Leslie: Some Stuff About Me

Some Stuff About Me & A Response

I am a number of characteristics that somehow have been genetically and environmentally engrained into a person that just happens to go by the name: Leslie Eigle. I realize that sounds ridiculously scientific, and as if I copied it off of a scholarly article, but I promise you I didn’t. For some reason, writing about who I am is always one of the hardest things for me because I never know how to begin explaining who I am. I guess that can go along with part of my story as well- that I am constantly evolving into the person I hope to be. Wow, I’m so deep. As you can already tell, I am a mix of a nerd and easygoing human that at times can’t decide what priority I should tackle from my to-do list first, or how to begin constructing a simple response to an English 431 prompt. However, in regards to large-scale life decisions or group decisions, that is where I contradict myself. So, on one hand I’m a person that can never decide what to wear before stepping out of the house, and on the other I easily co-manage the women’s club soccer team and handle my utterly insane family in Orange County. As I am still deciding what else I could possibly say about myself in this response, I recognize that I’ve simply just been rambling random characteristics in hopes that I avoid descending to the level of a fifth grader who just lists things about themselves like, ‘I am a Virgo. I am an athlete. I love chocolate.’ (Those things are true about me by the way). Please feel free to laugh at me because I am currently doing so.

On a different note, I’d like to point out that the main reason I’m here is due to Kim Jaxon’s recruitment skills from two semesters ago when I had her as my ENGL 341 professor. She described the course in a way that I knew it would benefit my development as a future teacher and as a writer. Even after having only attended one class period, this course has provided me with the kinds of tools I plan to incorporate into a classroom of my own one day. Plus, who wouldn’t want to take a course where you can openly cuss and not feel guilty about it later.

In regards to the Forward to Situated Learning, there was one statement that truly stood out to me in terms of how an individual acquires knowledge. William F. Hanks states, “The challenge of this book is surely deeper: Learning is a process that takes place in a participation framework, not in an individual mind. This means, among other things, that it is mediated by the differences of perspective among the coparticipants. It is the community, or at least those participating in the learning context, who “learn” under this definition. Learning is… not a one-person act” (Hanks, 15). It’s clear that Hanks sees learning a process that occurs among on the participation and communication of multiple people. However, the piece of this quote I find most interesting is his mentioning of learning being mediated by the differences in perspective among those engaged in the learning process. My interpretation of this statement is that learning occurs when two or more people discuss their perspectives on a new idea they are attempting to organize into their brains. And from the discussion, the participants learn not only from the new idea, but from their peers’ perspectives because it places the idea under a new light. I find this to be absolutely powerful because it’s an idea I plan to implement into a classroom of my own: that learning cannot occur without the discussion of another’s interpretations of new material. In other words, I want my students to see themselves and their peers as each other’s teachers, who constantly learn from sharing their perspectives and ideas from the material I present to them.