Authentic Tech

Meghan Bassett: http://meghanbassett.blogspot.com/2011/05/wk3-reading-art-of-possibility-chapters.html

In the first chapter Leading From Any Chair, I couldn’t help think about my mother. She works in a school as the secretary to the principal. The principal received an email last week that a report needed to be ran. He never told my mother or the person that was supposed to run the report, but my mom found out from another school. When she brought it up that he may have missed an email, he said he never received it. A few hours later, after going back to him again, he forwarded the email and said he had just gotten it (which we all know, emails are time stamped). Instead of admitting his own mistake, he, like the conductors, tried to let it slide and hoped no one noticed.

The mere act of kindness and acknowledging that other people help you do a job is severely under-used. If you give ANY kind of praise to people who are helping you, or even say thank you to them, it brings up esteem and also encourages people to continue to work hard for you. I guess we could all work on this in different ways. I personally could work on always encouraging my students in ways that they are doing well. I can be sarcastic, which doesn’t work well with all of my students.

The next Chapter, the Rule number 6, took a more person attack on a way I’ve been feeling for a week now. I was very betrayed by someone I thought I could trust. A friend of mine told another friend of mine something very personal, and very atomic. I knew that the word had spread, and I wasn’t sure of where it had started. I found out and instead of confronting the issue, I recoiled and hid from everyone. Here, I need to follow Rule number 6, and stop taking myself so seriously. People talk, and say things that aren’t theirs to say, and sometimes there are things that get said that we don’t want said. It’s a part of human nature, and if I really didn’t want anyone to know, I wouldn’t have said it in the first place. I’m still hurt, but I’m letting it go in my own time.

The Way Things Are…I’ve always tried to see the cloud with a silver lining, and look on the bright side of things. A much easier said than done thing to accomplish. I’m one of those people, once I start feeling negative, everything that’s negative seems to find me. I’m sure that has everything to do with the way I am looking at things, rather than the world being out to get me. If we can laugh and play with the bad things that happen to us, a much more light hearted attitude would be had by everyone around us!

I would love to give way to passion more. Sometimes we are so stuck in living life day to day we forget to give in to the natural flow of life an energy. I try to recognize the energy around me, but I’ll be honest…the only real times I feel a surge of energy run through me are when I’m by the ocean watching the waves, or listening to music and painting. Then I can truly let passion run through me and I feel at one with everything around me.

Anne Alsup: http://annealsupsanecdotes.blogspot.com/

The teacher, like the conductor of an orchestra is not the true power in the classroom. The teacher derives their power from the success of the student. Some teachers may see their role as enlightening their students with their vast knowledge, but I disagree. Perhaps more can be learned from the conductor.

One of the most difficult issues that I faced during my action research project as I moved my classes from the traditional teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered model was the role of the instructor. Almost universally, students perceive the role of the teacher as supplying knowledge and answering questions, a notion that has been perpetuated by an arena of high-stakes testing. While this methodology has merit for the conveyance of basic facts and principles, it falls short of moving the student to transference of the principles at higher levels of intellectual and cognitive application.

It is not the conductor's role to play the violin, only to direct the violinist. Like the conductor, it is not the teacher's role to answer the question, but to ask the question and point the student in the direction of knowledge. My research indicated that the teacher should literally say nothing that would interfere with the students' thought process. Students should be encouraged to develop the ideas, based on their previous knowledge and define the concepts for themselves. This approach transcends the power of the conductor and empowers learning to take place from any chair. Through this collaborative orchestra of thought, knowledge is generated beyond the scope of any individual effort.

Is it necessary that every student masters the laws of physics, understand Shakespearean literature or solve a quadratic equation? I think we know better. Our world would be a better place if each child could discover and develop their passion. Establishing graduation requirements and competency testing does little to promote passion for learning. It is time to apply Rule #6 to the educational arena. Yes, we should have some basic requirements and children should be exposed to wide variety of educational opportunities, but the sooner we help children develop areas of interest, the better chance we have lessening the control of the calculating self and free the child to find the central self. Imagine a universe of possibility where each person is able to express their inner desires in a positive direction by contributing to their world. A world in which each person participates in the part that they were born to play and plays it with unbridled passion.