Recycling The Gift: The Passion Project II

            In the opening sequence of the film, there is a JFK quote that starts by saying, “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, and we are all mortal.”  With that quote being said, JFK basically gives the whole theme for the film.  We as a society must look at each other as human beings rather than separating ourselves from each other by placing each other in a “category”.   I truly agree with that statement because if the more competitive the world is, the less productive society will be.  One interesting quote that caught my eye was Eric Heltzel’s quote.  He says, “It’s survival of the fittest, you adapt or you literally die, you won’t survive.”  I find that very true in today’s society.  We as a society have become so competitive, that everyone must fight for his or her own good, and if they fail is their entire fault.   

            The topic of comparing the classroom to an ecosystem was intriguing to me.  The ecosystem must contain an “organic learning” system that allows individuals to interact with each other.  While with “greater diversity within an ecosystem or classroom means a bigger buffet, thus the healthier the ecosystem of classroom can be.”  This theory of the classroom being a diverse ecosystem can really help the school system.  Individuals with different opinions and interests will interact with each other and always learn something new or hear something that they have never heard before.  

            However on the other hand, I disagree with the problem posing method of teaching.  When the teacher acts as an “authorial figure” that tells us to think, it is more of memorizing important information rather than processing the info that was given to us and learning for ourselves.  When a teacher implements a system that is more “discussion based” I feel I am able to learn new things that spark my interest.  In one particular section of the film, they talk about Adam Smith’s narrative about how the system of education leads to people being “simple and redundant”.    To me creativity is everything.  Without creativity, individuals would just be plain and boring.  Carmen Johnston offers a very interesting quote when she says, “Creativity is about humanness and I think that our education systems are about dehumanization—they are not about being more human.”  With that said, our system is flawed so much, that it restricts our creativity to thrive in this system.   Without creativity we become “robots” to society.  Creanna Shine quotes, “It just creates this system that turns into more of a robotic process rather than an actual, creative self-fulfilling, learning process.”  Our system prepares us to be working “robots” that are designed to sit in an office from 9 to 5 and be dull. 

            In my own experience, I tended to learn so much with a discussion-based class rather than a non-discussion based class.   I have learned things from different people with different backgrounds and it opens my mind to the world.  Everyone is distinct in their own way, and when you can share different information from different backgrounds, the classroom can flourish with diversity and just be simply aware of the different backgrounds of individuals.  Also in my experience, I had a teacher who was more interested in learning about us so he can teach us based on how much he learned from the class.  Every class he would take notes and interacts with us so it would be a fun and productive class.  I strongly believe that if the teacher and the student work together, society would be a much better place.