In Pratt’s “Art of the Contact Zone” a lecture given to the Modern Language Association . it pushed teachers to find a more meaningful way to teach children by introducing everyone to the contact zone. The contact zone is a place where cultures collide and grapple with each other in asymmetrical power struggles. Prat uses the example of “The New Chronicle” and constructs a new picture of the world with Andean people and Not European peoples at the center of it. This shows how cultures coexist and shows exactly what is meant by “The Contact Zone”.
The thing that stood out to me the most or became my main flash point was her first example or anecdote about the child collecting baseball cards. I did not ever think that all of those things could be learned from baseball but clearly they can be. This reminded me of how I learned in elementary school I loved learning hands on things so I always loved blocks. Yet I collected cards to and I never felt like I learned any of the things that Pratt describes. However this brings to question my Idea of learning in different ways, it makes me question further whether or not there is a set way to learn or do we as students learn more creatively and effectively if we relate to the material?
The second flash point was related to Teacher and Pupil language and how most of the time we only see the side from the teachers point of view and not the pupils’. I Think more and more of student choice and the idea of independent study, I also continue to think that what might be wrong with our schooling today is that teachers are making all of the decisions for us and that students aren’t taking the initiative to learn, they are just arriving to absorb the information and pass tests. This is no way to learn. Both of these flashpoints relate to my essay #1 topic and I plan on incorporating them as soon as I edit.
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