Three Cups by Jillian

Three Cups by Jillian - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

There are moments in my life when I do not feel my age, and yet I find myself in college, pursuing a history major and an English minor while juggling the responsibilities of a copyeditor for my college newspaper and my job at the my college’s library reference desk as a Research Assistant. Freshman year was the beginning of a whole new world for me, but by the end of the year, I was settled and ready to learn whatever was thrown at me. Because I want to be a librarian, I feel that it is vital to gain as much knowledge about the world as I am able, but without a certain perspective in life, that knowledge only remains as a bunch of random facts.
Perspective is crucial to understanding history- and life in general as well- and my history professor for Asian Studies emphasized this by showing certain mindsets that interfere with our perspective and clear insight. The professor began her first day of class by demonstrating the ways students prevent themselves from learning. She showed three different cups: a cracked cup, a poisoned cup, and a cup turned upside down. The cups were the students’ minds and the hypothetical drink was the knowledge. The cracked cup symbolized knowledge flowing out of the student’s head, colloquially known as “in one ear and out the other.” Students who are a “cracked cup” do not retain any of the information they receive. A poisoned cup is when a student’s personal biases, or the poison, prevent him or her from understanding the information. The student who is a poisoned cup allows their own opinions to prevent learning. Finally, a cup turned upside down represents the student who refuses to listen to any new information. Likewise, this student never has their cup filled.
As a history major, it is important for me to understand these ways that students refuse to learn. History is filled with a myriad of perspectives, and a historian must understand and consider them all equally, even if they do not agree with them. By understanding the three cups, it is easier to pinpoint how I, as a historian, might falsely perceive information of the past and present. If I can figure out what my flaws in my perception of learning are, I can fix them or bypass them. I find myself to be a bit of a poisoned cup, letting my own opinions occasionally keep me from seeing the whole picture. However, once I figure out what my opinions are and how they specifically hinder my understanding of history, I take a moment to study another perspective of the past and see it from that point of view.
Regarding my career as a librarian, I want to be open to all sides of knowledge and possibilities of information. With my professor’s lesson in mind, I am already learning how to deal with my flaws in perceiving history, and because of it, have gained a better understanding of the past and the present.