In classrooms, conflict is necessary to achieve student abilities to devise their own perspective and form different judgement on a topic which helps gain knowledge. In the essay “Other Voices, Other Rooms, by Gerald Graff, a professor of English and education writes about “the chance to try on a variety of clashing ideas, to see what they feel like, is one of the most exciting opportunities an education can provide”, which is known as conflict in a classroom.
While keeping a degree of pluralism and diversity between subject, teacher should have a level of communication when presenting material. The outcomes are rewarding for student who go to a “university with already developed skills. actually learn about a subject even though it contradicts one course from another, rather than spending time trying to adopt an instructor views. Depending on a person values, they will determine to share their own perspective on the topic. That creates conflict in a class, which not all students are going to give their own thoughts.
Numerous students that get confused throughout a lecture and agree with the professor to obtain a good grade even though it is seems contradictory to their eliefs, they lose the essence of the concepts and convictions which are being presented before them (Graff). According to Graff, “No self-respecting educator would deliberately design a system guaranteed to keep students dependent on the whim of the individual instructor (Graff 338). They are willing to let go the opportunity to learn and simply agree with the professor. Rather than challenge their point of view, they will tell them what they want to hear.
But there are student like Graff, who reflected Conflict benefits students to back to share his learning experience when he was a student in ollege enrolled in modern poetry and a 17th century English literature class. He says, “Only later did it dawn on me that studying different centuries and clashing theories without having them brought together had made things much harder since it removed the element of contrast” (Graff 340). Throughout the outcome he states that contrast is fundamental to learning and in order to fully grasp the concept, and the subject needs to be understood in relation to other ideas.
As seen, teacher have different views and bias and instead of just assuming the student are familiar with the theories they are eaching, which in turn helps, them to make connections and for their own judgement. thinking by being able to reach their full learning potential, despite the wide range of diverse. In a student’s life, they take a variety of courses. There solution is to simply memorize what they need in order finish the exam with a passing grade throughout the entire course. After the class, they push it out of their mind immediately, then the focus is on their next teacher ideas.
Students believe what is learned seems so specific to only one course that it is difficult for students to see it applied to other’s. here are lack of communiticaton through learning departments there for create a bigger problem. Like professors don’t consult each other, students may be in one class supporting a specific topic and in the other against it. In other cases, two courses that most people think they have nothing to do with each other, yet they do because professors use different terminology, which causes the students to be unable to connect ideas they are learning.
The outcomes is that Students focus on the individual professor than the greater picture of the actual course. For an example, after a student is done with their final xam they clear there mind in order to be ready for the next class, rather than embracing the knowledge they actually gained. To sum everything up, Graff compares students trying to learn a series of unrelated courses to someone attempting to Conflict encourages students critical learn to play baseball but only by being shown each part of the game separately.
Seen students view each concept of baseball in a different room, they don’t know the accurate understanding of the game and it suppose to be played. The agrument is that with the lack of communication with professors, students aren’t eeing the whole picture and they are only learning what individual professors want them to learn. Plus, in the article Journal of Political Science Education, by Rauh Jonathan, mentions that active learning, like in class debates, is use to improve meaning and increasing understanding of complex Although in the essay How Male and Female Student Use Language Different by Deborah Tannen, materials.
Contractdicts Graff and Rauh views of class conflict because she believes current people are in a disadvange caused by there speech pattern. There is no solid evidence for here generalizing claims. For example, throughout the essay, Tannen suggest that men have an advantage of a better speak pattern in a classroom due to “exhibiting their skill, displaying knowledge, and challenging lenging and resisting challenges”(Tannen 346). It’s true, after analyzing a reading boys are more likely to challenge and disagree with the information.
Women would do the opposite to avoid any discussion and if they talk they’re most likely to agree with the other students. In fact, that all happens in an early stage in students life, as they start to enter college women are more open. Women are the once’s ontrolling class discussions and men are in the back of the room acting cool. That all has to do with your values and they change over a period of time. seems to contradict most of the information she provides, which weaken her points. She states that “I treat everyone the same.
But treating people the same is not equal treatment if they are not the same”, but she didn’t display that throughout her class experiment(Tannen 349). For example, She broke the classroom into small groups to analyze the reading. The way she divides the class into groups is by “ the degree program they were in, Throughout the essay she ender, and conversational style (Tannen). That’s not treating everyone the same because she’s making exceptions for students. In that case, yes, she might be helping students get into their comfort zone to talk and learn, but might be hurting other students education.
It’s obvious that people shouldn’t have equal treatment if they are not the same ,but people should have the same opportunity. For example, a teacher can’t treat a disable student the same as to an average student, but the teacher can support them with more help to have the same opportunities in class. For another example, a Japanese woman as the biggest talker in the class. Then she was to put into a small group where she didn’t do that well. She was ” overwhelmed by how talkative the female students were in the female-only group”(Tannen 348).
Many students have different needs to participate, but a teacher can’t satisfy everyone’s needs. Treating everyone the same might be easier from a teacher perspective, but student with major needs should get it. That’s why there Disabled Students Programs and Services in school. In a classroom, conflict is needed to reduce the lack communication within the classes at any college. students ould immensely benefit from cross-communications, sharing ideas, debating and discussing the conflicting perspectives with classes that are related.
Helps students see the big picture, just like the baseball example that Graff’s gave. If conflict used in the classroom there’s no worrying about a student choosing to earn good grades in classes rather than speaking up and giving their point of view. Even though, theirs are other people like Tannen, who think conflict doesn’t help a student gain knowledge. She does not provided any solid evidence where she can disclaim any Graff’s point or even challenge one.
