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Ryan Mills
Professor Moremi Ogbara
English 100
29 September 2014
Research Paper
My educational background is an important part of my identity. Identity formation is
the development of the distinct personality of an individual, this defines individuals to others
and themselves. My identity as a geek affects how I interact with the world. Geek typically
connotes an expert or a person obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit, with me its
computers, comics and video games. The different types of education that I have received is
what has allowed me to form my identity as a person. My education in reading, writing,
research, and critical thinking are all integral to my identity.
My ability to read is one of the most important things that I have learned that has
helped form my identity. I read daily, books, comics, and even day to day things like signs
and menus. The biggest thing that got me to start reading was my teacher Mr. Bowles. Mr.
Bowles was my third grade teacher, a tall man with short brown hair who was very animated
in the way he moved. In the third grade Mr. Bowles would take us to the schools library once
per week. It was there that I started to read for pleasure and not just because I was told to read
something Research from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD, 2002) showed that reading enjoyment is more important for childrens educational

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success than their familys socio-economic status. Reading for pleasure could therefore be
one important way to help combat social exclusion and raise educational standards. (Clark
and Rumbold 6). My education in reading opened up a whole new world for me and in doing
so helped make me who I am. Reading is now an important part of who I am and is a primary
part of my education.
While my writing skills are not as good as my reading, it too has played a part in
forming my identity. Unlike my reading education, my teachers would often have conflicting
methods of teaching me to write. Each year I would have a different teacher teaching me
about writing, and each year a different way to write. Each teacher would teach me a way to
write as if it was the only way to write and any other way was wrong. Since each of the
methods that I was taught were different my education in writing was very confusing. These
conflicting methods of teaching made it difficult to learn how to write the way my teachers
would have liked me to, which made me not want to write unless I had a reason for it like for
a homework assignment or a research paper.
Research has always been a favorite of mine. One of the first real research
assignments I had was in the sixth grade. The research that I had to do was on the ancient
Egyptians. I only needed a little information for what I was working on but I did more. I
found the topic of ancient Egyptians so interesting that I was motivated to do more research
than what was required of me. With the extra research that I did for my project I ended up
doing more work and putting in extra effort into it. I received praise from my teacher for
going the extra mile in my project. This praise made me feel good about the work that I did

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and made me more likely to do so again in the future, like in the article by Gwen Dewar: In a
recent study tracking children from the age of 1 year, kids who received more praise for effort
during the toddler years were more likely to endorse the incremental theory when they were in
the 2nd and 3rd grades. They were also more likely to agree that persistence and hard work
pays off (Dewar 1). In Carol Dwecks essay she calls for teachers to praise effort instead of
knowledge in order to cultivate growth mindsets and voluntary engagement in their education.
In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through
dedication and hard work, brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love
of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment (Dweck 2). This had the
same effect on me, I felt good about doing that extra work for the project and making an
effort. This certainly helped giving me a growth mindset.
Critical thinking has helped shaped me and promote my growth mindset. Critical
thinking is defined as a reflective and reasonable thought process embodying depth, accuracy,
and astute judgment to determine the merit of a decision, an object, or a theory. Creative
thinking involves analysis, evaluation, and a synthesizing of facts, ideas, opinions, and
theories. Possessing the capacity to logically and creatively exercise in-depth judgment and
reflection to work effectively in the realm of complex ideas exemplifies a critical thinker
(Jones 1). While critical thinking has helped form my identity it was never my favorite part of
my educational background. It may be one of the most important thing I have learned and I
use it in my everyday life and I apply it to everything. I actually like critical thinking, its just
the way it was taught to me was itself never very open in its own thinking. My high school
English teacher was the worst offender of this. Any critical thinking questions we had to

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answer he had an answer for and if yours was too different he would say that it was wrong
even if you could explain your reasoning behind the answer. This was a good example of
Paolo Freire's banking concept of education, In the banking concept of education, knowledge
is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they
consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the
ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher
presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance
absolute, he justifies his own existence. The students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian
dialectic, accept their ignorance as justifying the teachers existence -- but unlike the slave,
they never discover that they educate the teacher. (Paulo Freire 1). An example of this was
when I was asked what I thought why a character did something, and because my answer
didnt match what we had it was wrong, even though there should be no wrong answers as the
question was what I thought As instructors, the goal should be to create a learning
environment that causes students to engage in critical reflection and evaluation of the existing
literature to render judgment based on a compilation of synthesized evidence. Although a
students opinion might be relevant and provide a bridge for additional discussion, the
challenge is to prompt students to provide justifications and founded explanations of their
views. (Jones 1). Because of his lackluster teaching I taught myself and practiced critical
thinking questions online. My teacher wasnt teaching me properly so I was motivated to go
to an outside source and learn it myself.
My educational background is an important part of my identity. My identity as a geek
affects how I interact with the world. My different types of education that I have received is

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what has allowed me to form my identity as a person. They have help shape and form me into
the person that I am today. Without my education my identity would be completely different
than it is now, and I would not be who I am today.

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Works Cited
Clark, Christina, and Kate Rumbold. "Reading for Pleasure: A Research Overview." 1-35.
Web. <http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED496343.pdf>.
Dewar, Gwen. "The Entity Theory of Intelligence." The Entity Theory of Intelligence. Web.
28 Sept. 2014. <http://www.parentingscience.com/theory-of-intelligence.html>.
Dweck, Carol S. "The Perils and Promises of Praise." Educational Leadership:Early
Intervention at Every Age:The Perils and Promises of Praise. ASCD, Oct. 2007.
Web. 28 Sept. 2014. <http://www.ascd.org/publications/educationalleadership/oct07/vol65/num02/The-Perils-and-Promises-of-Praise.aspx>.
Freire, Paulo. "Philosophy of Education -- Chapter 2: Pedagogy of the Oppressed."
Philosophy of Education -- Chapter 2: Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Webster
University. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.
<http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/education/freire/freire-2.html>.
Jones, Ronald C. "The Instructor's Challenge: Moving Students beyond Opinions to Critical
Thinking." Faculty Focus The Instructors Challenge Moving Students beyond
Opinions to Critical Thinking Comments. Faculty Focus, 29 July 2013. Web. 28
Sept. 2014. <http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teachingstrategies/the-instructors-challenge-moving-students-beyond-opinions-to-criticalthinking/>.
"The Perils and Promises of Praise." Educational Leadership:Early Intervention at Every
Age:The Perils and Promises of Praise. 2007. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.
<http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct07/vol65/num02/ThePerils-and-Promises-of-Praise.aspx>.