On my first day of class in INTD 105 my Professor Dr. Beth McCoy asked the class what we thought of the course epigraph listed in the class syllabus. The epigraph was a small excerpt from the book “Blood Child” by Octavia Butler and is stated here: “If we’re not your animals, if these are adult things, accept the risk. There is risk, Gatoi, in dealing with a partner.” During class due to the quotes ambiguous nature several interpretations arose, however I believe this quote could be used to characterizes a mutual unspoken agreement between students and our teaching institution.
I believe this agreement leads to a partnership built upon trust and accountability from each party, and if observed it’ll lead to a successful learning process. First of all, us students need to be able to trust in ourselves, as well as the learning process that has been laid out for us by our professor. We’ll be expected to push the envelope in terms of our current abilities. These heighted standards are shown in Dr. McCoy’s syllabus for INTD 105 where it is listed under Values “Learning: embracing high expectations for intellectual inquiry, scholarly achievement, and personal growth”. I believe that if us students are unable to have faith in ourselves and the process, we won’t be able to grow as learners. I think this situation can best be represented by a quote by Henry Ford, “whether you think you can or you can’t, either way you’re right.” Secondly, students must remain accountable, “if we are adults”, we are expected to act as adults would which means taking responsibility for our actions and inactions. Along our academic journey we will inevitably stumble at one point or another, whether it be missed classes or a failed exam. However, the real test of whether or not we are achieving accountability comes from the actions that we take after we stumble. We can take a mental inventory of what happened, why it happened, and how it happened, then use that information to better ourselves in the future and prevent it from happening again. On the other hand, we could choose the unaccountable reaction, which is taken by many students, which would be to forget about it and simply hope that it doesn’t happen again, because the thought of it makes us uncomfortable. The importance of accountability in the learning process can’t be understated, I see this mentality is demonstrated in the Dr. McCoy’s syllabus simply by viewing the essay assignments, which all offer an opportunity for a rewrite. I believe these opportunities could help guide students towards being able to better self-reflect and assess. Being accountable also means that we won’t cheat, because in doing so we’d be circumventing the learn process that has been laid out for us by our instructor and thus preventing ourselves from growing. This sentiment is also expressed In the Course Syllabus for under the Academic Integrity and Plagiarism section where it states the importance of originality. Further more students must remember that to be accountable we must respect yourselves and those around us. That means giving our full attention to a lecture and not allow ourselves to get distracted with phones or side conversations. If we do allow ourselves to do these things, we’d be disrespecting ourselves by not getting the most out of our education and those around us by becoming a distraction to their education. In my opinion this is what’s necessary of us student in order to ensure the partnership with our intuition is a beneficial one.
For the learning process to work, trust and accountably is also required from our teaching institution. Our teaching intuition is required to trust in its student and our abilities to meet our responsibilities. If an institution’s trust is misplaced in a student that doesn’t live up to their expectations, then they would potentially be giving that student the spot that another, more deserving, student could utilize to a higher potential. Our teaching institution also needs to be held accountable to provide its students with the tools and information they need to be successful. I believe this means that it should be able to provide adequately sized rooms for classes to be held as well as areas for students to study. In addition, they must make clear what they expect from there students as well as what their students can expect from them. This means making information like how grading is done as well as assignment due dates readily available to students. The importance of make information and expectations known to student is demonstrated by the sheer length of the course syllabus as well as when Dr McCoy mentioned in class that most of the expectations listed in the course syllabus have a story behind them. This shows the importance of information in keeping both us students and our teaching intuition accountable. I believe this is what’s need from the teaching intuition in order for the learning process to run smoothly.
These are a few reasons why I believe the epigraph could be a characterization of the relationship between us students and our teaching intuition which is built upon mutual trust and accountability. In addition, as I was writing I began to think how I played a role in this proposed relationship as a student. This led me to my goal for this course which is to learn to be more trusting and confident in my thoughts and abilities as well as to become for honest and reflective with my short comings.