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Eric Callison

Eng. 111

Marisa Enos

26 April 2017

Autonomously Becoming Better

For years, many adult educators and educational theorists have studied and applied an

abundance of different teaching and learning techniques designed to help students in the adult

education community. To be able to change the students ways of thinking and have them

become more responsible and autonomous thinkers. Instead of being labeled as a novice thinker

or learner for their journey through furthering their education. To help make this leap from

novice to expert easier - a leap that may take some way longer than others - is the practice of

autonomous thinking and everything that autonomous thinking involves. Autonomous thinking is

more than just thinking a certain way, it is the ability to be able to respond, react, or develop

independently from the whole. In doing this academic move and becoming independent, adult

students find themselves making that move from novice to expert and becoming an autonomous

thinker.

Becoming more of an autonomous thinker in the adult education community is a little

tougher than most would think. Jack Mezirow writes in his article Transformative Learning:

Theory to Practice that, there are several reasons that have an effect on the students. One of

these problems might be, habits of mind are broad, abstract, orientating, habitual ways of

thinking, feeling, and acting influenced by assumptions that constitute a set of codes (Mezirow

87). And to compound the problem, students that learn through certain methods such as the

banking method will put them at even more of a disadvantage. Because with this teaching
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method students are just trying to memorize mechanically the narrated content (Freire 1.)

Learning under these styles of teaching does not prepare the student for higher education. The

problem is, is that the students are not getting the education they need to think autonomously. He

goes on to further elaborate on this aspect of learning by stating that, In Robert Leamnsons

article titled Todays First-Year Students John Dewey warned of this conundrum when he

reminded us that students learn what they do, and not what we tell them (Leamnson 83).

When in actuality they need to become more independent and start learning to think more

for themselves. There is no doubt that there is a definite correlation between overstimulation

with too much media and internet abuse to the way our brains function and affect our cognitive

abilities. These problems are definitely responsible for a major decline in the way one is able to

learn, stay focused and continuously enforce and utilize healthy learning habits. The way the

brain is wired and work affects learning habits. Robert Leamnson talks in his article titled The

Biological Basis of Learning that brain development is hugely related to learning he states that,

Learning is indeed a matter of brain development-synapses is stabilized through use-it becomes

equally clear that it cannot be affected by anyone but the learner (Leamnson 71). This notion is

closely related to what the individual does, sees, and is interacting with in their day to day lives.

And that correlates to the struggle to become more of an autonomous.

Today it is becoming tougher to stay focused on not only education but most of things for

that matter, and this is due to the fact of so much overstimulation in the form of all of the

technological advances taking place and how everything is becoming digital. Matthew B.

Crawford writes on Attention as a Cultural Problem and goes into detail of problems

associated with college students and the increasingly inability and difficulties related to paying
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attention. He says that Our changing technology and generates a need for ever more stimulation.

The content of the stimulation almost becomes irrelevant. Our distractibility seems to indicate

The student needs to be able to relate the information learned through education to real

life. The students needs make a habit of learning things that they need to learn. And then

implement these learnings in a constructive way that will aid them in learning information. Paulo

Freire explains this aspect of by saying that Paulo Freire The Banking Concept of Education

he says that the more the students work at storing and the deposits entrusted to them, the less

they develop critical consciousness which would result from their intervention into the world as

transformers of the world (Freire 2). This intern takes away from the students end goal of

becoming an autonomous learner.

The big picture within the adult education system is to teach the student how to become

fully autonomous learners. Adult students can learn something a thousand different ways but if

the students never retain any of the information the educators provide and the students never go

through the process of becoming an autonomous thinker than they will always possess the sense

of never wanting more. Instead of trying to think about a subject and bring up matters that people

may not have seen before the adult students will go on to just mindlessly ramble off facts without

knowing what they are truly talking about. They need to be able to form a habit of learning that

they can then apply to becoming autonomous.

Being presented with a style of teaching that the students like and understand or can be

involved in will surely help the students to reinforce good habits and lead themselves to become

more autonomous while thinking. Jack Mezirow breaks this down by saying that The essential

learning required to prepare a productive and responsible worker for the twenty-first century

must empower the individual to think as an autonomous agent and a collaborative context rather
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than the uncritically act on the received ideas and judgments of others. Workers will have to

become autonomous, socially-responsible thinkers (89). In order to truly become what was just

stated students and all learners alike must set goals and implement a habit based system that is

structured around becoming truly independent and actually able to become autonomous. 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 (Mezirow 89). These principles that are taught and learned need to be

evermore advancing in this fast-paced world in order to keep up with it, we must implement and

try to utilize a more individually based mindset. The adult educator must recognize both the

learners objectives and goal (Mezirow 90). Only then the two can work together to become

more efficient which helps work towards the big picture of the students success with knowledge

needed to gain degrees in fields of interest.

The students will form habits related to learning while in school that will remain for the

rest of their lives, hopefully the y are habits that will be beneficial to their success. James

VandermMey writes in Remarks on Habit that The people we interviewed are not immune to

being overwhelmed, discouraged, and bewildered, but they exhibit certain habits of mind that

steady them in turbulent times and foster humane, intelligent, and constructive responses to the

complex challenges that we face (VanderMey 16). These habits can help one with their

creativity or to produce things that they normally wouldnt. Habit can re-become a creative force

for the acquisition of new propensities, because it makes capacities available for enacting, and

something can vary in the course of that making-available and then being added to a bodys

repertory (VanderMey 17). Moreover, on something that was mentioned earlier that is to do

with specific types of teaching that steals that creative learning aspect and dehumanizes learner is
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the banking method. And in this method The humanism of the banking approach masks the

efforts to turn women and men into automatons-the very negation of their ontological vocation to

be more fully human (Freire 3). In this type of learning the learners are not able to implement

healthy learning habits because they are expected to just take in information and arent expected

to communicate at all which can really be detrimental in the long run leaving them absent habits

that they should have obtained.

The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop

the critical conciseness which would result from their intervention in the word as transformers of

the world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they

tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited to them.

The student must learn to what he or she will need to negotiate the world or more specifically

career oriented skillsets. Of course, there are types of education that will implement the learning

of beneficial habits such as communicative learning. In this type of learning, it becomes

essential for learners to become critically reflective of the assumptions underlying intentions,

values, beliefs, and feelings (Mezirow 88). Back to the banking concept where the opposite is

true. The capacity of the banking education to minimize or annul the students creative power

and to stimulate their credulity serves the interest of the oppressors, who care neither to have the

world revealed nor to see it transformed (Freire 2).

Of course, as mentioned earlier attention plays a major part in if the student will be able

to remember what they have learned in the first place. With that being said the growing problem

of inattentiveness is not solely to do with the rise in all of this new technologically advancing

world. Our mental fragmentation cant simply be attributed to advertising, the internet, or any

other identifiable villain, for it has become something more comprehensive than that, something
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like style of existence (Crawford 39). Of course, if one can learn to form habits of mind the part

of remembering material will not be as troublesome to them as it will just come naturally from

the habit that has been formed. These habits could be looked at like codes that are programed

into the brains of learning where these codes might be able to actually remove any or most active

thought the learner could just almost like open that file within their brains and the process would

just be automatically done. These codes may be cultural, social, educational, economic,

political, or phycological. Habits of mind become articulated in a specific point of view-the

consultation of belief, value judgement, attitude, and feeling that shapes a particular

interpretation (Mezirow 87). For the many years to come more and more educators in the

community of adult education will continue to practice and plant these already existing theories

for autonomous thinking into the future seeds of the world.

Trying to develop our worldwide knowledge and autonomous thinking to a greater level

is a definite must for the Transformative Learning field. Autonomous thinking and learning will

go on to be the highest used concept for the adult education community because as referenced

before it is the ability to be able to respond, react, or develop independently from the whole. If

the adult student is not able to set him or herself a part of the whole than everyone would learn

and think the same way which would cause major academic downfalls. These different cognitive

stages and transformations of the mind not only build the already existing academic community

but is one of the most widely used concepts in the world of academia. Autonomous thinking and

the many different branches and stages it embraces will always be an arguable topic but these

differences and disagreements do nothing but spark fire to bring forth even better concepts

designed for becoming more of an autonomous thinker.

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Works Cited

Crawford, Matthew B. Attention as a Cultural Problem. Exploring Connection: Learning in

the 21st Century, Pearson, 2016, pp. 36-48.

Freire, Paulo. The 'banking' Concept of Education. N.p.: n.p., 1970. Print.

Leamnson, Robert. Biological Basis of Learning & Todays First-Year Students. Exploring

Connection: Learning in the 21st Century. Pearson education Inc., 2016. pp. 65-73

pp. 73-85.

Mezirow, Jack. Transformative Learning: Theory to Practice. Exploring Connection: Learning

in the 21st Century, Pearson, 2016, pp. 86-93.

VanderMey, James. Remarks on Habit. Exploring Connection: Learning in the 21st Century,

Pearson, 2016, pp. 12-17.