Many possibilities present themselves as I consider an idealistic imagination of the impact of a first-year writing course on any given student. I think, necessarily, my ideals will differ from others in my position, and I am constantly reminded of the various issues present when labeling anything as “good” or “bad”, especially, when it comes to individual students’ experiences. That being said, I do believe that there are important ideas being presented to the students in our English 101 courses that could, potentially, change their lives. Whether or not they decide to fully take on this responsibility of deep learning and exploration is another issue.

In the most idealistic sense, I imagine our class serving as a microcosm of the students’ intellectual, physical, and philosophical futures. My hope is that the agency and adaptability that we afford them extends far beyond their homework assignments from English 101. I think, at the end of the day, we are working to disrupt the system of education that relies on the passage of ideas from one central, “learned” teacher to the willing, moldable students. Instead, I hope that this class can encourage students to ask questions important to them, to search out information or sources that are reliable, and to embrace the necessity for individual, student-driven movement towards higher understanding. In this sense, I hope that our course functions as an adaptation to their conception of learning rather than an introduction to previously “established” knowledge.

This idealistic vision connects to the alternative to the banking model of education that is refuted in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed. While I agree with the message of the second chapter of the work, I am always slightly skeptical of overly hopeful conclusions. While, idealistically, this style of learning would encourage a better world for all according to the liberal values that are often espoused at academic centers, I fear that this learning for learning’s sake will not always end up where we expect it to. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, so to speak. I believe in the importance of people coming to their own realizations about the world and their place in it through education, however, I don’t think that these realizations will always end with positive impacts or democratic values. I am encouraged by my own realizations, and I hope that students will arrive at some of the same conclusions, but I am also aware that the outcome of student-driven, open exploration can lead to dark places as much as it can lead to light. I suppose, ultimately, there has to be this battle of ideas, and, in regards to our courses place within this discourse, I truly believe that, regardless of outcome, if students are able to embrace the tenants of this revolutionary model of learning that we will be better off, in the macro sense, as a species on the whole.