Elizabeth Soto

Ways of Knowing
6/7/16
Reflection Essay
Reflecting Back
This year in Ways of Knowing was interesting. The last three terms of my life in this
class have been harder than most other classes I've ever had to take. However I found myself not
just learning the material, but also learning a lot about the world around me and about myself as
a learner. I really excelled when it came to the second term. I personally grew as a person and a
learner from term two and onward. I learned from other people's perspective and found it
immensely fascinating to hear from other people for once. To learn how they critiqued things and
why they thought a certain way. I also was able to grasp onto the four goals that are laid out at
the beginning of the year and fully understand them now. By applying assignments that I've
accumulated throughout the year I was able to connect them to the goals in enriching ways. I
went in not completely understanding the goals and not realizing their purpose. However, now I
feel that they are very important and we learn them because it sets up a good understanding of
what should be taken from the world of school and learning.
The first goal was diversity of the human experience. This was meant to teach about the
vast array of people that experience the world. Everybody interprets and lives through the world
in their own unique ways. While I am not a judgemental person on anyone's way of thinking
(sort of), I never completely found myself being able to actually sit and listen to someone who
shares a totally different way of thinking than I do. Either sharing a different opinion or having

the same opinion but thinking about a different way. I found it very fascinating and wonderful to
hear other people's way of thinking. It was a nice vote of self confidence to share my own way of
thinking for once. I chose a journal from the first term of Ways of Knowing because I thought it
contributed to diversity because it is a different kind of article than what most teachers would
present to a student. We got to read about what sort of characters you'd come across in the
summer of love in San Francisco in the 1960s; the way the story was narrated you could almost
feel that you were there in the middle of the summer of love. It's important to understand history
and what happened in the past. The story also offered a diverse cast of characters, though most of
them were very odd, it did let one see into what sort of people you might find in San Francisco at
that time and how they felt and thought about things that might otherwise be portrayed
differently in today's day and age, such as drugs.
The second goal was ethics and social responsibility. Social responsibility to me and from
how I apply it to the concept of it to this class is that it's how an individual meets the expectation
of being "socially responsible." That means that they have taken it upon themselves to take
ownership for their own actions. Whether those actions be good or bad and they also take
responsibility for whatever consequences that their actions produce. Your beliefs are also not
your own, you have a responsibility to share it with the world. I believe the critical analysis I
wrote on Gould's NOMA principle demonstrates this well. The principle that states that science
and religion (western religions) should exist as two separate bodies of knowledge. It would be
socially responsible to make them two completely different things. It would stop (or at least help)
the conflict between the two. Science should not answer questions of religion and religion should
never answer questions of science.

The third goal was inquiry and critical thinking. Inquiring about something is 'to ask' and
'to want further knowledge of a subject.' While you inquire and learn about this subject you are
also learning to critically think and apply these concepts to life. You should also be able to
critically think about why you think the way you do. What is the text or the painting telling you
to think? That's the sort of question you should be asking when you critically think. I believe that
the Learning Episode paper that was done at the end of second term applies this concept very
well. This paper was where we (the students) had to develop our own definition of learning
based on what we've been given this term to take from. We were left to analyze these articles in
the way we wanted, we were able to interpret all this information and base the definition of what
we decided was the most important in the concept of learning. This paper represents inquiry and
critical thinking because it wrapped up everything we had been going through and analyzing
ourselves through the term to comprise into one solid idea; which what is learning? We were
able to learn why we think the way we do. What sort of things influence ourselves and what we
can (or cannot) take away from it. However learning and our ways of learning are not set in
stone. Sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks, it just might take a little longer than
usual.
The fourth and final goal is about communication. Communication was a key and
fundamental part of this class. To communicate you must take into account the diversity of the
audience so you are able to be open minded and consider all the different points of view that are
present. Social responsibility is key to communicating; you have to take ownership of what you
are saying. Even if that means that you misconstrued something to another person. Finally
inquiring and critically thinking are what make communication worth even doing it. I believe the
research project from this last term represents communication very well. It was to test whether or

not people had a color preference within their food (in this case, candy) choices. Would they
chose a candy or be drawn to one first by simply observing the colors. This demonstrated
communication because there was a lot of communication between the team about what exactly
was being tested and how it should be tested. What steps exactly needed to be taken to execute
this experiment well. The paper itself also had to communicate the results well, they needed to be
understood explained clearly.
This class showed me a lot of interesting ways in life that I never thought about. I'm not
going to lie and say that this class made me a better writer, because frankly it really didn't. It
made me a better learner. Now I can examine how I, myself, learns. That is frankly more
important to me than knowing exactly where a comma goes. I can recognize what makes me
learn something better and in turn see how other people can learn. I am capable of learning in
different ways and seeing what is the best option for me. I am not a talker, I never have been. A
lot of my thought process is internal and I don't see the point in speaking out loud unless I have
something profound to add to the conversation. However this also kept me from realizing that by
verbalizing my thoughts, even just talking out loud to myself, helps me grasp onto concepts
faster. That does not mean that I all of a sudden like to speak up in class unless I'm comfortable
with it; it means that I now know how I learn better. That I think in a very verbal, illustrated way.
Even simply reading something aloud helps me understand it better. That's the biggest thing that
I have acquired from ways of knowing this year. That and the confidence boost that I have
gotten. Being called on by a teacher and them actually listening to your contribution really helps
your thought process. They talk back to you and converse back and forth to help with thoughts
that maybe were not completely formulated. I think that's one of the most important things I took
from this class.