Dr. Lundsford and Collaboration

Text: Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center by Andrea Lundsford.

As I read through this piece, I felt like Dr. Lunsford made some very excellent points about the general outlook of writing not just the perspective seen inside of writing centers. The concept of “Storehouse” centers and “Garrett” centers, as she calls them, I found accurately describe the perspective of my teachers and professors from elementary school through my college experience. I do have to agree with the idea that collaboration can help inform education, however, I find the idea of refocusing all education on collaboration rather disgusting if I’m honest. I say this not because I dislike or disapprove of collaboration. I have had some wonderful experiences that increased my knowledge and understanding of difficult subjects through collaborative work. The issue is Dr. Lunsford seems to want to change all of education to this collaborative process. The reason I think this would not be a poor decision is that when you solely teach collaboration and learn through collaboration you lose sight of individual education. I firmly believe that your education is entirely dependent on your will to learn and improve. While I think our country has gotten better at focusing on individual student’s educational needs, you can see that this idea of group learning has its downfalls. For example, my grandmother graduated from high school. She had her high school degree but never knew how to write a paper. She didn’t know how to read, all because she was able to work along side her peers to assist her through her schooling. The only reason she made it through college was that my aunt and my mother helped her learn how to read. This was when I was twelve years old, she was in her fifties at the time. Yes, I believe that collaboration is an excellent skill that should be learned and treasured. I just can’t stand behind a system that would ignore individual educational needs or hold collaboration above individual learning. That balance between the individual and the group is what I believe a writing center should reflect, not the sole focus of the group as a whole.