FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE I (PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION) Student Name: Henry Gyan Ayerakwa | ID #: UB26320SCO34802 |

The concept of education implies many things: control, fun, essential skills, imagination and creativity, influence, real world skills, individual learners, sitting still vs moving around and silence. Learners need to know 'what is in it for me?' ‘We need to know the "why" before the "how" is even relevant'. Learners have proved that they learn actively before they ever set foot inside a classroom, and yet when they get there they are usually given passive roles. It is a little like setting a television on standby. Learning is not a receptive task; it is active, pro-active even. Yet, if they are able to see or feel a need for something; if they have a personal interest in something; or if they just want the challenge; they have the "why" and are ready to learn actively. Learners spend far more of their lives outside of school, out in the 'real world', and they deserve to see that what they do is realistic, relevant and necessary. The motivation is then intrinsic and the "how", the learning itself, actually means something and can be absorbing.

First of all from a theoretical perspective, Framingham, Massachusetts (1968) for instance referred to a learning process named Sudbury Model of democratic education schools. Sudbury model of democratic education schools assert that there are many ways to study and learn. They argue that learning is a process you do, not a process that is done to you. The experience of Sudbury model democratic school shows that there are many ways to learn without the intervention of teaching to say, without the intervention of a teacher being imperative. In the case of reading for instance in the Sudbury model democratic schools some children learn from being read to, memorizing the stories and then ultimately reading them. Others learn from cereal boxes, others from games instructions, and others from street signs. Some learn to read on their own, that is what I called self-education.

Being part of a broken home, my education was having a limit when it comes to sponsorship. After Senior High School, I have to sponsor my own education due to several reasons that are very common to broken homes. Working and learning through the traditional way, seems nearly impossible for me. This has caused me not to be able to continue my education for over a decade now. Some of the Universities in my country started to offer distance learning but require you to pass an entrance exams and sit in the classroom at least every fortnight. I got the chance to enroll in one of the distance learning whose main campus is in Malaysia, and was not able to pursue my course because they ended up giving me admission to a campus based course instead of the distance education.

In his discussion on Connectivism, Ally (2010) stated some views regarding learners which are similar to mine. I fully recognize that students can easily access just about any piece of material through the use of nodes, such as the internet. Gone are the days where students have to read textbooks while taking notes in order to be successful on examinations. Now, students can type in certain terms and within seconds have answers to any type of question from any discipline. Instead of searching for the answers, students now evaluate the information they find to determine if it is still valid or useful. This explains how I feel about the role of students in distant education. Students should search for content they are interested in while critically analyzing the sources. They have to become effective searchers to maximize information acquisition and evaluate sources for academic use.

With Connectivism, teachers are not facing obsolescence. Teachers serve in the role of guiding the students to new sources of information and filling in gaps in areas such as life experience where search engines fail. Teachers can lead discussions about hot topics in fields and present counterpoints that require the learners to synthesize what they found to address the questions presented. Therefore, the role of the teacher is equally important as the role of a student. However, teachers have to move from the old methods of imparting knowledge, administering evaluations, and prompting learners and let the students take over these roles. The teacher could act as a mediator or the voice of reason when the students move too far away from topics or ideas in grading.

This is the type of learning I always dreamed of and by the Grace of God AIU seems to have it all. It is the type of learning which emphasizes the role of the social and cultural context opposed to a more essentialist notion which foregrounds the individual. I believe that; Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions, Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources and Decision-making is itself a learning process.