I don't know what is wrong with my computer. I can't see anything written, except the comments. I also can't see the picture you put on, of your class. so, Instead, I commented on your 4th blog, which I could see.
P. Yawn's blog site.- blog number 1 is the one I couldn't see. Blog 4 is the one I wrote about. Thanks.
Karen's LMO.MAC.LMO class at Full Sail. Learning Management Systems and Organization class. Professor- Joe Bustillos. This is a telephone booth in Dunoon, in Western Scotland, taken one Saturday in Dunoon, after ferry rides, lots of laughing and some crying. A great day. A wonderful Memory. I miss my Scottish friends. NOTE: This computer went to original settings Sunday Morning, May 30, 2010. The AR web site it gone. That hurts.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Smith Karen Mac Wk 1 My Free Comment 'I Am An A"
I used the statue of Grey Friars Bobby, found in Edinburgh, Scotland.
When his master died, he went to his grave and laid there for several years, until he finally died.
Animals weren't allowed in the cemetary,
but they finally made a law that allowed him to be in the cemetary with his master.
If we could learn to be that loyal to each other, wouldn't it be a wonderful world?
www.greyfriarsbobby.co.uk/
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I ended my comments on the book, The Art of Possibility", discussing a horrible situation from college days, so many years ago (1971-1975), yet, as I wrote them down, thene feelings of horrible work, the feelings of horrible grades, the feelings of horrible things being made to do, all came back with such a rush of emotion, that it brought back that horrible feeling.
If I had the professor of Chapter 3, it would have been a different time. Instead of feeling inadequate, like I couldn't be smart enough to make an A or a B, even though I actually had the points for it, I would have felt smart. I would have felt like the work I put in meant something, when in fact, it didn't mean anything to that professor.
In turn, my parents couldn't understand that when I said "Mom, I had the same grade as the ones who made a B and was one point away from the one who made an A", she found it very hard to believe me, when she is staring at the slip of paper that said I made a C and in my major!
I understand now that teacher was a moron and did not have our best interest at heart. Just like when he told some of the boys in the band he wanted to date one of his students, the little clarinet player. (one turned out to become my husband, but was a best friend at the time.) I found out, much later, that the guys decided since he didn't teach them their major instrument, they would gang up on him. They did and told him he better leave ALL his students alone.
I think the professor in the book, "The Art of Possibility", had such a better idea when he chose to give all his students an A.
Even if you are given an A and then with REAL cause, not make believe ones, the grades are moved downward, that is fine.
Of course, doing it after the class is over, when grades are shown and done as far as the students are concerned, would be very wrong. It would only be ethically correct to reduce the grade during the time before the grades are finished. When that final grade is given a student, that should be it. If a teacher is just trying to "get" the student, it would be wrong.
But the teacher did a really neat thing, an idea, an experiment, to give all A's to the students. The students felt a sense of accomplishment to have such a great plan of action set before them. It gives a real feeling of accomplishment and I appreciate it, especially since I did NOT like the way things were going back then
Smith Karen Mac Wk 1 Comment 2 The Art of Possibility (K. Lay)
The first three chapters of the Zander's book, The Art of Possibility (2000), restate an idea that is resonant in recent psychology, neurology, social science, spiritualism, physics and education which is: We have constructed a left brained world, and our health and survival depends on our learning how to integrate the right side, and body as well. In psychology, it emerges as techniques to integrate our many intelligences with our experience. In Neurology it is the discovery of the true nature of knowledge and perception (Jensen, 2008). In Social Sciences it is the understanding that the scientist must interact with their test groups, because they cannot be isolated from them (Budiani, 2003). In Spiritualism, Eckhart Tolle (Tolle, 2005) and many others teach that the insanity around us can only be transformed through surrendering our ego (left brained construct) to the emergence of a larger consciousness (integrated brain, body, awareness). In physics, the understanding that observers are in measurable relationship to the outcome of particle collisions and that all matter and energy are in relation (Zukav, 1984) - pointing to the possibility of infinite number of universes (Stenger, 2000).
Zander' and so many 'convergence' authors agree that many skills of competition strangle our creativity by constructing a reality built with limited sensory input into assumptive self-storymaking. This is basic modern psychology as well as ancient Eastern religious science. We only see and octave of light frequencies, missing a great deal around us. Our left brain creates a narrative out of disparate, unrelated sensory input that has been connected with our right brain's pattern-making ability. The book's premise is that understanding of the house of cards nature of our constructed experiences is crucial to our ability to break free from rat-race competitive, stressed-out lives and move into a more creative and engaged life.
I like witnessing this great convergence of science and spiritualism. Employing Zander's 'possibility' in real life is good for everyone: in business, in our relationships and in our self-understanding. I created a similar mentor based, non-authoritative relationship to my classes teaching popular music history, as well. I explained to my students that music is their experience, not mine, to place a 'now' importance of our class meetings in perspective. I explained that my opinions about music were irrelevant, and that their awareness of the many styles of musical expression they had never heard to be a great gift. And, of the music itself - the fact that no music style is 'better' than another, and that every listener is attracted to their music according to their unique mix of intelligences, experiences and desires. That concept recognized their own personal passions for music, as well as their future audiences'.
But we have a ways to go. Engagement with the emerging concepts requires careful navigation in today's world. Bringing such new techniques into the workplace or the classroom would bear fruit, but would first require a complete overhaul of our assessment system and governing values. Giving an A, for example, as described in "The Art of Possibility is a beautiful technique, but is not an assessment. An "A" is a measurement (old world), and as a measurement conveys how well the students met the goals of the class. The 'Giving an A' is rather a technique of providing each student ownership through their own creative self-visualization (new world). Inspiring students to the possibilities of the class outcome is quite brilliant, but itself is 'out of the box' in most education assessment methods. It may only work in music or physical education because they are demonstrative and imminently assessable. For example, either you can play a piece or not. Either you play that piece expressively or not. Either you can demonstrate 10 pull-ups or not. Musicians abilities are exposed. This cannot be said of most academic education where assessments are only made on specific objects (papers, projects, etc.) made for the purpose of assessment. There is no way to measure how much is retained after each assessed object. I do not believe that our society is yet ready, unfortunately. There are too many citizens who could not subscribe to subjecting their children to such life-changing concepts in public school, outside of their chosen religious, familial or political circles - and their voting voice is just as strong.
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Budiani, D. (2003) personal interview regarding COFS
Jensen, E. (2008) Brain-based learning: the new paradigm of teaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press
Stenger, V (2000) Timeless Reality: Symmetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes. New York: Prometheus Books
Tolle, Eckhart (2005) A new earth: Awakening to your life's purpose, New York: Penguin Group, Inc.
Zander, B., & Zander-Stone, R., (2000) The art of possibilities: Transforming professional and personal life. London: Penguin Books.
Zukav, G (1984) The dancing wu-li masters: an overview of the new physics. NY Bantam Books
COMMENTS by Karen
Interesting, the way you put the words of Zander and the words of Tolle. I actually had not even considered them being even close, but that is what is so neat about reading things, and then, seeing the way we see them, feel them and think about them.
It's true that some of the most important parts of music are things that are difficult to grade, such as putting the expression in the piece you are playing.
How does a clarinet instructor teach the student to put feeling into Mozart's Clarinet Concerto? You just really can't. You can play it for them, let them hear it on a great recording, see it, if it's on you tube or something like that, but ultimately, they have to learn to feel that piece AND to make their playing have that feeling in it.
Even though I play, and love to play, I can remember laughing at instrumentalists who seemed to almost fall over playing their instruments with feeling. Now that I am an adult, I still think there is a little exhibitionist in the ones that seem to go overboard. Oh well, that's just my opinion, but I have always had a bit of a laugh over extreme movements when playing. NOT some movement, just the extreme ones.
So, when grading Students in Solo and Ensemble, it not only depends on playing the notes correctly, pitch and time, but also playing it with feeling and expression.
You can give grades for the notes played corectly, but it won't be great, without the feeling of the music, the grade won't be superior (5).
In Math, it's like getting the answer and not showing the work. Or in English, knowing all the various parts of speech, but not belng able to diagram the sentence.
Smith Karen Mac Wk 1 Comment 1 The Art of Possibility (P Yawn)
I have never thought that my work was good enough to publish. I have always been somewhat in awe of people that published or presented at a conference. Kind of a I’m on one side of the fence and they are on the other side.
I have presented once at a middle school conference. It was to show other art teachers about the clay I was using. I brought the local person with me to talk with them. I felt comfortable because I was talking about something I was comfortable with.
I’d better give myself an A and get it going. I think I would like to get published by Edutopia. That is a magazine that is both published and online. A lot of educators read it and go online. I wonder if I could include a short video. Then it could be published online. I’m going to investigate and find out.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 2010
week one-blog 4 publishing? (P Yawn)
KAREN's COMMENTI
I know that some of us tend to think the worst of ourselves and our work. I think that is human nature. If we thought we would wait until our work was good enough to publish, until we had something so wonderful to present, or the best leader of the group, none of us would ever do those things. The first time I ever presented at a state workshop was when I was on the state board for elementary music educators as a district chairman, when someone said that the teachers wanted to learn sign language and music. Did anyone know a person who did that. I whispered that I was an interpreter of the deaf and use ASL in my music classes. I don't think anyone even heard me, but someone saw my lips move and ) asked what I said. I repeated it and they said, "You can sign something right now?", so I started interpreting what they were saying. Then, when they all quit talking, I said that some songs are easy, like this, and I signed a song. That was all it took. They said, "Would you do a session twice (repeating it). I have done several state and local (in various cities in AL, GA and FL and a few national and regional conferences.
It turns out there are many teachers who want to know this. In fact, in Haiti this week, I worked with some teachers at a couple of schools on using asl in some easy English songs and one of the school said they had a surprise for me Thursday morning, at 7:15 am. The entire school (600 children) sang and signed the song the teacher taught them the past 2 days. It is nice to see the fruits of our labors, as educators of other educators, come to fruition.
So, whether you feel you are ready, just do it! It sounds like you have thought through completely, including which publication you want to publish in. That sounds really good. Good luck with it.
Smith Karen Week 1 MAC Reading The Art of Possibility !-3
My first thing I like is that Benjamin Zander is a conductor, so we sort of speak the same language. I haven't watched the video yet, from TED, because here in Haiti, the internet is so slow, I can catch 2-3 words or syllables, and then it begins spinning. I made it through all the piano things to age 11 and then he went back, but now, it's too hard to understand, so I'll watch it in America this weekend, when I get back home to say goodbye to our son and daughter in law, Matt and Sarah, who are headed back to Africa.
I could tell it's good, as it had great examples in there about working outside the box. The 2 salesmen are great examples of looking at a glass empty and half full! It depends on my attitude about whatever the situation is.
Also, he used the the square of dots with the instructions, but didn't state that you could go outside of square. I knew that puzzle, so I knew the solution.
Anyway, there were good points. I had a bad memory flash when reading chapter 3, about giving out A's. I had a professor in college who taught music theory (6 quarters), music history (2 quarters), contemporary music (1 quarter), and private clarinet (9 of the required 12 quarters). In other words, I had him every quarter my Freshman, Sophomore and Junior years, 2 classes per quarter. One in a class and one private lessons.
Although I had to work hard, I made A's in my private lessons, as I studied, practiced and worked hard. I worked just as hard for the classes under him, too. But, I almost always made a C. He did the bell curve. He gave out 1 A, 1 or 2 B's, 1 or 2 D's, 1 F. Everything else is a C. I was in a class with 3 or 4 people who were the valedictorians in their school. What ever his highest score for the quarter was, I was usually 1 or 2 points below it, and no matter what I did, I would make a C. Once, I tied with the second and third person, but because I had made the 4th person before, he broke the tie by using past times. I always made a C for his classes. It was very discouraging. I knew I was as good as the others with high grades, and sometimes, there were people that were 3 or 4 points below me, but I made the same C they made! I understood the frustrations of chapter 3. He was putting us against one another. We didn't fall for it. If he wanted us to hate each other for getting "our" grade, we didn't. We lost all respect for him. In fact, at one point, he was GIVING the A to a student who was missing class, sleeping around, but was a scholarship student like me and they didn't want her to fall down, so they did all they could. They sent me in the bedrooms to get her (I was a very dumb 18 year old who only knew to respect teachers and do what they say). They gave her the A's.
We learned to give no respect to the man. No respect to any of the teachers who were doing this. We didn't try very hard for them, although we worked like crazy for teachers who were teaching us. Teachers who were really wanting us to learn, taught us. The teacher who Gave the grades out the way he did, got no respect from any of us.
It was a terrible thing to learn in college. I have seen that is actually in any school. Teachers can be wonderful and some can be horrible. Too bad. They do NOT earn my respect. The ones who teach, they will have my respect in all ways.
I don't know why this has to happen. Is is just human nature? Will I learn more about this with the rest of the book? I don't know. But as I said, that one really hit a sore spot that still hurts to this day. I hate thinking that a teacher will go that low. I don't even like to think they are, or were, a part of the same profession I am in. And that wasn't even getting into his personal life. I just won't go there. All I will say about that is I am grateful, for every young girl going to school today, that there are laws to protect them from teachers who do NOT earn the respect to be called teacher.
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