WK3 Response to Eric Anderson - Life after Full Sail

Throughout the EMDT program I’ve found myself thinking a lot about how the post-Full Sail me will be different from the pre-Full Sail me. Though most of these thoughts relate to me the teacher, some things aren’t specific to my teaching career. I hope that I can have a better appreciation of time, friends, and family. As they say, you never know how much you appreciate something until it’s gone, and these three things have been pretty much absent from my life over the past 10.5 months.

But on to me as a teacher. One of the frustrations of this program is that I’ve learned so many cool things that I want to try with my students, but I haven’t had the time to do that. As we start to plan for next school year, I’m already thinking about how I can use the things I’ve learned with my students. I’ll be teaching a new class next year that I’ve never taught before, and it’s a perfect opportunity to design the course essentially from the ground up using a blended mode of content delivery.

As stressful as this month has been so far, it is a great relief to have most of our work in MAC devoted to our action research projects. In previous months, AR was always the thing that kept getting bumped lower on the priority list as all the other projects and assignments were due. It’s refreshing to be able to spend the limited time I have in my schedule to take everything I’ve collected and work on compiling it and planning how to present it.

Several summers ago I participated in a conducting workshop at Northwestern University taught by two of the most legendary Wind Band conductors alive today, Mallory Thompson and H, Robert Reynolds. It was a grueling week, and they were very upfront with their approach of “break you down, then build you back up again”. Though I don’t necessarily advocate that approach to teaching, it was a week that I’ll never forget and a week that taught me a lot about what it is to be a conductor.

In many ways, I feel like this year of EMDT has been the same way, and that this month is truly the start of the process of building us back up. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, see the forest for the trees, and all the other cliche expressions. Reading the next chapters in The Art of Possibility has become the highlight of my week -- an oasis of inspiration in a desert of stress and exhaustion. Reading Benjamin Zander’s thoughts on conducting and teaching have made me eager to be able to devote all of my time to teaching again, but with the new tools, knowledge, and experience I’ve gained this past year.

I still consider myself a runner, even though I haven’t had much time for running this year. It’s one of the other things I’m looking forward to having more time for after July 2nd. I’ve run two marathons (Portland in 2005 and Chicago in 2008) and this sure feels like about mile 23!

Sunday, May 23, 2010 - 04:04 PM

Ashley Burch

Eric, having run some marathons myself, this feels like mile 25 to me. It’s that last haul to the finish when you are dead tired, can’t believe you have actually made it this far, and know it is still going to take your last ounce of energy to finish. I believe this will be a memorable race. Yes there is a finish line and it’s approaching quickly. It will all be worth it in the end.

WK3 Response to Kelly Jankowski - Free Choice

WEEK # 3 FREE CHOICE RESPONSE

I have chosen to write about the Publishing/Leadership Project because I wrote about the Summary Project in the other post. I would like to publish to either Learning & Leading, Tech Trends, School Library Monthly or School Librarian's Workshop. I have read a little about the process and so far the best thing to do right now is to read the articles in the magazines to get an understanding about the format they would be looking for. I am not familiar with Learning & Leading and Tech Trends so I am in the process of reading some articles from the magazines. Now it's on to the writing of the AR page for the project.

WK3 Reading - The Way Things Are

I love the quote above. This chapter reminded me of this saying, “everything happens for a reason.” I believe things happen in life that are uncontrollable such as natural disasters, loss, and happiness. I don’t know when they come and go, but looking at the situation in a positive light or accepting that it will turn out ok in the end is just the way things are.

As I read the scenario about the vacation in Florida about the weather taking a misfortunate stormy turn, which gave the possibility of acceptance or complaint, I looked at the acceptance role in a whole other way. Sunny skies and a beach would be a wonderful vacation, but if it happens to change, there are still other possibilities to enjoy yourself. They just aren’t what you expect them to be and it may still be what you need.

“Nature makes no judgment. Humans do” (Zander & Zander, 2000, p. 105). The story of the rabbi saying to always thank the Lord just to be on the safe side shows it is difficult to know which good thing is a bad thing in another’s eyes or which bad thing is a good thing to someone else.

Then there was the story of the man who said he had no communication with his son and built up a wall. It was evident that he did not see the possibility of opening himself up to his son.

The story how Jane Goodall just explained what is and had no blame for anything bad that had happened to the animals showed real integrity in character. I do admire someone who fights for a cause with the knowledge of facts. I’m not saying she didn’t have feelings, but to blame someone would be wrong.

My feelings about this chapter were still a little vague mostly because I am one to dwell on the past and ask the question “what if.” Having to accept the way things isn’t something I regularly think about. There are circumstances where that have made me accept the way things are, but not without questioning why first. I guess what I am trying to say that this chapter has taught me is that when I can let things go and accept, more possibilities actually arise. No longer is the questioning holding me back.

Reference:

Zander, R. & Zander, B. (2000). The art of possibility: Transforming professional and personal life. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Image: Creative Commons

WK2 Publishing/Leadership Project part 1 of 3: Organization

Time to start looking at where to post. Still foggy on what to do for the Publishing/Leadership project. I hope to know what I'm doing by the end of the week. One resource I would love to publish to would be Edutopia. I have gotten most of my information and references from the magazine and two Edutopia groups I joined called Middle School, and Arts/Music/Drama. I don't know what I would do without Edutopia.

The farthest I've gotten in acquiring a submission for publishing is downloading the submission release form. I cannot submit without one. Along with that, I just need to once again, organize, organize, organize!

I want to submit into the section for the Arts, possibly in a feature section. I'll work on it.

Image from Edutopia.org

WK2 Project - AR Summary

I don't mean to keep complaining about AR and I know it's almost over, but this is killing me!

Ok got that out of my system. Now for the AR summary, it has taken some time to organize myself as usual. Dr. Ludgate's video on the summary was encouraging. Glad to be almost there.

As for my findings in AR, I have concluded that the middle school art student reacts well to peer critique when done online such as using a social network like Facebook, Flikr, or Ning. This also helps when students are then forced to speak to others about personal artwork. I have found that my students don't always listen to what I have to say about their artwork because they have to listen to me, just one person's view, all year long. Having multiple views and comments can really challenge the student to see what it is he or she can improve on.

My lit review focused on student personal interest in relation to art, how this would create more interest in their projects. In the end, this personal reflection helped choose an original idea for their art piece in the Junior Visual Arts Scholastic Event. It combined the 1st idea I had with AR in proposing a project on student personal interests with that of the actual research, which happened to become an online critiquing process aiding in judging for a competition.

Overall, students were more involved and happy with the results.

Photograph by Ashley Burch - Students with medals and artwork at the Jr. VASE competition

WK2 Response to Kimberly Coast - Chapters 4-6

One of my favorite things that I read was from chapter 4. I love to think of my life in context of how I can be a blessing to others and create something special for the people that I love and interact with each day. So this line, “…you wake up each day and bask in the notion that you are a gift to others (page 58).” Really makes me happy. It is in harmony with my life’s song. In many ways it is self-satisfying to know that you are special and capable of making a difference in someone’s life. I get the most pleasure from giving someone a gift. It is even more fun for me when the gift is secret or unexpected. I loved his description of his father and his father’s awesome drive and sense of humor. I think of the movie “Life is Beautiful” and am reminded of how the father works so hard to redefine the concentration camp into a game for his son to preserve his life. This is the ultimate demonstration of redefining the rules of the game and changing the world to make the impossible possible. There are days that I wake up and don’t want to face the day or all the things that I can’t possibly finish. Interestingly, somehow I get it all done and surprise myself. I think it is a good focus to perceive our world as one of possibilities and potential instead of a world of no can do’s, failures, and impossibilities.

Leading from any chair hit resonance with my goals as a teacher to lead my students to great success. I love the idea of the “silent conductor” because I can be the one that leads my students to be “lively and engaged (page 68).” I think the story I loved the most is about Mr. Lehner. It is really a two-part story and it made me think of how many times I let the students be the conductors. It is interesting that when I assign projects the normal response is excitement about the project and fear about presenting it to the class. My students long for the same opportunity to lead the orchestra in my class and make things more interesting or fun. When I involve them in games and activities I see the fun factor at work as well as the leadership factor winning over their enthusiasm. When people ask me why teaching and not something more lucrative or more personally challenging it is not a hard question to answer. I live for those moments when I see kids stepping up and taking the controls of their education and putting their best efforts into it. The second part of the story where the young man fills in for the older Mr. Lehner when he forgets his part brings to mind that we are all on the same team and that is what life is all about. We must work closely with each other and lend that helping hand when we realize that it is needed. That particular helping hand was so very perceptive and gentle so as not to reproach, but to support that individual. So nice!

Hahahahahaha! Rule number 6 rocks! I actually have this rule in my Spanish classes!!! Don’t take yourself too seriously and laugh at your own mistakes is an awesome way to approach foreign language acquisition. When I first started to speak Spanish I made some whopping mistakes. I recount these mistakes to my students and they love to laugh at them with me. They make some great mistakes as well and we all get a chance to laugh just about every class time. I think that to really be able to relax you have to know how to laugh at mistakes and move on. The more outgoing you are the easier it is to practice a new skill or language, as that is my area. I know that when we are really stressed it is harder for us to remember what we need to know; so laughing is a good release of stress and way to refocus ourselves.

This chapter really caught me off guard though when I got to the part where the author presented the challenge to “have the best sex ever (pages 85-87).” However, I felt like the whole argument was about the idea of perception and not taking yourself too seriously. Interesting. I think that it was a good build up for the next part. I was so intrigued by the section on young Jeffrey and learning “Spring Dream” from Schubert’s Die Winterreise that I had to go search it on Youtube to find out what in the world kind of song deserved such a wonderful description. Wow! It really does deserve that emotional description.

Reading through the rest of the chapter I kept thinking about each of the experiences and compared it back to the young man Jeffrey learning to be vulnerable and to experience the music as life. Love is an important factor to life. I don't think a person can really live without love and the attachments to the people around them. We all have various relationships with people, but those closest to us are in that special inner circle of trust, honesty, hope, and vulnerability. When I think about love, teaching and learning what they all have in common is that vulnerability. To be in true love with someone you have to be open, honest and yes very vulnerable. To be a great teacher you have to lead by example and open up to students that you are not the end all answer, but just a part of the great picture of learning and guiding experiences. A great teacher can laugh at her mistakes and admit that she is human and vulnerable. To learn you have to become vulnerable and admit that you need to learn or that you don’t already possess those skills or knowledge that you are asking to be taught. I have to say that the best quote is “angels can fly there because… they take themselves lightly (page 97).” We can all enable our students to be the angels in the world to also lift up other learners and help collaborate in this great educational possibility. I’m loving this book!!

Posted by Maestra Coast at 9:37 PM

1 comments:

Ashley said...

Kimberly, I love how you started off quoting your favorite line from the reading. That is a great way of looking at life, waking up knowing you are gift to others. It puts a smile on my face too. It is interesting that you say you sometimes think you can’t possibly finish all you have to do in one day and then surprise yourself by getting it all done. I wonder how that happens. I can’t even believe we are here in the 11th month or how I’m managing to survive, but things are getting done. For me, it’s the act of getting starting that scares me, but once I begin, everything somehow gets done.

You mention that people ask you why teaching and why not something more lucrative or personally challenging. I believe teaching to be the most challenging job there is. There are tons of surprises every day, millions of possibilities and challenges awaiting each and every second of the day.

I think it’s easier said than done to be vulnerable in front of my students. I want to always be the one in charge, but knowing that they can grow and become more independent learners by trying things out themselves is worth me taking a step back and admitting I can’t handle everything on my own. Laughter is wonderful medicine. Chapter 6 made so much sense. A weight is lifted of my shoulders already. I’m so glad to be reading this book right now. Loving it too!

May 16, 2010 7:11 PM

WK2 Response to Elizabeth Bennert - Chapter 6

As Ben Zanders stated on page 80: "Humor can bring us together around our inescapable foibles, confusions, and miscommunications..." He then goes into talking about how humor also prevents us from picking at each other, back stabbing, and attacking each other.

As a teacher I see the need to lighten up in many different ways.
The calculating self, the one Ben says wants to be noticed and appreciated really needs to take a back seat in education. This is not a job full of bonuses and thank yous every day. Many days are spent trying to get students to work, parents to understand, colleagues to listen and doing what you are told by admin. There are not many days where the stand up and notice how awesome I am self gets its acknowledgments. Instead of getting in a temper about it, laugh, sigh and sing some Jimmy Buffett for "if we didn't laugh we would all go insane"

The story about June leaving her husband, only to realize eventually that had she let that guard down, relax and just take the world as it is, she realized that she was part of the problem in her marriage and one she figured that out, things were better for her. I realized that when I was stressing out about things in life and getting all worked up, the people around me (husband, kids, students, co-workers) would feed on that down emotion. I understood that though stuff happens, if you let everything get you down, you will always be down. So I just keep telling myself: it is, what it is, and there is not point festering over it. So laugh and be goofy...it spreads and everyone around you will have a lighter mood as well.