Graci Swank

EN 101

Definition Essay

5 November 2020

What does learning ​really​ look like?

Learning has different meanings for different people. Some people think of it as a way to

gain knowledge. Others believe that learning is the path to get to their future. No matter what

they believe learning is, there is no argument that learning is essential in life. James S. Miller,

professor of American Studies and American Literature at the University of Wisconsin-

Whitewater, shows a series of photographs that capture what learning looks like (328-31). In the

introduction paragraph leading into the photographs, Miller mentions the number of games, toys,

and tv programs that enhance learning. “There are all of the TV shows … that model the proper

way of ‘doing school.’ Whatever its individual purview, each of these can be understood as an

effort to script for us the standards and ideals that define ‘real’ education” (Miller 328). As

people age and move through life, they learn new things and progress further. For most people,

learning is a natural thing that comes with living, helps people progress further in life, and comes

with looking at others' work.

While growing up, learning is more beneficial than we think.. Without even realizing it,

people learn something new every single day. In thirteen short years, graduation plans come into

view and young adults are faced with the decision of what their future will consist of. Some may

go to a university while others go into the workforce, the military, a vocational school, or a

community college; all of these options require a plan and some help to get there. Most of the
time this help comes from parents and teachers. Teachers have a substantial impact on every

student that passes through their class, even if they do not realize it. Every day sitting in their

class, students are learning their strengths, weaknesses, and passions. Teachers hope to shed light

on new areas that their students may not have known about so that in those thirteen years,

students are capable of learning what they want to do. When asked what influenced her to

become a teacher, Mrs. Christin Dush, an algebra teacher at Chillicothe High School with nine

years of teaching experience at three different schools, said, “I know math is hard for lots of

people and I wanted to be able to help them with a struggle and overcome that.” Another reason

was that she had many great teachers throughout her education who all fueled her passion to be

that teacher who brought someone to their calling. These teachers do not even realize that what

their students learn in their classes was not just strictly what they were teaching, but things that

go beyond the curriculum.

No matter what path one takes after leaving high school, there are numerous ways to do

the same job. For example, when a first-year teacher gets the keys to her classroom, she does not

have nearly as much experience as she will four years down the road. She will have to figure out

what works best for her and her class, and none of the other ways are wrong. There is no ​wrong

way to be a teacher. As long as the students are learning, the job is getting completed. In the past

twelve years of being a student, I have had many different kinds of teachers who have used a

variety of different methods in their classroom. Mrs. Dush, for example, has an interesting way

of grading her students She does not grade based on answers but with completion grades. “I

haven’t always gotten the best out of my students, because I grade [homework] on completion. I

do get some students who take advantage of it and turn in garbage” (Dush). This method none of
my other teachers use, and it still taught me something. Throughout the time in her class, my

opinion changed, and I learned that even when work was not “for a grade”, it still mattered. All

of the different methods that were unique to each teacher taught me something, but none were

the same. Two of the best teachers I have ever had gave me so much to learn in class that I am

planning on going into education. Along with Dush, if I had not had the great teachers that I did,

I would have never found my passion and my future career.

Everyone learns something new every day. Not all the daily lessons they learn are

extraordinary; they can be as simple as a new recipe, but who teaches everyone these new

things? Many people learn by watching what others do and take their ways and apply them to

their own lives. High school and middle school students often use this method of learning; they

will see how another student manages their time, how she does her work, how she spends her

time in class, and many other ways of being a better student. They can then apply these habits

and skills from each other to themselves and become the best students they can be. Along with

students, teachers use each other to gain a better knowledge of their career. When teachers begin

teaching, they likely only have the experience of being a student or student teaching, so it is

likely that they will take different approaches to teaching in the beginning. As they move

between classrooms, schools, positions, students, and fellow teachers, they will see numerous

ways of teaching and begin to see what works best for them. This process begins even before

they are teachers. To become a teacher, they have to be a student first, so this process begins far

in advance. The average length of time a student is in school is twelve - thirteen years. Through

those years, they go through many different teachers and classrooms, and sometimes even

completely different school districts. If teaching is the desired career path, those parts of every
class they have been in come into play. Going into their first year of teaching, they will have a

starting point of what aspects made them enjoy school, the best way they learned as a student,

how their best teacher acted in class, and different ways that made them feel comfortable in the

classroom, and they will use those ideas to start. In the nine years Mrs. Dush has been a teacher,

she has changed her policies just by seeing what other teachers do in their classrooms. At the

school she was in before coming to Chillicothe, she had different policies than she uses now. In

her third year of teaching, she began using different teachers and teaching methods to perfect her

own.

Learning is not a topic that can fit into a box. It is a wide-viewed topic, and everyone has

different opinions. As people grow older, they learn lessons along the way; those lessons carve a

path to move forward, and they come from just living and watching others. There is no proper

way to learn or be taught something. Some people may learn perfectly on their own while others

may require help. No matter how they learn, the most important thing is that they are learning.

Miller does an excellent job showing the differences between learning depending on the

environment the students are in (328-31). There is no chance that someone can go through their

whole lives and not learn a single lesson. It is just a part of life, and it is impossible to get

around.
 Works Cited

Dush, Christin. Personal interview. 27 Oct. 2020.

Miller, James. "Scenes and Un-Scenes: Looking at Learning." ​Acting Out Culture: Readings for

Critical Inquiry​, by James S. Miller, 3rd ed., Bedford/St. Martin's, 2015, pp. 328-31.