My First Semester At Touro College

John Locke was the forefather of the Educational Constructivist movement, which theorized that children and learners construct their personal knowledge in both social and individual situations. Though his opinions were often disputed, Locke had many opinions and theories of the habits and social conventions for the education of young children. Specifically, and perhaps most importantly, he believed that “It is more accurate to think of the child’s mind as a blank slate, and whatever comes from the mind is from the environment” (Crain 7). This ‘blank slate’, or tabula rasa idea founded the theory of nurture. According to his theory, as babies we are born without knowledge of what we should fear or how we should act, it is up to our environments to teach us how to act and behave.

* john locke. (1994) emphasized the role of experiences as fully contributing to behavioral development. Locke set out that the human mind at birth is a complete, but receive “blank slate” upon which experience imprints knowledge.

John Locke’s theory of children being blank slates when they are born really struck a chord with my own reasoning of the mechanics in how a child is able to learn from birth to youth. Before I knew Locke’s theory existed, I reasoned that babies are blank slates from the moment of conception and not at the moment of birth. I believe I developed that concept when I became a new mother reading several parenting magazines and new mommy to be books. I gained knowledge that there are new found scientific studies that can prove babies do begin learning as they grow in the womb. Paul (2011) stated, “When we hold our babies for the first time, we might imagine that they are clean slates, unmarked by life — when in fact they have already been shaped by us, and by the particular environments we live in.” This concept has greatly influenced my personal learning philosophy of when children first begin their life long learning process.

I loved learning about Locke and his philosophy’s because he mainly focused on the child’s character. He focused on who the child was becoming as a person rather than focusing on what the child was doing. Locke’s educational philosophy had six main points, first of them being Self-Control. He taught about how we need to focus on the child’s physical health, and how to be firm with them if we want them to acquire self -discipline (Crane pg 9). The second point is, Best Rewards and Punishments which deals with how we reinforce our children’s behavior. We need to praise them for good behavior, but never for behavior that is “unreasonable or self-indulgent” (Crane pg 9). The third point is Small Steps, we need to help them get over their fears. Locke wanted to have children grow up to be brave and that can’t happen if we don’t help them overcome their fears. We can’t rush them into anything though, we need to take small steps and just work with them. The fourth point was Rules, which had two rules that we should follow. The first rule is to be a good role model because children learn from example. The second rule is instead of issuing commands, practice the desired behavior that you want to see with the children (Crane pg 10). The fifth point is the Children’s Special Characteristics which mostly deals with him saying that, “children have their own cognitive capacities that set limits on what we can teach them” (Crane pg 10). The last point is Academic Instruction which mainly

The first year of college comes with many changes and challenges. These changes can include the food in the cafeteria, study habits, time management skills, and much more. Every student has to find their own way to handle the first year and determine what works best for them. For many the most essential change is living away from home. Campus life provides opportunities to become a part of a unique, diversified community. With these opportunities come challenges, such as having a roommate, being away from one’s parents, and determining self-limits.

Such as Descartes, Locke wished to determine how the human mind acquires knowledge. He believed a newborn child was a blank slate and knowledge

John Locke, a British philosopher, focused on the role of social environment and experiences in education. Locke believed that children’s minds were blank slates. Meaning we are not born with any innate notions or abilities. Locke consider the mind “to be...white paper void of all characteristics, without any ideas.” (Crain 7) The mind is very pliable and ready to accept new information. Locke believed children learned in four ways, the first of which is associations. What this means is that we simultaneously think of two things and associate them. For example if you get sick after eating at McDonalds, you might feel stomach pain every time you see one. The next way is repetition, or doing something several

Locke: Like I wrote in my piece “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, my view on education is that it is one of the most crucial roles in the development of a person in every way. As a baby you are born with no knowledge, and education is the one thing that shapes you and your thoughts, because you don’t know otherwise than what you have been taught. Education molds not only your “school smart” abilities, but it also molds your social skills which shows a lot about a person, your social appearance can tell a lot to a person who know little about you.

Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education criticizes the teaching methods of that time and suggests improvements but it also covers a wide range of other topics like how children should be dress, what they should eat, the importance of regularly going to the bathroom, and the need for physical activity, all of which goes towards making a “sound mind in a sound body” (Locke, 1692, sec.1). Locke (1692) states the importance of education when he writes, “that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education” (sec. 1). Although Locke’s treatise on education was written for “boys of the gentlemen class” (Shouse, 1931. p. 25), it was implied that he was writing for the education of all children, including girls. Locke’s educational theory emphasized nurture over nature because as Henson (2003) states, “he introduced the idea of tabula rasa or blank slate, proposing that at birth the mind is a blank slate the only way to fill it is through having experiences, feeling these experiences, and reflecting on them” (p.7). Locke believed in finding a virtuous tutor when children were young to lead them by good

Tabula rasa” this is how the educationalist John Locke, (1632) believed children were born, with a “blank slate” beginning their lives morally neutral. He also wrote that “the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences. He argued that the “associations of ideas” that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are the foundation of the self. Locke, (1632) also argued that because a baby’s mind was so malleable a parent could mould them with careful diligence. However Kohlberg (2004) was one of the first theorists to address gender as a learned, cognitive concept. His thinking was influenced by Piaget, who portrayed children as active learners who use interactions with their environment to construct an understanding of the world around them (Piaget, 1961). Kohlberg believed that children’s cognitive understanding of gender influenced their behaviour (Kohlberg, 1981).

It was my second week of my first college class. Not that I was out of high school yet, but being a junior, I was close. As I walked down the sidewalk to my class, I followed the strange shape of an imperfect circle, looking at the multiple paths I could choose to go down. I singled out the shortest of the twisting paths that directed me to the lowest entrance of the math department's building, while watching others come and go. I thought about what each person on the paths were coming from or going to. I went through the tall, glass doors on either side of the T shaped hall and I was standing right in front of the elevator. Then, as I felt the familiar regret of taking such an early class three times a week, I waited patiently for the elevator to reach me.

John Locke was one of most influential to educationalist theory. They believed that children were born as "blank slates", beginning their lives morally neutral. From this point of view, infants were neither inherently good or inherently evil. A child 's nature and personality would develop over childhood, a period of time during which the educationalists believed a child was particularly impressionable. Adults surrounding a

Imagine that you and your mom are on your way back from picking your little sister up from school; your first year of college starts the next day. Life is good, no worries, no pain. Sitting at a red light, you think of what is for dinner tonight while your sister talks to you about her day. Suddenly, you see a car coming way too fast from the lane perpendicular to you. Before you even have a chance to scream, you close your eyes as the car hits the side of your car. All you can think of is if your sister and your mom are safe in the backseat, as the car violently rocks back and forth. This was my story, I injured my lower back during this accident, my mom has two herniated discs in her neck but thankfully my sister was not injured. The driver of the car who hit us was texting and driving, he had no idea what he was doing or that his car was out of control on the road. Smart phones have led to many more distractions to most people driving. I have seen so many people on their phones while driving more so than five or ten years ago. Some people may say that they need their phones for navigation or if there is an emergency. Yet, it only takes a second for an accident to happen. Although smart phones have been getting smarter, I think that most people are obsessive and without restraint with their use of smart phones especially while driving; in order to combat this there needs to be a mandatory device in cars to save lives.

I remember my college orientation like it was yesterday although it was almost a year ago. Our school’s counselor asked us to write our name with the opposite hand for me it was my left hand. It was truly an awkward experience. In that simple exercise, she summed up how we were going to feel during our first semester at college. For many college students the first semester is filled with countless memories of seemingly silly things that they wish they never did alongside anxiety and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, for me my first semester of college landed me at the Roy Schneider Regional Medical Center.

Hearing so many good things and bad things about college I didn’t know what to expect and look forward to. That change my junior year knowing different college come every year I didn’t really pay it any mind what college I wanted to go to until ODU, Virginia State University and Virginia Teach came. It was Virginia State first year of visiting out school and I knew I wanted to go there I start getting e excited for college that were talking about their experience at college and what to look for when we graduated if we decided to go to college. Eager to start a new chapter college sound like it could be a little nerve wrecking but I thought I could handle it.