Compiling past learning experiences, requesting official transcripts, completing the application process, and receiving the letter of acceptance brought great excitement and anticipation but with it anxiety. Returning to college to complete a degree in my later age is significantly more challenging than acquiring my education earlier in life; however, it is unfinished business long overdue. This is an important investment and decision that impacts my family and me. I identified with the challenges and transformation portrayed in the 1983 movie Educating Rita, Rita is a 26-year-old working class hairdresser with a longtime burning desire to improve her social status, discover herself, and empower her life options through education.
Early
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Although the quality of Rita’s academic work is unequaled to her classmates she demonstrates growing confidence through mastery experience, vicarious learning, and social persuasion. Her academic accomplishments, exposure to theater, and invitation to Prof Frank’s home create an inner conflict as she approaches a crossroads of social development and her former working class environment. She calls herself a “half-caste” describing her disconnects from a former life of drinking and singing at the pub, and not fitting in with the well cultured upper class. Rita states, “I’m unable to talk to the people I live with anymore or to the likes of them at your house.” “Developmental teachers encourage the learner to express their negative feelings and allow them some leeway in terms of behaviour [sic].” (Brundage and MacKeracher, 1981). Prof Frank demonstrates his effort to reduce stress by accommodating Rita’s expressed sense of not fitting in. Although Prof Frank supports Rita’s desire and enthusiasm to become educated, he addresses her with concern that her quest for education may compromise her uniqueness. Prof Frank states, “What does it profit a man if he gaineth the whole of literature and loseth his soul?” Rita’s gained confidence is awkward and cocky with her abrupt statement to Prof Frank, “What you can’t bear is that I’m educated now! I can do it without you.” Prof Frank’s responds to Rita’s misdirected independence, “Have you found a better song to sing? …show more content…
Determined and focused to overcome her obstacles, Rita matures into a confident and functional learner. Her assignments are comparable to her scholarly classmates. Rita gains respect of instructors and students as she actively and intellectually participates in one-on-one, group, and class discussions. Beyond the campus Rita finds friendship with an admired and cultured roommate and takes on a persona mimicking the upper class environment. Rita goes to summer school in London and returns unlike her former self, unrecognizable as the working class hairdresser. Rita seeks the company of her classmates as she engages in scholarly dialogue and appreciation for classical music and the
The book contained Ted Sizer's thoughts on a study of high schools over a five-year period; in which he used a fictional teacher named Horace to illustrate a number of instructive examples. The mission of the program is "to create and sustain equitable, intellectually
something in his life, and Rita also says ‘ I want to be free’ which
other wise she is in good health. Rita works long hours and she is in
A teacher’s life is a collection of varied experiences and is full of invention, imposition and determination. Teaching is always a teacher’s own. Ayers sees the pieces of his own teaching everywhere. He then recounts the story of playing a Spy game with a child who, when he spied something brown, proudly pointed out herself. She had been educated to admire and proud of her difference. In the second chapter, Seeing the Student, argues that teaching requires seeing a child as a whole and a unique individual as the teacher interacts. It also presents the story of his youngest child, Chesa, who had a dogged determination while his family was worried of his stubbornness which might raise a problem. He then relates a story of working with ten-year-old kids, asking them to describe themselves to reveal their characters to their class and the teacher. Most teachers see and label their students which deprives them from the class. Ayers argues that teaching means going beyond labels. In the third chapter, he argues that one of the main aspect of teaching is creating or constructing a laboratory that promotes learning. This entails careful and thoughtful planning to enhance student learning, accommodate and celebrate one’s diverse
Lazarus, Joan. "On the Verge of Change: New Directions in Secondary Theatre Education." Applied Theatre Research 3.2 (July 2015): 149-161. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1386/atr.3.2.149_1.
I am conscious that returning to school, will accompany stress and anxiety. However I am also aware that my decision may encourage others to overcome the fear of returning to school. I can help my peers or leaving behind the “old way of thinking and behaving” (Bais and Hayes, 2011, p.5). The strategies that help me in this transition as describe Spencer and Adam were to find a mentor who can provide support when needed and accept help from family members when in doubt or overwhelmed.
He is a lazy man, bored and frustrated by his life he too does not
to the pub. We could see this by, “ Yes I shall go to the pub” and “I
Rita's education goes far beyond just reading and responding to books however. When she first comes to the university she is impressed and even a little intimidated by the intelligent people she sees around her. By the end of the play she is able to tell them when they are speaking nonsense and join in their conversations as an equal. Success in her literature course has thus given her greater confidence in the wider world.
According to scholar Jane Thompson, the “practice of freedom” allows an individual to discover his or her own ways in this world. This is certainly a case with Rita as she goes through the Open University and establishes her own hidden potentials. With the help of Frank, Rita is able to conquer through the struggles opposed to her during her studies, and come out victorious. Without the help of Frank, Rita would not have been enrolled into the Open University, and her life would not have made this dramatic change for the better. The final product of their combined hard work comes to be a new Rita, an educated woman who is confident, independent and free-willed. It did not come easy for her, but for Rita, the efforts were certainly worth it.
Although Rita knows that intellectual enlightenment is important, to Rita, education provides much more to her in Willy Russell’s Educating Rita. Rita’s education is not restricted to scholastic learning alone, her transformation from the uneducated Rita to the educated Susan is all encompassing. Rita sees and understands the importance of being well educated, but for Rita, education helps her to overcome her background and break away from the traditional role expected of a woman in the 1970s. Rita has set herself on a course of self-discovery, she has a determination to control her own life and make her own choices. Rita believes it is education that will give her these choices. Rita knows that the value of education goes far beyond simple intellectual enlightenment. Education entirely changes Rita which, though she is prepared for a change, effects her life enormously.
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is a book written by Stephen Covey. In the book he writes about seven habits that highly effective people have. The seven habits of highly effective people are: be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek first to understand then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw.
Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
Covey, S. R. (2004). The 7 habits of highly effective people. New York, NY. Free Press.
In act 1 scene 1 the stage directions are about 1 and a half pages