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Amber Hochstetler

Instructor William Reader

Synthesis #4

December 2, 2020

Adapting To The New

As we start to get older in this world we must start to adapt to new ways of living. Being

able to accept change will help you grow as a person. As you get older we have more and more

responsibilities. Some of these new responsibilities can be very serious. They can affect our jobs,

our health, and our social life. If we start to have an open mind about change, then we really can

start to grow not just by ourselves, but with our community. I know that not having an open mind

can seriously affect the way you live life. In order to keep a job we must always keep an open

mind. Technology is advancing and they’re many new ways of thinking, and if you can’t learn to

think critically, or learn new technology then you might not be able to keep up with others in

your workplace. Even the way we are learning is changing. Having different learning habits can

help you with learning your material. Learning habits help us to succeed, keep up on our work,

and to learn in a healthy way. As we get older society is changing, and the standards are too. As

we are growing we need to be able to have different learning habits, be diverse, and understand

the concept of having to change and better ourselves from our own mistakes.

As we start getting older we start to develop different learning habits, some of them

aren’t going to always work though. In high school you might have been able to cheat on a test,

but once you get to college or even into the workplace this is not acceptable at all. According to

Mike Rose, “Students were coming to college with limited exposure to certain kinds of writing

and reading and with conceptions and beliefs that were dissonant with those in the lower-division
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curriculum they encountered.” (Rose 37). Some of the students Rose talks about in his article

have bad learning habits. Some of them cheat, and some don’t take responsibility for their

learning and start to blame others for his learning. People who cheat at the higher levels of

education like college don’t always seem to understand the repercussions until it is too late.

Being able to adapt to new learning habits like flashcards, practice quizzes, and even just

studying for an hour or two a couple days a week can help you develop healthy learning habits.

When we think about our learning we must think of the goals we have. According to Jack

Mezirow, “Often, adult learners’ immediate focus is on practical, short-term objectives﹣to be

able to qualify for a driver’s license, get a job or promotion, or teach a child to read. It is crucial

to recognize both short-term objectives and long-term goals.” (Mezirow 8). Most people as they

get older don’t look at long-term goals. Yes, accomplishing short-term goals is great, but we

have to look at the bigger picture sometimes. Developing good learning habits can help us to

complete long-term goals.

Learning to be diverse can be hard, but being diverse can help you adapt to new things

like your workplace, or even in school. Being diverse can make you unique, and standing out

from a crowd will help you later in life. Just because you’re not like everyone else doesn’t mean

you don’t have the right characteristics for the job, or anything actually. Appiah says in his

interview, “The first way I think you need to work to disentangle all the problems of that way of

thinking is to recognize the huge diversity of values by which people are guided.” (Appiah 28).

Everyone grows up differently, and can be taught different standards, and different ways of

thinking. All around the world they’re many different values, and being diverse can help you to

understand these differences. Being diverse can help you do understand why people are different,

and what makes them different. Mezirow says, “We can try out another person’s point of view
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and appropriate it, but we cannot do this with a habit of mind. Points of view are more accessible

to awareness and to feedback from others.” (Mezirow 6). Jack Mezirow says that we need an

open mind to different points of view to be a better learner. Having different points of view is

helping you to understand situations better, and allowing you to become more diverse and open

minded. Being open minded to new things helps us to see situations from different perspectives,

and helps us to get a better understanding of others. Both of these quotes talk about how we need

to be open minded to others, and understand different situations from different perspectives. In

certain situations we can only be thinking of things from our point of view, and that can be a

problem. Being diverse and open minded can help us to understand what others are thinking, and

why they think the way they do. Being open to change is something that is necessary to live.

Change is something that everyone goes through, and needs to learn to accept. Some

people don’t take change well, even something small like a change in their appearance. Jack

Mezirow says, “As we move into the next century and more technologically sophisticated

industry and service sectors, work becomes more abstract, depending on understanding and

manipulating information rather than merely acquiring it. New forms of skill and knowledge are

required.” (Mezirow 8). Being able to change and develop will help you to become a better

person, and an even better worker. Understanding that workplaces can change can help you have

an open mind to these new changes. Mike Rose says, “It is not unusual for students to come to

the university with conceptualizations of disciplines that are out of sync with academic reality.”

(Rose 41). Some students have trouble adapting to new changes from high school to college.

This can make learning difficult for students when they start out at college. Teachers in high

school have different expectations than professors in college. Finally Appiah says, “A lot of

values, including moral values, are fundamentally practical. They shape what we do, and they
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shape what we do very often without our having much rational basis for them.” (Appiah 29). We

have certain things that change our ways of thinking, and change what we believe in. Our values

can sometimes make change a hard thing to accept, and you can’t be open minded either. These

three quotes all have a way of connecting to the concept of change. Jack Mezirow explains how

change is required in the workplace, Mike Rose talks about how change is required in the change

between high school and college, and Appiah discusses how different morals can make us the

way we are and how we accept change. All three of these quotes talk about a different part of

life, but they all explain how change is healthy to these different parts of life.

These three articles have helped me to understand things differently. Mike Rose helped

me understand what kind of student I should be, and what things aren’t acceptable in school.

Jack Mezirow taught me that change is something that is necessary in the workplace, and along

with that an open mind is required too. Finally, Appiah taught me that the world is different and

full of diverse people. Appiah also explains how differences in culture are okay, and how we

learn to accept everyone as they are. These articles have helped me realize how I want to be as I

grow up. My first synthesis paper taught me the kind of learning habits I need to lose to be

successful with school. My second synthesis paper taught me the kinds of characteristics I

needed to become successful in the workplace. Finally, my third synthesis paper helped me

decide what kind of person I wanted to be. These three articles have helped me to understand

different learning styles, become diverse, and to understand that change is good.
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Works Cited

Ikenberry, G. J., & Appiah, K. A. (2006). Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of

Strangers. Foreign Affairs, 85(3), 151. doi:10.2307/20031977

Mezirow, Jack. “Jack Mezirow on Transformative Learning.” SpringerReference, 1997,

doi:10.1007/springerreference_302280.

Rose, Mike. “The Politics of Remediation.” Conversations in Context: Identity,

Knowledge, and College Writing. Kathryn Fitzgerald, et al., eds. Heinle &

Heinle, 2004, pp. 32-45.