Connections to “The Passion Project”

While watching “The Passion Project”, I was caught by the conflicts of conformity and individualism within education and the passions that a student follows or does not defines them as such. But what brings us to conformity and individualism is how respected one individual is. I see the connection between how one chooses their passions and the amount of respect they are treated with within the classroom in which they are learning, within their education as a whole. I took a look at Johannes Giesinger’s article “Respect in Education” and found that “The Passion Project” shares the idea of respect in the classroom is just as important as any other aspect if not even more so. Within the passion project I hear the thoughts of cooperation and reflectance between characters in the classroom helps our person learn much easier and happier at that, as well as leading us to a strengthened autonomy. And within Giesinger’s article we see similar thoughts of respect. “To respect children means, according to the child-centered view, not to indoctrinate and coerce them, not to order them around, but to allow them to learn by experience and choose by themselves.” (Giesinger 1.) Just as Ontiveros speaks of respect and cooperation in “The Passion Project”, this quote suggests the effectiveness of respect and understanding within the classroom, however more so between teacher and student rather student and student relationships. When I focus in on the word “coerce” from the excerpt, I take that a teacher cannot go about persuading a student toward a path that is not suited toward their passion. For this will not allow the student to grow and or develop. The teacher is not respecting the student’s individuality and self fulfilling aspirations. Therefore the student will not have the ability to fully extend themselves to who they can be because they only settle for a stunted education which leads toward a path that does not suit their inner being. And when a teacher decides to respect their student then they get a taste of who the student is and how they can assess their learning, unique to that student, instead of grouping the child together with all the other students through insecurities and fear of what society may think. “Social esteem is grounded in the individual capacities and achievements of persons-persons are esteemed for their individual traits.” (Giesinger 7) Society is ever changing due to the individual. So if the individual student is aided and supported in their personal traits then they will give a benefit to the “social esteem” and will only keep us stagnant if it is ignored and clumped together as a package. But to understand and assess each child’s individual traits and passions requires respect. Without respect then the worlds students will be unable to fulfill their passions and be unfit the progress our society to a peaceful nature, little own a peaceful endeavor.