As an international student “The New Education” it makes me confront myself under many ethical questions and consideration. What led me to pursue a degree at a U.S University? I would not hesitate to state that the prestige and reputation in their programs and faculty that seemed me attractive. But how much of that expectative was truth and how much was constructed by the designed system under the values such selectivity, rankings, and standardized test? What means quality on these circumstances? Under the structure of Education in my country, all these elements are still reasonable. We share the same model of private and public education, and to some extent the same ideal of what supposed to be the progress in our career. How much is the cost to “conveys a professional status” that means obtain a master’s degree in a foreign country? What are the privileges that means be part of an educational system like this? How difficult is it following a career that would be a reflection of my desire to improve my society and territory without thinking in the financial compromised acquired to study here? The existence of elite universities is another reflection of the way of how our society is organized.
I appreciate that many of this concerns that turn so relevant to continue my studies with a critical awareness that allows me not to lose the focus of my ultimate goals. For instance, before coming to NYU, I didn’t think so much on which were the ways of teaching that I would expect or would be more suitable for my goals. I was more excited about the diversity cohort students that it would meet, and faculty which I would join here. I suppose that it is the central element of my way to understand the education process in general. Putting in the center of the experience the possibility to learn from other to being part of the classroom where “everyone is engaged, everyone participates” (84). But even this I’m not able to achieve consistently, the pressure, the high cost of the program and the fear of failure turning my experience sometimes in more individualistic learning. How fin the balance?
I appreciate as well, the way that Davidson reimagines and purpose this new education, especially on the possibility that we can compromise with it into a shared process. Each student and teacher can have an active role to reach better learning experiences can put in practices, but also change the idea of what it is the purpose of the education. Education as a public good and not a privilege, that not only benefits individuals but also to society as a whole. Imagine a new education, is imagine a reorder on the values of the neoliberalism structure where we are immersed. It recognizes the crisis but also demands action.
Davidson, Cathy N.. The New Education. United States of America: Basic Books, 2017. Print.