Noah Kelleher Writing by Design

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September 15 , 2015

What Does it Mean to be Educated?

On the first day of class, a door-less jeep pulled into a parking spot to my left, blasting

Comment [1]: Try to give each paper a title

that relates to or hints at its topic, and also
makes your reader (or grader!) want to read that
paper first.

obscure rap music on a blown-out speaker system. The driver, a teenager a bit younger than me,
walked into the classroom with nothing but a Dunkin Donuts bag and an iced coffee. To my
right, a white-haired lady waddled inside with a handbag lined with books and folders, and a pen
behind her ear. Somehow, we were all headed for the same room.
In preparation for a certification course for my summer job as a sailing instructor, I
received a package on my front porch containing four full-length books, detailing the newest
teaching techniques, the best power-boating methods, and the dreaded emergency procedure.
The included note claimed that we would cover all of the material during the four days of class.
We didnt. In fact, we barely opened the books at all. In preparation for a summer job working
with young kids, the course instructor ditched the traditional lecture and textbook method.
Instead, he focused on the crucial themes and the bold-faced titles through drills that felt realistic
and relevant to the real-world workplace.
As a group of students ranging in age from the blown out speaker boy to the white-haired
secretary, we were all forced to imitate seven-year-olds. Each student took a turn acting as the
sailing instructor, and the rest of the group modeled a young class to make the atmosphere of the
lesson more realistic. We used this strategy throughout all four days of class. When we taught
lessons on the white board, the seven-year-olds asked absurd questions, ignorant of the topic of

Comment [2]: Nice details

the lecture. When we practiced instructing the young sailors from a motorboat, the seven-yearolds purposefully sailed in circles, held the sails on the wrong side, and flipped over their boats.
When we did drills on land, the seven-year-olds ran away to hide whenever the instructor turned
their back. In short, our imitated seven-year-olds were sent straight from hell. We purposefully
created difficult situations in order to force experiential learning. But in the back of my mind, I

Comment [3]: Until you tell your reader here,

it's not completely clear during the above
examples that you're talking about imitated
seven-year-olds, and not actual seven-yearolds. Is that your intended effect?

knew that it was all fake. The emergencies

were never authentically stressful and the misbehavior never grew truly frustrating.
Nevertheless, I passed the tests and therefore felt confident that the course had prepared me well
for my work at the sailing center.
During the course, we spent at least four hours on safety procedure and protocol, and I
was even required to take an additional course on First Aid. But I learned everything that I
needed to know in a matter of seconds when the emergency happened. On a particularly windy
day, I warned my campers not to let their boats flip over. We had held a capsize test on the first
day of camp in order to ensure that the campers were capable of bringing their boats upright if it
accidentally flipped, and they unfortunately loved it. Looking for an excuse to jump into the
water, they capsized their boats every time that I looked away. Im not sure if it was accidental
or purposeful, but Reilley flipped his boat upside-down. But he didnt reappear on the surface of
the water. I motored over to his boat, hoping that I would see him when I was closer. When I
was just a few feet away, I heard screaming and banging; Reilley was trapped beneath the boat.
What had I learned about this situation in class? Should I jump in? What about my motorboat?

Comment [4]: no need to use a hyphen

One hundred questions whirled through my mind in half of a second, but the answer to all of
them was the same: it doesnt matter. Reilley was the priority and time was essential. I ripped
off the kill-cord to turn off the engine, ran to the front of the boat, and dove into the water.
Before I knew it, I was under the boat with Reilley. I knew that there would be an air pocket
beneath the boat, but I never truly understood the image until I saw it in real life. There wasnt
enough space to stick my entire head into the air pocket and breath. Rather, I had to tilt my head
backwards until my mouth could reach the air. Reilley, scared and confused, was fumbling with
his life-jacket in an attempt to take it off. I grabbed him and counted 3, 2, 1 so that he knew
went to hold his breath as we went under water together. Keeping him wrapped up in my arm, I
swam from beneath the boat out into the open air. Finally, I put him into a motorboat and

Comment [5]: "when to" (?) This is a place

where reading your draft aloud, or having
someone else read it aloud for you, can be
really helpful in catching things.

brought him back to land to allow him to regroup. He was terrified but otherwise okay. I was
correspondingly terrified, drenched with adrenaline, but very proud.
The discussions in the classroom may have helped, but in the end, when the emergency
appeared, the process didnt matter. There was a certain instinct, a special commitment to
instructing and to the kids that kicked in when I was finally forced to face a tough situation for
real. That two minute long experiential lesson taught me more than the entire four days of class.
Flashcards and essays aim to fill the brain with knowledge, but experiences brand the lessons on
permanently. Even imitations of real-life scenarios cant teach the entire lesson; they can only

Comment [6]: no need for hyphen here

prepare you to react when the experiential lesson comes later. Learning is maximally efficient

Comment [7]: Third time using "experiential"

or "experience" in just a few lines. Granted, it's
a key term in your argument, but if there is
another word or phrase that would function here
instead, you should try to find it.

through failure and through stressful situations. You can study a fire from far away and observe

the subtle flickers of yellow and orange, and the hints of blue near the bottom. But no matter
how much you look at it and think about it, you wont know that its hot until you stick your
hand in.

Noah,
What a well-constructed paper! Your story and subsequent analysis are very wellorganized, and Im impressed by how necessary every sentence feels---no fluff! I think you did
a great job of using a specific, detail-rich story to illustrate your point, and then moving on to a
thoughtful analysis of what the episode taught you about learning.
I would be interested in seeing you connect your insights about learning to your thoughts
on education a bit more explicitly. Are experiential learning (the best kind of learning, your story
argues) and education one and the same? Does one become an educated person by having
many high stakes experiences? Can we choose to become educated in this way, or is it a
matter of chance?
-Casey