The Role Of Autonomy In Education

To begin with, something in chapter 10 that I agree with is the concept of autonomy. This is simply the capability to change what is around you such as the lighting or temperature. This concept is further explicated on page 339 of our textbook and I think that it should be an integral part of educations. A way that I have seen this in play is through a multi-genre research project. The teacher allowed my class and I to pick through a number of reporting options over certain topics that we also had the ability to choose. The capability to decide exactly what we wanted to do offered us the freedom to choose something that we were interested in. Autonomy in a classroom is extremely important because it puts the ball in the student’s court and allows them to learn more about the things they are interested in and learn in the best ways for each of them personally. …show more content…
This is the idea that a person’s understanding and competence does not grow over time, but rather remains at the same general level permanentally. Another way to look at this would be at one of the kids in my class’s opinion of himself when we were seniors in high school. I had been tutoring him for years to try to keep him on the eligible list, but he was still unfortunately at a sixth grade reading level. No matter how hard I tried or what techniques I used that year, he just wasn’t improving. When sports were finally over for the year, he suggested that we stop the tutoring because he no longer saw a point. To him, there was no advancing or getting better because he didn’t have the ambition. I can remember being so upset because I knew that if he just wanted it bad enough, he could continue to improve. I agree with the opposing view, the incremental view of intelligence, which in essence means that a person gets even smarter the more they study and try. Both of these concepts are found and explained further on page