work

“the Bible got it right”

Hmmm. So I’m doing a little bit of research (okay, a whole lotta research) on the affective domain in education…it’s a long story, and if you’re really curious about why I care, you can read about it here. Little ole me even has something to say there 🙂

Anyway, I ran across this provocative video. It’s a little long, but if you’re intellectually curious and willing to sit through 10 minutes of nerdiness, I promise it’s interesting. And thought-provoking.

Enjoy. I did…and I’m going to be thinking about it for a while. I welcome your comments.

Delivery Matters

I’ve been presenting at a series of educational workshops recently that focus on course content. Curriculum building, especially full blown curriculum redesign, is the buzzword these days.

Content, as they say, is King.

But we have to remember that delivery matters. All the great content in the world is useless if we can’t deliver it in a way that is meaningful and relevant. We are not operating in a vacuum, acting like talking heads sharing our brilliance where it may fall — we need to establish a rapport with our students that promotes a relationship — with the instructor, with the content, and with the potential that the content opens for the students.

It occurs to me that this paradigm is not some revolutionary educational construct. It’s about good communication. Period.

Because delivery matters.

it’s poetry time in class

I thought I’d switch it up a little this time. I usually play this Al Green and Queen Latifah duet, Simply Beautiful, but this time I’m going with something a little different, not in English, to see if my students respond to the sound and the imagery.

It still has that part where I present Emily Dickinson’s definition of poetry:

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it.  Is there any other way?

I’ll share the lyrics with them after, but first, I’ll see how they react. I’m guessing, this group probably doesn’t listen to  Coldplay 🙂

To complicate things, the video isn’t the official Coldplay one, it’s a magnificent cover by the Piano Guys. It. Is. Gorgeous.

.

I’m going to ask the class to think about their paradise…what’s yours?

I could rattle off a list of things I’d like…you know….things…and I’m ashamed that’s where my mind went first. But as I thought it through…paradise is what I want. Heaven. What a grand party we’ll all have, won’t we?

[Here’s some trivia about me: I thought of treating myself to piano lessons when I turn 50, but if you know me and my love of strings, maybe I should take up the cello. That should torment the dog. Seriously, aren’t the Piano Guys incredible? I could rock an electric cello, right?]

And so it goes

I have this love/hate relationship with my vocation as teacher. Most days my prayers sound like this: Oh God, what am I to do today? And then I go in and love my students.

Other days it’s a lament: Oh gawd, what am I to do today? And then I go in and love my students, but I don’t have to like them, right?

I entered this field kicking and screaming, and have been in various levels of denial ever since. Still, if you met me at a party and asked me what I do, teacher would roll off my tongue pretty naturally.

I do other things…important things…things that give my life meaning. Anchor me. Keep me sane. They probably make me a better teacher when all is said and done.

But nothing, nothing, makes me crazy like teaching. I’ve tried to walk away from it three times, and failed. I can laugh a little now and say I’m like St. Peter…denying this about myself before finally seeing the truth.

It’s easy to love  teaching when I love it. But here’s the wild part: I still love it when I’m busy hating it.

I’m too drawn to the people, the students, to really walk away. I’d miss too many opportunities to meet people like Miss Ethel and Miss Warnell (they gave me permission for this picture!). They’ve been best friends since before I was born. They’ve raised their kids and their grand kids, and now, they’re in school pursuing their dreams of college.

How could I walk away from smiles like these?

another term begins…

Tomorrow I get back to work in earnest. On-line classes become available to my students, so while technically, students start attending their classes on Monday, I have to be ready to go tomorrow for the few enthusiastic ones who have been waiting for their on-line classes to go live.

Nerds.

I don’t blame them. I was that nerdy student who sat in my room the night before classes started, caressing my school supplies, sharpening pencils, labeling notebooks. I know, it was a giant nerdfest for me. Don’t judge.

It’s not that much different on the other side of the desk. I still get a little utz in my stomach — part nervousness, part anticipation. The start of a new term, the start of a new class is full of all the hope and wonder of new beginnings. A little bit of the unknown mixed with the desire to do things right this time. To really get the most out of the term, or experience, or whatever.

It’s one more chance to get it right.

My school supplies are easy these days. A red pen is all I need. In most classes, I don’t even need that — we’ve gone practically paperless.

I’ll walk into my first class with a smile and a plastic pen that lets me magically make images appear on a board. A click, a swipe, a tap here and there and I’ll open up an entire universe to students who’ve never ventured beyond the natural boundaries of their neighborhoods.

I’ll introduce them to art and literature and history that will confuse them, inspire them, anger them, and, if I’m doing it right, move them and make them think.

I don’t take this responsibility lightly. Some days I get angry, and other days I feel like phoning it in. But most days I get up ready to face the challenge with enthusiasm and joy.

Part of my job is to inspire and motivate my students. I recognize that I am a source of many things for them — sometimes the content of the class is not as important as how I deliver it. It’s a crazy responsibility  — forming minds. Too many times I feel that I am not up to it — what if I get it wrong? What if I fail? What if I unintentionally hurt someone –squash dreams, crush hopes.

I don’t dwell on these thoughts too much or I wouldn’t be able to do my job. They are not paralyzing — just simmering under the surface. Let’s say that these thoughts keep me honest. I am aware of the power I have in the classroom. Power for good if I harness it properly.

That’s why I found Pope Benedict XVI’s address to university professors so inspiring. He acknowledges a great truth that drives what governing bodies tell me I must do:

At times one has the idea that the mission of a university professor nowadays is exclusively that of forming competent and efficient professionals capable of satisfying the demand for labor at any given time. One also hears it said that the only thing that matters at the present moment is pure technical ability.

That can’t be all I do, for I would fall short … way short of the potential for teaching the whole person. Otherwise, I might as well be training pets to do tricks.

In truth, the University has always been, and is always called to be, the “house” where one seeks the truth proper to the human person. Consequently it was not by accident that the Church promoted the universities, for Christian faith speaks to us of Christ as the Word through whom all things were made (cf. Jn 1:3) and of men and women as made in the image and likeness of God.

I don’t teach in a Catholic university. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to face a different kind of student than the demographic I serve. Most days I consider it a very special mission … they deserve no less than what I would offer elsewhere. It becomes an unexpected lesson in dignity and respect for the human person. Although I work in a very secular setting, I cannot divorce my faith from who I am and how I teach, and ultimately what I teach, if not explicitly, then certainly implicitly:

…we realize that we are a link in that chain of men and women committed to teaching the faith and making it credible to human reason. And we do this not simply by our teaching, but by the way we live our faith and embody it, just as the Word took flesh and dwelt among us.