Episode 3 – Young Performers

Listen to Episode 3 – Student Performers with Daniel Bowers https://sallypal.podbean.com/mf/web/sgeydf/Ep_3_Student_Performers_with_Daniel_Bowers.mp3

Shakespearean Moments
As the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) comes under fire and the conversation for saving the arts in schools pops up on social media yet again, I want to introduce you to Daniel Bowers. Daniel is a well-rounded kid with a hunger for performing. He sings in choir, he acts on the stage. It would not surprise me to see him take up tap dancing. Despite being a 6’4” 15-year-old football player, Daniel speaks as eloquently on acting as any acting coach. He credits his stage experience with building confidence, making friends, learning how to solve problems under pressure, and developing an appetite for working with a diverse group of people creating a big collaborative work from the ground up. These all seem like the things we would want kids to learn to succeed in life, never mind having a career as an actor. I met Daniel when he entered 6^th grade at the school where I taught theater arts. He seemed to be a quiet kid but there was a lot going on in that busy brain. In addition to being an avid reader, Daniel is interested in history, languages, and making people laugh with the cast of characters living in his head. He auditioned for Alice in Wonderland. After landing a small role, he set about creating a character that stole the show. Without mugging, or ad libbing, Daniel did something adult actors occasionally miss. He took what was on the page along with a small bit of directing, and he created a memorable moment within the context of a story. I have directed Daniel in two other plays and it has always been a joy. The last show, Juliet Rescue, was a new piece written by my son, Will Inman (episode 2) and me. Daniel played “Young Will Shakespeare”.  He eagerly took on the role and, while speaking in the Bard’s style, he created several hilarious moments that added warmth to the play. When I retired from teaching a year ago, I told him to come visit me in Virginia and I would take him to the Folger Library in Washington DC. It is the foremost Shakespearean library in the world. Daniel and his mom took me up on my offer and we spent quite some time learning about the collection at the Folger. I can imagine Daniel on stage there one day. But for now, I am thrilled to have seen him savor another kind of Shakespearean moment. There are lots of kids who benefit from performance experience. They are girls and boys, shy and outspoken, theatre nerds and athletes, straight-A students and strugglers, and everyone in between. They are a generation of leaders and innovators. And we want them all to have Daniel’s confidence. I hope you will enjoy Episode 3 of SallyPAL with Daniel Bowers.

Listen to Episode 3 – Student Performers with Daniel Bowers https://sallypal.podbean.com/mf/web/sgeydf/Ep_3_Student_Performers_with_Daniel_Bowers.mp3

Listen to Episode 3 – Student Performers with Daniel Bowers https://sallypal.podbean.com/mf/web/sgeydf/Ep_3_Student_Performers_with_Daniel_Bowers.mp3

Arts Teachers Know This Already!

This is a terrific article written last May for the Washington Post online magazine.  My friend and fellow arts instructor, Jan, sent it to me today.  It reiterates what I have been saying to anyone who will listen: Improved test scores are not an adequate reason to include or exclude a subject area.  Arts have intrinsic value not specifically related and yet foundational to learning in core subject areas.

Middle School Minute(-ish)

Because writing 3X a week was becoming more and more challenging as my school year progressed, a friend suggested instead of blogging, I try vlogging!  Here it is, my first vlog of the new year.  Look for a focus on Middle School and Arts Education!

Developing a Sense of Humor Rather Than a Sense of Outrage: Why Reporting Bullying is only Part of the Answer

A Fledgling Teacher-Led School Trend

My husband found an interesting blog post on the idea of the teacher-led school model.  The idea of a greater presence in the classroom for decision-makers is one which piques my interest.  I am fortunate to work in an educational community where everybody’s involved in student life.  It’s a bit like living in a small town.  Mrs. Crabtree tells your Sunday School teacher what she saw and the milkman noticed something too and we’re all talking to your mom.  But I digress… Enjoy the post:

A Fledgling Teacher-Led School Trend.

Grassroots Education Reform Begins with Us

Barnett Berry Video
I gather that some people have had trouble with the embedded video so I am instead making it a link to the Edutoipia site where you can view his video as well as other resources related to education reform.  Thanks for letting me know!

5 minute Barnett Berry video

Barnett Berry is the president and CEO of the advocacy organization Center for Teaching Quality.  In the preceding video he clarifies for all of us just who is going to reform our current system and outlines ways in which that can be done.  He bases his ideas on what he calls the Four Emergent Realities:

The Four Emergent Realities include:

1. A new learning ecology that provides a “24-7, just-in-time” learning environment with specific assessment tools.

2. Having teachers trained and working both in and out of Cyberspace.

3. Teachers working as teams with a structure to support differentiated teaching careers over time.

4. Teacher-preneurs (we used to refer to these progressive educators as mentors) who teach but are also allowed time, space, geography (connecting in person or online) and reward to spread expertise in and out of Cyberspace.

I think Barnett may be onto something.

Fast Track Preschool

Image via Wikipedia

This New York Times story of preschool madness elicits an obvious response: “Are these parents crazy?”  There are more subtle forms of directed learning that may thwart rather than propel children. We all know that an over-scheduled child can become a stressed-out child.  It would take a month’s worth of blogs to identify negatives associated with stress. For this post I’ll stick to the theme of directed learning.  I should call it over-directed learning.

I have seen teachers and parents (including me) pulling their hair in frustration because a child won’t go along with our learning structure.  I am a fan of giving a certain amount of structure to kids. This includes a few rules, a reliable schedule and logical consequences. That structure allows kids freedom to create within a psychologically safe environment. But here is where I differ from those who push their children to earn their place among the learning superstars before they enter middle school. A child who plays with Lego’s by destroying and rebuilding or spins around in the backyard until he falls down, stands up, looks around, and spins again is learning. We label this kind of learning “play” and by doing so we reduce its importance in the educational hierarchy. Learning does not only occur at a desk or in an environment where right answers rule the day.

Coercing children into directed learning environments such as the one described in the New York Times article or even placing your baby near the stereo to hear Beethoven’s 5th Symphony has only a short-term effect on spatial-temporal reasoning and no discernible increase in intelligence. Why, then, do we continue down these competitive paths? Sometimes we  favor organizational skills and following directions over experiment and exploration. Imposing adult standards on children for things like order, neatness and organization has more to do with convenience and less to do with allowing children to learn and grow. Failure Freedom is missing in these environments.

The freedom to fail boldly is what allows for quantum leaps in learning. By encouraging our children to be afraid of failure and push harder to please the adults in their lives we have siphoned the gas from our educational engine. It took me three kids and many years in the classroom to learn this lesson. But my failures (and not the copious books I have read) have been my greatest learning tool.

Why Are Creative Kids So Easily Bored in School?

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Dr. Robert Sternberg, is an American psychologist and psychometrician and Provost at Oklahoma State University. He was formerly President of the American Psychological Association. Although Dr. Sternberg developed assessments for creativity and practicality (problem solving) he is not a fan of the current model of educational testing.  He asserts that rather than focus on what has been learned, he is interested in assessing a student’s ability to learn.  In his talk at a recent Creativity Summit at the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he answered his own questions, “What do you mean by creativity?” and  “Why isn’t everyone creative?” He restated an idea he promotes in much of his work: “There are people who buy low and sell high in the world of ideas.”  This is shorthand for Sternberg’s Investment Theory of Creativity developed with Dr. Todd Lubart.  My short version of the theory goes something like this: Creative people come up with novel ideas.  The mere novelty of the idea causes it to be rejected by the majority of people.  This rejection is not just a rejection but an acceptance of the status quo.  This is the “buy low” portion of the theory.  The innovator invests effort into convincing others that the idea is not only workable but superior to the status quo. This precedes the “sell high” portion of the argument.  When an idea’s value is finally recognized, the creator ‘sells’ the idea to others to develop while the innovator moves on to other projects. As Sternberg notes, “If you think about it, that’s what creativity is about.”

Sternberg has been quoted as saying, “Creativity is a decision.” He cites 7 Key Decisions in creativity:

1: Decide if you have a problem that seems unsolvable.  Then ask, “Can I redefine the problem?”

2: When you have a creative idea, ask yourself three questions: a) What’s the best that can happen? b) What’s the worst that can happen? and, c) What’s likely to happen?  This helps an innovator analyze potential outcomes.

3. Look for entrenchment.  “Where there’s vested interest, it’s hard to sell creative ideas.”

4. Realize that knowledge is a double-edged sword when it comes to creativity.  Knowledge means less repetition but it can also cause entrenchment.  When knowledge of past outcomes is the lens through which a person creates, “many experts are less creative… [because] they can’t see through other lenses.”

5. Be willing to take sensible risks.

6. Persevere in the face of obstacles.

7. Find what you love to do. “With your kids and with your students, what’s important is not what you want them to do but what they want to do.”

Dr. Sternberg is an authentic and innovative thinker.  Despite expertise that could cause entrenchment in a less playful personality, Dr. Sternberg is the perfect person to explore the educational landscape of assessments and creativity.  Although the entrenchment many of us face in the world of teaching makes innovation challenging, it will help to remember Dr. Sternberg’s 6th Key Decision.  Keeping the creativity conversation alive may cause enough of a shift to allow innovative thinkers a seat at the table when assessments are discussed.

Born Creative

This is the video I made for a recent Creativity Summit in my city. The question was a prompt designed to encourage discussion and creative response.

 

Grammar’s Not Your Gramma

Cover via Amazon

I remember the videos on TV in the 70’s under the title Grammar Rock.  I really loved these videos.  Grammar seemed like a fun concept when I was a kid.  Lately, though, we seem to have lost some of our enthusiasm for excellent grammar.  Back when Grammar Rock was playing on Saturday morning television I had a junior high teacher named Mrs. Wallace.  She taught me how to diagram a sentence.  It was a game to figure out where prepositional phrases fit and what could be done to repair a dangling participle.   I believe this activity is now limited to college linguistics classes.

Since the 70’s I have been a grammar champion.  I know the difference between lie and lay (thanks to my Aunt Gwen) as well as how to use  objective and nominative pronouns.  A few years ago, my eldest daughter asked for a book titled Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a hilarious take on the misuse and correct use of English grammar.  We referred to her as the Grammar Nazi all through high school though she was not allowed to use the moniker online as it contained the dreaded ‘n’ word.  She corrected spirit signs in the hallways of her school with a little red Sharpie.  She later took to calling herself the Grammar Bandit.  Very few people knew who was defacing their grammatically impotent signs but still she found satisfaction in the act.  It’s not a crime to break the rules.  It’s limiting, though, if you don’t even know what the rules are.  My other daughter is a writer who knows the rules and chooses to break them regularly.

It seems to me there are more and more journalists and other types of writers graduating without a solid foundation for their writing.  Grammar is important for linguistic continuity and as the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) point out in a position statement on the teaching of grammar in American schools, “knowing about grammar helps us understand what makes sentences and paragraphs clear and interesting and precise.”

I thought playing the grammar game in junior high was a lot of fun.  I really enjoyed diagramming sentences and I work hard not to end a sentence a preposition with.  This is, sadly, something many radio and TV journalists have forgotten.  Many times, I hear them say things such as, “where the economy is headed to” or “here’s where we’re at” and I cringe.  I know the preposition they are adding is superfluous but, clearly, it seems necessary in an age where words seem cheap.  But words are not cheap.  It’s how we use them that cheapens them.

Part 4 (of 4) Reconceptualizing Education

Image via Wikipedia

This series could go on indefinitely but I thought I should wrap up this segment on reconceptualizing education with an idea.  Reconceptualizing isn’t just about innovating.  It’s about how and why we innovate.  So, instead of featuring an education innovator from the national stage, today I want to acknowledge the innovation of teachers a little closer to home.  Last night I attended what we refer to at my school as School Out of Doors or SOOD for short.  For my team, it was a chance to take 70 7th grade students into the wilderness with tents and sleeping bags and create something memorable for the class of 2016.  But we live in the only state about which Will Rogers famously said, “If you don’t like the weather in Oklahoma, wait five minutes.”  With sudden thunderstorms, threats of baseball-sized hail and an eerie tornado warning, we spent our School Out of Doors INdoors.  While sirens were blaring outside, we gathered the kids into a cinderblock hallway near the gym and sat them on the floor with all their belongings.  The amazing part to me is due to the calm and positive response of the teachers, all the students behaved as though this was an expected part of the weekend.  They played cards, sat and talked with friends, read books and seemed genuinely happy to be in a hot, dark, smelly, cramped hallway with 70 of their closest friends.  When it became clear there would be no night hike, cooking over a flame, or outdoor games, the 7th grade teachers sprang into action.  Okay, maybe we didn’t spring, but we all had a trick or two up our sleeves.  The Dean set up a projector and sound system to show a movie on the gym wall to rival any drive in.  Parents brought in pizzas, the 7th grade teachers helped the students create an indoor campsite complete with tents and flashlight games.  In the morning, they supervised the breakdown of the campsite treating it as they would any clean up they would have to manage in the woods.  This morning we took our students to the school’s courtyard where they made pancakes on camping stoves and ate off tin plates.  There were buckets of suds outside the library where the kids washed their dishes and after eating they broke down the cook sites.  It may not sound wildly innovative but in light of the circumstances the teachers were creative, innovative, encouraging and modeling a critical skill; flexibility.

As teachers and parents we often get caught up in the outcomes game.  If the outcomes don’t match our expectations, there is disappointment and frustration.  We too often pass this culture of inconvenience to our kids.  What would it take to change the mindset that has us become irritable when things don’t go as planned?  If we could make that important adjustment and teach our kids that a change in plans doesn’t have to be negative, we would create a generation of curious and motivated innovators.  I’m all for making plans and following through, but if change is necessary or a better idea reveals itself, shouldn’t we be vigilant and prepared to shift gears?

Smart Dust, now used as a tool in destroying tumors, was a graduate student’s ruined homework.  At USC, Jamie Link accidentally blew up a silicon chip.  Because she was vigilant, she discovered properties in the detritus that made her famous in medical circles providing a previously unknown cure.  The Popsicle, invented by Frank Epperson, was a result of a mess left outside when Epperson was 11 years old.  He left a drink with a stir stick on his front porch.  The cold night left him with a frozen treat on a stick the next morning.  He patented the dessert two decades later much to the relief of kids everywhere with sore throats.  In 1928, Alexander Fleming‘s experiment with bacteria was ruined, or so he thought, when mold showed up in the Petri dish.  His vigilance allowed him to see where bacteria were avoiding the mold.  This led him to a discovery that has saved millions of lives.  Penicillin was the first antibiotic and his flexibility and open mind allowed him to create something exponentially better than what he had initially intended.

The most important lesson we can learn about innovation is this: If we are vigilant, a change in plans can produce greater results than any outcome we could have imagined.  There are myriad stories of greater-than-expected outcomes in science, math, art, literature and every other academic discipline.  This mindset is what we can teach our kids in an age where knowledge is secondary to creativity.  As one of our greatest thinkers once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”