Posts Tagged ‘Philosophy’

On Wisdom and Creativity

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Last week, at the first-ever Civic Mirror Summer Institute in Edmonds, WA, I spoke to the group several times about how truly crazy it is that I’ve spent the last 8 years developing The Civic Mirror and now Action-Ed. I mean, when all of the emphasis in education over the last ten years has been on assessment methods and curricular standardization, I’ve totally done the opposite and invested everything into an experiential, growth-oriented, game-based educational initiative.

But (I continued to explain) there was always something deep down that told me it was the right thing to do. It was real teaching. It brought out the inner-life in my otherwise sedated students. It got them out of their seats and talking about life and the world and how they want it to be.  It was the reason I put “wisdom” at the center of Action-Ed’s philosophy.

And so I want to share an inspiring passage from the best book I’ve read in a long time. It’s taken from Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write (page 144). It reminds me of why I got into the business of teaching in the first place, and what “real teaching” and “real learning” truly is. I hope you find it a pleasant contrast to all the standards and benchmarks and assessment methods we’re all worrying about right before this new school year begins:

“Or should I put it this way: van Gogh and Chekhov and all great people have known inwardly that they were something. They have had a passionate conviction of their importance, of the life, the fire, the god in them. But they were never sure that others would necessarily see it in them, or that recognition would ever come.

But this is the point: everybody in the world has the same conviction of inner importance, fire, of the god within. The tragedy is that either they stifle their fire by not believing in it and using it; or they try to prove to the world and themselves that they have it, not inwardly and greatly, but externally and egotistically, by some second-rate thing like money or power or more publicity.

Therefore all should work. First because it is impossible that you have no creative gift. Second: the only way to make it live and increase is to use it. Third: you cannot be sure that it is not a great gift.”

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Talk To Your Students, Not At Them

Monday, June 15th, 2009

One of the best tips I received early on in my teaching career was to talk to my students as if they were adults, not at them as if they belonged to a different human sub-species. Here are some reasons why you should consider talking to your students instead of at them as well:

1. The most obvious reason: You talk to your friends, colleagues, and adult strangers. You don’t talk at them. Why would it be any different with your students? Are they members of a different human sub-species?

2. You reduce the chance of being viewed as a hypocrite. If how you talk to people depends on their station in life relative to your own (i.e. inferior, equal, superior), how can you ever hope to become an “integrated” person?  On the other hand, if you talk to everyone the same – whether they are friends, students, and/or colleagues – you increase your integrity (from “integrated”) and reduce the risk of being perceived as a hypocrite (from Greek hypokritēs which means actor).

3. When you talk to someone you’re indicating respect. When you talk at someone you’re broadcasting your own arrogance. Respectful people are liked. Arrogant people are not. In fact, I’m willing to bet most of those teachers who say, “My students just don’t respect me,” talk at their students.

4. You reduce the occupational hazards that come with teaching (e.g. bossyness, complusive social planning & ogranizing in social situations, not admitting to not knowing something, etc.). Put another way, when you talk to your friends, you don’t boss them around, you admit you don’t know things, and you don’t organize their lives for them. But when you talk at someone (even your friends), it’s easier to do all these things.

5. You’ll develop confidence as a leader amongst your friends and peers. When you talk at someone you view them as inferior, but when you talk to someone you view them as an equal. Teaching requires one to give orders, determine worth, enforce consequences, and manage people. Most people in life do not have to do such things. These are leadership tasks.  Teachers who view their students as equals learn how to do all these things in a fair, respectable, and positive way. Teachers who view their students as inferiors don’t. Teachers who talk to their students learn how to become positive and well-liked leaders.  Teachers who talk at their students don’t. It all starts with how you talk.

Conclusion ~ When you talk to your students, they’ll know that they’re working with “the real you.” As a result, they’ll respect you more, they’ll listen more when you do have to talk to them seriously, you will develop enviable leadership skills, and life will become easier because you’ll be able to be the real you.

TIP: Ask yourself on a regular basis, “Would I say it this way to a friend, to a colleague, or I’m standingbeside in a movie theater line-up?”  You’ll be amazed at the results … both in the classroom and in your personal life.

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Follow-Up to “Education Needs Better Tools”

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

My last post – “Education Needs Better Tools” – instigated several conversations this week, and each time I elaborated on what I meant, I just couldn’t quite nail it down.

And then I came across a picture that Christopher D. Sessums (a brilliant educational blogger) used in his most recent post … and it communicated in such a better and more simple way what I was trying to say.

tools make change

tools make change

Granted he refered to the toast and toaster differently …

  • Sessums: “Toaster = Teachers” and “Toast = Students”
  • Me: “Toast = Educational Learning Resources [or tools]” and “Toaster = State of Education” …

The picture and his opening McLuhan quote nonetheless helped me capture what I’m trying to communicate:

Change is more likely to occur when we invent new tools that make participating (in the change) fun and easy and worth it.

I’m not saying that theories and philosophies are useless. Far from it. Everything starts with an idea, and we have the great thinkers of the ages to thank for laying the groundwork for most of our advancements. But what I am saying is that, given how much tools accelerate and make change, I think Education would hugely benefit if more ephasis was placed building tools to make the change happen … instead of talking about the change that should be happening.

Some Final Thoughts:

  • It wasn’t the idea of looking for better land and game that spawned human expansion across the world as much as it was clothes and arrow-heads and fire-starting techniques.
  • It wasn’t Martin Luther that fueled the Reformation as much as it was the printing press and the use of a common linguistical tool … German.
  • It wasn’t the idea of settling the West that settled the West as much as it was the steam engine and the locomotive.
  • And it wasn’t the computer that got all of us using the internet in the 1990’s as much as it was the web browsers that made it so fun and easy.

If we want educational change, we need to think about changing our educational tools.

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Posted in Philosophy, Reflections, Teaching Ideas | No Comments »

Education Needs Better Tools

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

Education doesn’t need any more theories.

Education doesn’t need any more assessment methods.

Education doesn’t need any more fanciness.

Education needs better tools.

Education needs more action.

It’s been almost 100 years since John Dewey sparked the pedagogical revolution … and how far have we come?

We reward theories, assessments, and fancy ways to display information. We don’t reward educational tools that bring the real-world into the classroom for students and teachers; tools that make educational potent … that make it fun, exciting, and meaningful.

Would a military general ask his soldiers to invent and build their own weapons? Of course not! Yet we ask our teachers (the ones in the educational trenches day-in and day-out) to do this every day.

We need our experts to talk less, to theorize less, and to assess less. We need our experts to build things, to create cutting-edge learning programs instead of talking about what they would be like!  Whether they be games, investigative scenarios, simulations, life-like competitions, role plays, productions, or what have you … we just need less talk about how to change things, and more action.

With reference to the Monty Pythons, we need less PFJ … and more feminists!

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Posted in Reflections, Teaching Ideas | 2 Comments »