As I prepare to continue my blog from last semester, I can't help but hope to gain more from this project this semester over last. Last semester I was a little lazy and not too energetic. This semester I hope to keep up my blog with interesting posts that spark interest and hopefully some comments. Oh goodness, comments. Thats another thing I have to work on. Commenting on other people's blogs with regularity. How will I learn to have an opinion (because lets face it I don't really have one on anything) and think critically?
According to an article from News in Science at abc.net.au/science/news, blogging should help me do both those things. Anne Bartlett-Bragg, who is a lecturer at the University of Technology in Sydney makes many wonderful points about blogging in the article. She says, among other things, that blogging makes students think critically. It also causes students who are normally shy and withdrawn to really engage themselves and make their opinion heard. Students also have to learn to take responsibility for what they post. Anyone can read the blog so it had better be correct. Receiving comments also helps students. It lets them know that someone is listening to what they have to say and has an opinion of their own on it. I know that whenever I get alot of comments, it really helps me keep blogging because I'm interested to see what others have to say.
All in all, I'm pretty optimistic about this semesters blog. I really hope to make this one a good one and maybe even keep it up after the year ends.
1 comment:
How will I learn to have an opinion (because let’s face it I don't really have one on anything)?
I wanted to write back about this question because I have been reading a book about why students in college have so much trouble with having opinions. The book is by an English professor (no surprise, huh?) and it’s interestingly titled Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind.
According to this book, school prevents students from thinking and having opinions. So ironically, if you’ve been a good student, you may have learned that having opinions was bad, aggressive, and even challenging to the authority of your teachers.
The book’s author, Gerald Graff, gives another answer to our blogger’s question. You may not have an opinion because you don’t perceive of yourself as a public person. Graff notes that it is common for students not to want to take on the role of a public spokesperson. As he puts it, “It’s as if students can’t imagine any rewards for being a public actor or even imagine themselves in such a role.” Maybe they are relativists who think everyone is entitled to their own views, or maybe they are cynics about the power of persuasion to change anything in the world. Or—and he does not say this but I think it’s possible—maybe they are fearful of asserting themselves because others might disagree and judge them. In their first blog posts at least a half dozen students said things to the effect that at least with the blogs, they can be anonymous and not have to take the risk of saying what they think out loud in class.
And all of this makes me happy with my decision to have you blog. It’s easy to say “My opinion doesn’t matter,” but as Graff concludes, the Internet can reverse this common American cynicism about persuasion. So I think the first step in having an opinion is recognizing that your opinion matters. And that discussing opinions does not have to lead to fights. Discussing opinions is what learning really is, not memorizing facts.
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