Why Your Voice Is Heard

Your Voice is Heard

I can still remember how nervous I was to raise my hand for the first time in a hundred-people lecture hall. I tried to speak in front of my fellow American students. I did not raise my hand in the first class or the second one even though I knew all the answers to the questions. I said nothing, even though I had comments and opinions on the topics that we were discussing. In fact, back home in Taiwan, no one would ever raise their hands or say anything during class, even if they had something to say. This past habit of not speaking in class prevented me from raising my hand. In this third class, I knew that if I did not say something then, I would have never spoken up in any class here after. I knew I needed to do something,

American students are encouraged to ask questions anytime during the class. They comment on other people’s opinions. Even more, they could disagree with the professor and clearly state out the reason why. A lot of communication goes on between instructors and students and between the students themselves. Here, professors emphasize the process of learning instead of standardized answers. In my auditing class, we needed to create an auditing procedure for identifying financial frauds. Back home, instructors expect students to know the standardized textbook answers. I always had a hard time with that because what I had in mind was always different from the solution manual. In contrast, American teachers emphasize the process of thinking instead of pursuing standard answers. They accept a variety of responses if you have a legitimate reason. The very act of instructors who highly value what students have in mind encourages them to speak up. They even welcome wrong answers because that would help the entire class to think about what could make it better. We even learn how to correct our mistakes or guide ourselves back when we are lost. For the teachers, education is not about getting the correct answer but about learning. They are there to get people motivated to learn and to facilitate learning. I believe that is why American

Oftentimes, professors get to know you on a personal level. They get to know your name and where you are from. Even though it takes a lot of time, they grade your essays and exams on their own. Back home in Taiwan, it is the teaching assistant’s job to grade the writing assignments because professors are too busy conducting research. They do not have time to know their students, not to mention to grade student’s work. It is totally different here as in the United States. Professors get to know you not just by a number in a grade book but by what you say in the classroom and what you write in your essays. For me, I know if I state my arguments with certain topics in my essay, my opinion will be read and valued, instead of just being graded. In an essay that I wrote, I compared the high school education system in Taiwan and America. In Taiwan, most of the prestigious high schools are same-sex schools because the legislators thought that keeping the learning environment simple would make students learn more effectively. Contrastingly, American high schools seldom have that because they think that socializing with others helps learning and prepares them for college. In that essay, I let my opinion be seen and recognized. I also let my American professor know how other countries are doing their high school education and what the cultural reason is behind that. Within