder Woman at all times. I am still taking on 9 credits while working full time and being a parent to two young children. It is still a lot, however, it is more manageable. I have a higher level of motivation and confidence when I am not as stressed, as I was earlier this year.

Influential Teacher

Describe the teacher who has had the greatest impact on you. I had to think long and hard about this assignment. Quite honestly I do not remember much about my very early years of school---kindergarten-third. I could only remember if I liked teachers or not through the rest of elementary school and even into middle school. High school is even somewhat of a blur. After all I did graduate in 1993! Unfortunately my professors at Dutchess Community College just did not do much for me either.

When I began classes at Marist I was nervous, to say the least. While I was very excited, I really felt like a fish out of water. My first class which began in September 2009 was History of Photography and my professor was fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed his lectures and really wanted to be a part of his class. I took the class more seriously than I had in the past. I truly believe a lot of my interest in the class and determination to do well had to do with my professor.

When I did poorly on my first test he did not sugar coat things for me nor did he discourage me. I spoke to him and asked for extra credit, there was no extra credit. However, he did not feel that this was the end of the line for me either. I was concerned that one poor grade would affect the entire semester for me. In the end, I got an A-; obviously that one test grade did not hurt me. What impacted me most was that he never rushed me out the door at the end of the night. To some this may not be important but he took the time to get to know me and asked questions about why I had gone back to school. I never felt like ‘the new kid in town.’ He always included me in class discussions as any good professor should. There have been times in the past when I have felt as though professors have had their favorite students and others were not included in discussions. As an older student fitting in can be challenging. I was not concerned with the other students so much; however, I felt it was important to have a good relationship with my professor. At times when I felt that I could not get through my studies he would have encouraging words for me saying that I could do it and that just taking the step to go back to school as an adult showed my determination to earn my degree.

I feel that if I had a professor who was less compassionate or less interested in my education, I may not have done so well in the class or the semester for that matter. At times professors just teach the book as it is, word for word. I never felt that way in his class. I truly felt that because of his experience, knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject that I learned so much more. I had such a wonderful experience in the class that it made me realize that I wanted to be on campus more than taking online classes. I found that I really wanted to be a part of the classroom because of this professor. On nights when I just wanted to go home after a long stressful day at work I would think about how interesting his class would be and how I really wanted to learn more because of his love of photography. He inspired me to want to be in class and not just go home and turn on the television for the night. I am thankful for this professor because he helped make my start at Marist a memorable one. I suppose I should let him know this one day.

Saturday Night

I started this blog for my Perspectives on Education class at Marist.  I hope you will join me through my journey in the class and throughout the remainder of my time with Marist.  Although I do not anticipate my time with Marist having an end date.

A little over a year ago I decided I wanted to go back to school.  I had  no idea where to begin.  I called two schools, Dutchess Community College and SUNY New Paltz.  I figured I would start my college career when I finished it last in 1995 (DCC).  I did not get far at SUNY & started thinking about other schools to contact.  I called Mt. St. Mary's & Marist. 

I will never forget the day I pulled onto Marist's campus.  I literally held my breathe when I saw the view as I meandered through campus & ended up lost down by the water rather than at Dyson Hall in Graduate & Adult Enrollment.  I called my advisor & said, I think I'm lost :)  He guided me not only to the office but through the process of becoming a student at Marist.  I really did not expect much after my first visit.  I was filled with excitement at the idea of attending Marist, however, I kept thinking, I'll never afford this.  Then I got that packet, you know, the thick acceptance packet.  I opened it, hands shaking & saw the folder that said congratulations!  I took pictures of the folder & letter.  To this day, I swear to you, I carry the letter inside my folder in my school bag.  Yes, I am serious.  It means more to me than I can describe. 

Over the course of the last year I have completed 6 classes at Marist.  I expect to graduate in 2012.  I am enrolled in the Integrative Studies program with concentrations in Pysc & Communications. 

Thanks for following my blog.