On Becoming a Teacherman

 

What I took away from class was the idea of inquiry can stem from many places. In the video we watched about Frank McCourt, I was inspired by the fact that McCourt truly accomplished the American Dream. He grew up from basically nothing, and through his need for knowledge and education to becoming successful and accomplishing his dreams. It really struck me as the difference of past times to where we are now is that McCourt without any sense of formal education was able to attend a University and become a teacher. That seems like it would be pretty much impossible today. It truly demonstrated that because he was curious and driven by inquiry, he was able to succeed. There was little requirement aside from the pursuit for knowledge itself that is the driving force to success and that this inquiry based approach to learning can be applied at any level especially for ourselves and our future students. The video inspired me to wonder about what education actually means and is the simple pursuit of knowledge enough as the basis of our learning? It caused me to wonder if institutional learning should be the only source of education or is there other forms Education that would work equally as well for different individuals.