When it comes to integrating experiential learning in to
learning in character and citizenship, I look at it as bridging the gaps. I say
this because no matter who you are you learn better by doing something hands on
and learning from your mistakes. I am a prime example of my own theory, when I
first came to college I felt like agriculture wasn’t ready for someone like me
and I didn’t fit in. Honestly I didn’t try to either everything I did was to
show how hood I was, how tough, real and different I was from all the other
white students. I felt like other people’s perception of me didn’t matter at
all, when I was only making myself look like I didn’t belong in college at all
more like in prison or a street corner.
It took a year before I honestly started noticing change and the better
person I was slowly becoming.
when it comes using experiential learning what help me was
meeting new people and being put in situations I was very uncomfortable with
like helping check FFA advisors in to competitions, or talking to people from
colleges I was planning on transferring to which helped me the most. My advisor
just let me grow on my own he helped me without helping me I would say. All the
programs he kept me involved in and steered me on to the right path, because a
lot of students you can’t tell them what they are doing wrong because they will
rebel just to spite you. You h0ave to use reverse psychology on them so that
they maximize their potential and by the time they realized what actually happened
it years down the road.
You can also use experiential learning to get a student to learn
to dress more professional, when I first came to college I didn’t own slacks or
dress shirts. It was all white tee-shirts, polo shirts, sagging pants, and Jordan’s.
When I would be out volunteering I started noticing how all people in
professional America were not in jeans and slacks and nice button up shirts
make you look a lot nicer than the latest fashion. I started buying dress
clothes, and I liked the way I looked in them so I kept buying them.
When it comes to experiential I feel that it’s my job as a
future educator to not tell a student how to fix their citizenship or character
issue, but put them in unfamiliar territory. This will help them see their flaws
and want to change them that’s what true learning is all about, not what you
teach inside of classroom walls but how you help the student maximize their knowledge
without them realizing it. If my advisor can take a loud, wild reckless, short tempered
and ill-mannered freshman from Lancaster TX and turn me into a senior who loves
public speaking events, I feel I owe the same to all my students.
