Reflections on the MA Experience
Masako Onodera

I just can't believe that I am standing here. I still remember seeing a graduation photo in the newsletter TC used to send us. At that time, graduation seemed so far way, and I always felt like I could never be in that picture. I also remember the day when I visited TC for the first time for an interview with Professor Fanselow. After the interview, I was upset to find that he asked me only one question, about my hobby, bunraku. I thought I would never get accepted.

Well, I can still remember some of those early TC memories just like yesterday. But three years have passed, and I am here on this stage wearing the same gap and gown that I saw in the old graduation picture.

These three years with TC has been a wonderful time for me. I enjoyed being a student again, sitting at the other end of the classroom, learning from all the different teachers. Even more importantly, I made friends with wonderful classmates. We often encouraged each other and helped each other, because we all shared the same difficulty of juggling more than one responsibilities, as a teacher and as a student. I'm sure that some of them will be my friends for life.

Among all the wonderful experiences, it's very hard to choose which one to talk about, but I'd like to speak about a few things that I appreciate most.

The first thing is freedom. What I mean by freedom is the whole new perspectives about teaching and learning. If you were educated only in one culture, especially in Japan, you probably understand my feelings. Before I studied at TC, my image of "class" was totally fixed. It was always the teacher in the front with the blackboard against his or her back, the students sitting in rows listening to the teacher lecturing. Did I like this as a student? Not really. Honestly, most of it was torture. But when I became a teacher, I have to admit that I just gave my students the same torture as I suffered. Don't think that I was being mean to them. I just didn't know any better.

This is really the reason that I decided to be on the graduate program. I wanted to be free from this old traditional teaching style. And I was right! TC was a great place for that. I remember in my first summer at TC, in Professor Schoonmaker's course on curriculum, we read Dewey, where he says that learning only happens when the child becomes a living, not listening, being. For me, TC was not the place for listening. It was the place for "living". Of course, this was largely due to the way classes at TC are organized, that is, the class with the students in the center of gravity. Also, I think this was because of a wide variety of "lives" that my peers brought into classroom.

Another important thing which TC has given me is interest in research. Honestly, before TC, I was thinking that a "real" teacher wouldn't bother him or herself with research. To me, a researcher was kind of a nerd who only cares about the numbers and stuff but doesn't really care about students. I was wrong in this point. As I learned more theories at TC, I felt more curious about how a certain part of my teaching affects the students' learning, and it was quite natural that I came to realize the importance of measuring the effect in some way. Now I believe that a true researcher does care about students, and that if you are truly conscientious about your teaching, you should be always running research in your class, too. It doesn't have to be fully designed research. It's a matter of whether you are looking at your class with an objective, scientific eye, hopefully, with some theoretical background in what you are doing. Without this perspective, you could never get out of the traditional routines of good/bad evaluation of your teaching, as Aiko fully mentioned in her speech.

I mentioned only two things here, but that would be already enough to explain how much TC changed me. And I'm sure that the influences will be continuing forever for the rest of my career as a teacher.

Before closing my speech, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to everyone who has helped me on this program. Thank you very much.