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Lesly Andrade
Professor Herrera
English 100
November 5, 2016

Literacy Narrative
The learning environment you are in could have an impact on how you perform and
learn. The environments could result in a positive or negative learning experience. For example,
a negative classroom environment could turn out to a place where there is no help from your
professor. People may not be able to perform at their best because of this obstacle. A good
environment, on the other hand, is a place where you receive the help you look for, making it a
comfortable place to be at your full potential. Overall, we are learning something new every day
that helps us mold into the person we are today. Having experienced such learning challenges
helps you grow as a person and a student. Reflecting on various of my learning experiences I
have been able to enhance my knowledge as well as building new skills. My own experiences
have made me discover new ways of understanding certain things I wasnt able to before.
Through these obstacles I have grown as a person and my experiences have shaped me into the
person I am today.
An example of what a negative learning environment is first seen in author Freires text
the banking concept of education. He describes the two methods used in a classroom, banking
and problem solving. The classroom environment should be a place in which students and

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teachers should both be able to learn from each other. Instead of it being one sided and teachers
will just throw information at students for them to memorize without really understanding. As
said by Freire The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they
develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as
transformers of the world. (145 Freire) With this quote, he is empathizing the importance
problem-solving rather than the banking concept. The problem-solving method will have both
the student and teacher engaged in the classroom. I could relate to Freires text with an
experience I had back in high school. In my senior year math class, I remember my teacher
would have her daily routine of just going in the class and assigning page after page of work that
we had to figure out on our own from our textbooks. The teacher would show no interest in
teaching or even interact with us. Math, in particular, has always been a challenge for me, in this
classroom environment just made me doubt myself and my math skills because I wasnt
receiving any kind of guidance. I proceeded to take a different look at the situation and I began to
re-teach myself in any way I could to be able to understand the material. I did so by looking up
information online and using outside resources like tutoring. Starting my first college math class
I realized just how important a learning environment plays in your education. My professor is
engaged with his students and is open for questions at any given time. He makes the classroom a
comfortable environment in which I am able to participate and actually learn math. Today I am
performing in my math class better than I have ever done before. I am now understanding and
enjoying math. With this learning experience, I have improved my math skills and that has made
me re-think the overall negative concept I had with math. The environment I was accustomed too
back in high school made me limit myself and kept me from building my math skills and grow as
a student.

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The environment I grew up in had an effect on my education as well. I grew up with a

conflicted language barrier, between my parents Spanish at home and my English at school. In
the author Min-Zhan Lus From Silence to words we see that she was brought by her parents to
learn English at home, and Chinese in school. She begins to feel conflicted between her two
languages and begins to struggle with telling them apart. In her text she gives us a quote For in
spite of the frustration and confusion I experienced growing up caught between two conflicting
worlds, the conflict ultimately helped me to grow as a reader and writer. (Lu 239) I could
identify myself with this particular quote from the text because like Min-Zhan Lu I too struggled
to maintain a balance between my two languages English and Spanish. The author explains how
she felt stuck in two different worlds where she wasnt able to speak both languages freely
wherever she liked. Her home environment was difficult as she was pushed by her parents to
speak English. When I was growing up, I too had to reserve my Spanish for the home where I
would only speak and translate for my parents. English was set for school and to communicate
with the only people I knew understood it, my teachers and friends. It wasnt until my teachers
became aware that I was developing a problem that started affecting my overall performance in
class. I began to struggle with my readings and would mix in Spanish words when I would try
and write English sentences. I was put in a special class where all I remember doing was playing
games with a teacher, they were games that would help me distinguish when it was right to use
the proper language. To help me get a better understanding and not confuse them. Although this
was a big obstacle for me at that time, today I have and continue to gain a lot of knowledge from
that particular learning experience. I learned to properly read and write better in Spanish, as well
as English. I learned that speaking two languages was not a bad thing and it was a matter of
adjusting myself to my understanding. Just like the author, my frustration and confusion helped

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shape me into the bilingual speaker I am today. I am able to use both my languages freely and
they are both a big part of who I am today.
Learning a new subject overall can be confusing at first. It takes time and with the right
dedication and tools it eventually makes sense towards. A big part of learning for me personally
is the help I receive from my professor, and if I am able to ask questions in a comfortable
environment. In Me talk pretty one day by David Sedaris, he gives us another example of
learning environments and how they could be a useful experience to learn from. Sedaris was in
the process of learning French until he found himself in a negative classroom where his professor
made nothing but rude remarks and embarrassing nicknames for his students. This environment
made him feel useless and embarrassed that he wasnt able to speak French. A similar experience
to Sedaris, was when I first encountered my high school sophomore English teacher. My English
teacher would have her favorites and her not so favorites students. She would mostly pick on the
students who she felt didnt understand something, she had a rude way of providing help. I was
in a full classroom where I was not comfortable and was afraid to even ask questions. As a result,
I felt I had to stay quiet in class so she wouldn't call on me or make a weird face at what I had to
say. There is a particular quote from Sedaris where he says My only comfort was the knowledge
that I was not alone, huddled in the hallways and making the most of our pathetic French, my
fellow students and I engaged in the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee
camps. (Sedaris 345) Instead of his building a bond and engaging with the professor, he took
comfort in the fact that a lot of his classmates were not learning French either and accepted it. I
have been in a similar situation where my classmates and I had to do a research project and
refused to ask for the teachers help due to lack of communication and fear that she would make
fun of the project. This experience like Freire has taught me about the importance of

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communication between teachers and students. My English class in college is better than what I
had in mind graduating from high school. I am able to learn in a new environment in which the
professor is walking around and talking helping her students. I feel English is not as hard as it
used to be. Today, I am comfortable in my English classroom I have learned new things such as I
writing more in depth and practice free writing.
Another resource I found about learning environments and how they affect the student
was through an online resource. In the academic journal titled Experimental learning and
learning environments: the case of active listening skills written by Huerta-Wong, Juan Enrique,
and Schoech Richard. They give us background on a study done on children. The children were
tested between face-to-face or virtual learning. Findings support that they both help children
develop new skills. Furthermore, the face-to-face method seemed to have had the strongest
results. This particular method provided the better results because the students felt more engaged
as to ask for help virtually online. This article is another example of the connection between the
teacher/ student and its environment. Having the one on one and school interaction will benefit
the students. It will help them grow rather than sitting in a computer at home trying to figure it
out themselves. growth development. The learning environment is important as well, as learning
will be easier in a room full of classmates and teachers who are there for assistance and
interaction.
In another research conducted by National Association for the Education of Young
Children, we see how they conducted a research on preschoolers. This article emphasizes the
importance of difficult challenges at a very young age. help children feel independent and
capable; build strategies for children to use in a difficult situation and foster a classroom
community. If young children start off in a well-built classroom environment with all the tools

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necessary to learn it will help them to build skills that will help them in the future. Practicing
difficult tasks will help them learn that there will be obstacles but it is possible to overcome if
you do your best. Overall, I think this study is helpful because it shows that children should be
taught about these challenges at a young age. Building a foundation for them to become good
critical thinkers and problem solvers.
Today, I am able to use all that I have gained from my learning experiences. For example,
how to deeply analyze a text or work out a certain math strategy and even how to communicate
to the world better. My learning obstacles have had a great impact on my life. These challenges
have all made me the person I am today. I believe learning challenges are a big part of how you
develop as a person, as you are learning something new every day