Learning by Living by Shannon

Learning by Living by Shannon - October 2014 Scholarship Essay

The word "classroom" often times brings to mind a stuffy room made up of gum encrusted desks, graffiti filled textbooks, and a prehistoric TV. In my mind, an idealistic classroom has no walls, because learning should never be confined to a fluorescent lit box. Life is a classroom, our elders are the teachers and our memories are our textbooks. An ideal and successful classroom for me would be one that abolishes the term “classroom”, and instead adopts a new approach to learning, which would make education less of a task and more of a part of living.

It was John Dewey, an educational reformer, who once said “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” It is through his words that an ideal classroom should be modeled. Education should not be something that halts the day you graduate, but something you strive for until your last breath. Education should not mean learning just enough to pass the test and move on to the next grade, it should be learning valuable things that can be used to benefit and aid others. So therefor class should always be in session, the dismissal bell never ringing. The ideal classroom should cultivate the minds of its students to learn from life itself.

By simply observing the world around us, one can gain invaluable insight. To attain this insight, a person needs to be willing to search for it. Which brings up the next aspect of a successful classroom; the teacher and students’ feelings and attitude toward the classroom itself. How can someone teach something if they do not have a passion for it? Well, now a days many do, but the teachers that have stuck in my memories and taught me the most were the ones who passed on their own love for the subject to their students. Of course, why teach something if no one is paying attention? Many students complain about how boring their classes are, if only they put forth an effort to seek out the interesting parts of it, they would find the class much more enjoyable. In order for a class to be successful it needs to be a community of attentive students and passionate teachers.

In my opinion, the ideal classroom that would be most successful would teach students to treat life itself as a classroom.