Learning to See, Reaction Paper Example

The ability to unlearn some of the things we are consistently learning as individuals is something that may be difficult for many; however, it is something that is very important to do when evaluating classrooms and teachers. It is important for teachers, administrators, facilitators and many others to realize that taking the emotions out of the context and focusing on the descriptive will allow for more good to come of any situation. When these individuals share ideas about teachers and classrooms based on evidence of what they observe rather than how they feel about what they are observing, the students and the other teachers will benefit from these that are observing them. All teachers teach differently and have different objectives; therefore, it is important to see and grasp what the students are learning from the teacher instead of criticizing the teacher for his or her style. The evidence will prove whether their teaching practices are effective. Understanding the concept of unlearning things to be able to see other things better really puts things into perspective. If we continue to unlearn things that are so common for us, we are able to learn new ways to make other concepts better for us and for others that we work with on a daily basis. Being able to look at things and describe what we see rather than what we don’t see helps us focus on the positive aspects of the classroom rather than the negative. However, it is certainly more difficult for a person to unlearn something than it is for that person to learn something. Therefore, it takes extra effort to observe a classroom with all the things we already know thrown to the side. However, it is possible and in the end, will be better for many of us in the long run. The more we are able to describe what we see rather than what we don’t see, the easier it will be to improve classrooms for our students.