Overall Class Reflection…it’s over, so what did I learn?

Well I definitely didn’t learn what I expected from this class, which was a greater idea of international organizations, and current issues. But now I think that these things are what one follows in one’s own time. Filling the mind with facts, and “being aware” is no good, if you can’t do anything with that knowledge. This is why PTJ focused our class on debate, and discussion. My favorite classes have always been class discussion based. Why? I would say because of that whole “critical thinking” skill that discussion and argument teaches and hones. I though PTJ’s description of our class of Friday was interesting. World Politics was simply the context of the subject we were focusing on, analytical argumentation. With this perspective in mind, I think our class was successful. The blogging component of the class kept us reading, analyzing and thinking outside of class. Blogging is definitely a new mode of discussion for me, one that I am just beginning to feel comfortable. However, being able to read and comment on everyone else’s thoughts exposed the vast and varying ways we all reason through and find conclusions to different issues. Even if most of us reached the same conclusion to a question, we did not always support that conclusion with the same reasons. To me this was the most interesting part of our class, seeing how and why other people think and act. I also appreciated the common thread that PTJ managed to pull through our in and outside class discussions, readings and lab visits. This class was difficult at times for me, because it touched many times on the issues to which there are no easy answers or which can seem too large to grasp at times. We were given questions that were tricky in their simplicity, Should we? Is it right that? Most of the time I didn’t even want to begin thinking about the questions, and I definitely did not want to think about what might constitute an answer. This class forced me past my unwillingness to struggle with unanswerable questions and for that I am most grateful.