Reaction to the Podcast
After listening to the podcast, I instantly felt refreshed because of Stephanie’s views. I love how she tells her students, “You don’t have to know everything when you step into a classroom, but you have to want to know everything.” I found this relieving because often in GE classes, I feel obligated to have prior knowledge before the first day of class. For example, I was in an AMST class at the beginning of the year that was moving pretty fast every class, and it seemed like everyone had prior knowledge of the course. On the other hand, my religion teacher wrote on the powerpoint on the first day of school, that there is no prior knowledge required for the class. I was instantly relieved when I saw this, given the fact that I ended up dropping out of the AMST class and picking up a new one. I think that what Professor Payne said is extremely important and makes students feel more comfortable with the class. This comforting type of atmosphere helps the students stay engaged and interested in learning.
I also admired the fact that Professor Payne requires that groups of students go to lunch or dinner outside of class. Professor Payne says that this “breaks down barriers of assumptions about each other”. I think this is a great requirement because students, like myself, often just go through the motions of everyday class and don’t step out of their comfort zone to meet new people. In my spanish class last fall semester, I went to lunch a lot of times with 3 other girls in the class. We still keep in touch now and one of them became my best friend. Even though Spanish class is over, we still go to the same place to get lunch, which is Northern Cafe. We continued the lunches into the spring semester last year. Even though my teacher didn’t require these lunches, like Professor Payne does, it helps to create bonds within the students. This also helps with judging people before meeting them. Sometimes, I usually am a culprit of this. I make a final judgement about a person without actually getting to know their personality.
Hopefully, the spring semester is in person so that everyone can be together. I believe that online class is affecting students’ social aspects because it’s hard to communicate with other students and get to know them through a screen. I couldn’t imagine being a freshman and not knowing anyone, and having to meet people online. It’s hard living social lives through a screen, but there is nothing we can do about it but stay positive.
