I suppose that this is essentially a journal that people read and give comments. Most people don't do such because their thoughts are private. I am one of those, but for the sake of my grade, I'll suck it up and go with it.
My first day of class was not what I expected, first of all, there were more than 15 students. Most night classes like this usually has like less than 15 people. It was strange but not unwelcome. We started off the topic on "Pono". Which is Hawaiian for Balance. There are other terms such as correct; to do right; right action. It is the antithesis of lie, cheat, steal, murder.
When hearing this, it makes me think that pono is similar to Buddhism. The teacher said that pono is a way of life, much like Buddhism where one reaches a higher elevation, not in the position of power, but of oneself and their beliefs. Pono is a way of life to reach out and balance oneself from the rights and wrongs of life, which is hard because there are always some type of right and wrong in life. There is probably as many right things in life as there are winners in a lottery. Do I think that pono is achievable? Sure, but only when you have lived most of your life and plan to settle down. The point where you don't have to work anymore and just enjoy life as it is, is the point in which one could obtain pono.
I think the most important experience I had with this class so far was the exercise with the blind folds. The plan was to give 20+ people a number and some how arrange ourselves into chronological order without talking or giving any obvious thing away. I failed that task rather spectacularly by not moving too far from my spot and theorizing what should have been done with the teacher. It was sad that with all the chaos I was listening to around me, I felt that it cou;dn't be accomplished. I was wrong of course, no one is ever truly correct, and most of the class was able to align themselves. There were some problems here and there, and although the exercise was a failure, I did learn something. First is to never give up, there are things I could have done, such as manually going through and touch #1 from the door and count to my number, or I could have communicated with the people in the back via taps. Either way I was disappointed with myself in the end.
I did realize though that adults are much different than children. The video we watched prior to this experiment explained that children could figure out simple solutions to various questions or puzzles given. The experiment may or may not have been a success, but I did realize that children think differently than adults. As we grow, we are prone to thinking within a specific criteria: life, future, mate, reproduce, etc. All of which happens during and after puberty. Where as children ages less than 12 have yet to reach that point and thus think outside the box. Or at least less seriously. What are we going to eat today? Is my favorite cartoon on? Mommy kissing Daddy is gross. Girls have cooties... In this sense, children have the ability to see the simple solutions. Whereas adults would still be contemplating the different factors that would lead to the results but may or may not actually make it to the results. I find my self rather scientific, so when I mulled over various ways of reaching a goal, but did not actually but effort into obtaining said goal, and then realizing that everyone else had made it, it made me sad. But as I learn from this mistake, I can conclude that sometimes mistakes need to occur to help us learn. And children learn differently than us grown-ups. With that, one can also conclude that everyone learns differently therefore teaching methods are effective and ineffective among different individuals.
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