True Learning is Uncomfortable

When I think of our discussion on Wednesday it made me think of an article I read last semester by Kevin Kumashiro it's called Preparing Teacher's for Crisis: a Sample Lesson. To quickly summarize Kumashiro believes that true learning happens when people are uncomfortable. When people are comfortable learners, they gain knowledge but there view of the world remains the same. When people are uncomfortable learners they gain knowledge and their perspective of the world shifts. Here is an illustration that demonstrates this belief:

What happened at MCTC this past week makes me believe that MCTC is unsupportive of letting students learn in uncomfortable ways. Through uncomfortable learning comes profoundly more important understanding of each other's worlds. I think that especially in college it is important to challenge each other's view and perspectives and I expect my school to provide an environment that promotes difficult conversation. By reprimanding Professors and taking legal action reinforces that MCTC is not supportive of learning uncomfortably.

What can happen when people learn in discomforting ways? If you look at the picture above in figure 1 the student is smiling, after learning in an institution that learns in comforting ways the student leaves smiling with more knowledge. In figure 2 the student enters an institution that encourages challenging students to learn in uncomfortable ways, the student leaves with more knowledge but more importantly their previous knowledge have been reshaped. I encourage MCTC to challenge my beliefs and perspective.