Ashdon Kerr | Staff Writer
July 18, 2023
The teacher of Communication and Social Theory, Emmanuel Fasipe, at Murray State GSP has a classroom full of lively conversation and respect. He has three rules for his classroom that stay on the chalk board at all times: popcorn around the room, take space give space, and positively challenge. These rules create a comfortable environment where students can express their thoughts, and actively learn. His class is full of discussion between scholars. He allows scholars to bounce off of each other’s thoughts while having intellectual conversation. Commonly, he uses the phrase “ say more” indicating that he wants the scholars to elaborate more on their thoughts. He guides and contributes to the conversations by asking comprehensive questions to the scholars. He plays devil’s advocate in the conversation, as well. This allows scholars to express more of their knowledge and positively challenge his thoughts.
While observing his classroom, I listened to the scholars give presentations, in groups of three to four, that answer the question “how do we define humans?”. The equation
was created by the class in efforts to solve this before the presentation. When asked the question “how do we define humans?” Emannuel said that his class is based around it and understanding human connection from a social perspective because it was a topic both he and his class were interested in. Overall, observing this classroom was a positive and engaging experiment. The presentations and discussions by the scholars were amazing to witness.
