Discuss the implications of being a first generation college student. What are the challenges these students face vis-a-vis identity, culture, family obligations and pressures, feeling “othered” from fellow students on campus? How might students approach these challenges to move towards eventual academic and personal success? Utilizing the works of Castro and perhaps Rodriguez, coupled with an outside academic source, analyze the implications and approaches to being a first generation college student.
Suggestions for outside reading include essays on first generation student success rates, campus housing limitations for first generation students, the non-traditional college student in the classroom, programs designed and implemented to encourage first generation college student success, inclusivity culture on campus or lack thereof on college campuses.
Demonstrate how problem-posing approaches to education benefit the student and the classroom environment at large. In other words, why is Freire such a staunch advocate for the implementation of problem-posing education over the long utilized banking concept? What are the potential advantages to transitioning away from a banking concept and towards problemposing? In an education system struggling with maintaining student success (such as here in America) how could problem-posing curriculum lead to advancement in education? Utilizing Freire’s work coupled with an outside academic source, analyze the problem-posing educational theory and the implications of such an approach being implemented in the educational curriculum of struggling systems.
Suggestions for outside reading include essays on Finland’s educational system (currently ranked the most successful education system of industrialized countries), the Montessori method of education, which mirrors many of Freire’s tenets, or articles on contemporary career expectations/what interviewers are looking for in potential hires (the ability to readily problem solve).
