Spent the weekend pounding on things with hammers.
For 16 hours -- my swollen fingers and aching back are both happy it took place spread across two days -- I attended blacksmith classes at the Carroll County Farm Museum's Academy of Traditional Arts.
Led by master blacksmith Bill Clemens, (whose license-plate reads 'Blxsmith'), my classmates and I -- eight guys, mostly sporting beards -- learned the basics of metallurgy, coal firing, hammer-and-anvil technique, and forge welding.
And when I say 'learned', I mean 'LEARNED'.
There were no PowerPoints. No lectures. There were no required textbooks and there weren't any tests.
Just learning.
Blacksmith Bill would demo a technique slowly, and then once again at full speed. And then it was our turn. We went off to our forges and banged stuff out.
In a way, it reminded me of the Aikido classes I took sometime ago. In both cases, technique is modeled by a teacher and then learned and reinforced through actual practice. The sensei doesn't grade your understanding of Aikido by whether or not you can pass a multiple choice test; she assesses your understanding by judging whether or not you have figured out how to roll safely on a mat after having been thrown over the shoulder of a burly classmate. She assesses whether you've learned how to defend yourself from a sword attack by seeing if you keep getting hit by a sword or not.
Likewise, in blacksmithing, you demonstrate your understanding of pig tail scrolls and tab hooks by banging out pig tail scrolls and tab hooks. You learn which part of a two-and-a-half foot rod of mild steel is safe to touch by burning your fingers. You learn how to bring a shaft of glowing hot steel to a point by messing up over and over and over again until you get it right.
And once you do get it right you feel SO GOOD about yourself. And you want to do it again and you want to show everyone what you did and you want to learn more.
I'm going back in a few weeks to take the intermediate class. And then it's on to knife-making. My wife isn't crazy about the fact that I've got burns on six fingers and the slash of a scar above my elbow where a hot shard of steel knicked me, but she was nonetheless supportive of my wanting to build a brick forge in the backyard.
I learned a lot this weekend, and more than anything I learned about what really motivates folks: it's stuff we "can't" do, but nonetheless figure out how to do. And for eight guys who sweat and labored over anvils for a weekend in January, we figured out that you learn by doing and do by learning.
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2010
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Kids and Networks: The Gaming Angle
Mashable reports that Sony's PS3 is linking up with Facebook.
And why is this of any significance to us teachers?
Because the majority of your students are using one or the other or both.
You might say: "But my kid ain't on PS3". Ok, so switch out to Wii, Xbox, WoW, etc. One way or another, we're talking about huge gaming networks. And as these networks link to social media, we're talking about bigger-than-huge networks.
Networks in which your students are active participants.
Now, you might think I'm taking this towards some 'security' thesis. I can safely say that I'm not. I'm hardly 'afraid' of kids being a part of big networks; in fact, as I've seen throughout the varied VRs, kids who play these games and systems often 'get' the way things work in a network -- and by-and-large, the players on/in the game are most interested in... well... the game and success in the game.
There's relatively little time to waste on one of these things; task determination is a priority.
Alas, back to the question: Why is this of any significance to us teachers?
Because, you see, your students are taking part on a daily and casual basis in networks bigger than any most of you have ever known.
And they understand the idea of a massive network.
And they understand and are comfortable with the concept of a network disconnected from their physical reality.
Just ask a few of your sophomores about Modern Warfare 2. Or ask a few of your 12th graders about Wrath of the Lich King.
They will demonstrate an understanding of interpersonal skills that would make any human resources exec swoon.
What are you, as a teacher, doing to tap into this?
And why is this of any significance to us teachers?
Because the majority of your students are using one or the other or both.
You might say: "But my kid ain't on PS3". Ok, so switch out to Wii, Xbox, WoW, etc. One way or another, we're talking about huge gaming networks. And as these networks link to social media, we're talking about bigger-than-huge networks.
Networks in which your students are active participants.
Now, you might think I'm taking this towards some 'security' thesis. I can safely say that I'm not. I'm hardly 'afraid' of kids being a part of big networks; in fact, as I've seen throughout the varied VRs, kids who play these games and systems often 'get' the way things work in a network -- and by-and-large, the players on/in the game are most interested in... well... the game and success in the game.
There's relatively little time to waste on one of these things; task determination is a priority.
Alas, back to the question: Why is this of any significance to us teachers?
Because, you see, your students are taking part on a daily and casual basis in networks bigger than any most of you have ever known.
And they understand the idea of a massive network.
And they understand and are comfortable with the concept of a network disconnected from their physical reality.
Just ask a few of your sophomores about Modern Warfare 2. Or ask a few of your 12th graders about Wrath of the Lich King.
They will demonstrate an understanding of interpersonal skills that would make any human resources exec swoon.
What are you, as a teacher, doing to tap into this?
Friday, October 23, 2009
On Changing it Up
Been teaching my son to hear music.
Confirm: I've been teaching my son to 'hear' music. He's eight years old and has been playing trumpet for two years. Loves jazz and has posters of Miles Davis taped to the wall next to his bed.
But early on it was all drone all the time. Long notes played for as long as possible, generally in the bottom range of the trumpet, and repeated over and over and over.
I wonder why this was. After all, he was taking music class and learning songs. But when we'd play together improvising, he was just droning on.
Now, as a guy with a foot in the world of free improvisational music, I really didn't mind this per se; but I did feel like as an eight-year-old he needed to think about trumpet in a different way and get the experience of changing it up.
So I changed my instrument.
Whereas I had been playing mostly guitar and piano, I switched to double bass.
And suddenly his sound started to expand. And he started to bring snippets of melody into our improvisations. And his trumpet got more talkative. And he seemed to 'get it' more.
We often forget that as teachers, we are the ones who set the tone. And the instruments we choose to play -- sometimes out of habit more than pedagogical conviction -- directly effect the way our students both learn and express themselves.
So be willing to change it up. Don't let a tool become a given.
Keep yourself on your toes and you'll start to hear melodies in your students.
Confirm: I've been teaching my son to 'hear' music. He's eight years old and has been playing trumpet for two years. Loves jazz and has posters of Miles Davis taped to the wall next to his bed.
But early on it was all drone all the time. Long notes played for as long as possible, generally in the bottom range of the trumpet, and repeated over and over and over.
I wonder why this was. After all, he was taking music class and learning songs. But when we'd play together improvising, he was just droning on.
Now, as a guy with a foot in the world of free improvisational music, I really didn't mind this per se; but I did feel like as an eight-year-old he needed to think about trumpet in a different way and get the experience of changing it up.
So I changed my instrument.
Whereas I had been playing mostly guitar and piano, I switched to double bass.
And suddenly his sound started to expand. And he started to bring snippets of melody into our improvisations. And his trumpet got more talkative. And he seemed to 'get it' more.
We often forget that as teachers, we are the ones who set the tone. And the instruments we choose to play -- sometimes out of habit more than pedagogical conviction -- directly effect the way our students both learn and express themselves.
So be willing to change it up. Don't let a tool become a given.
Keep yourself on your toes and you'll start to hear melodies in your students.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Transformation or Irrelevance?
A reader weighs in with a keen observation:
I dare say that teachers have both 'careers' and 'vocations' and that the two are not necessarily the same. That doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the authors, but certainly in light of the 'transformative shift', there are all sorts of 'transformative implications'.
And I do think that this means the careers of teachers are before long going to take a very different shape and offer very different possibilities for the act of teaching itself (not to mention the even more important act of learning). But, as the reader surely knows, such has been the case throughout the history of teaching and intellectual transmission from the Stoa to the University.
One last thought: I do think that teachers and schools in general would be wise to learn something from the example of what has happened over the past ten years in the music industry. Or face a similar irrelevance.
Yes, on first read "nice". But that one sentence should be read in the context of the larger passage that McLeod quotes.
It turns out that the "transformative implications" that Moe and Chubb refer to include offering "new career paths" to teachers (a rather weird extension of freeing them "from their tradition-bound classroom roles"), "sophisticated data systems" (the intent here is most certainly not to Twitter) for making "education" more effective, and lowering the operating costs of schools by employing technology instead of teachers.
I doubt that this blog, that consistently presents the case for the use of digital technologies within a truly humanist educational perspective, really sees those issues as representative of the desired transformation.
I dare say that teachers have both 'careers' and 'vocations' and that the two are not necessarily the same. That doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the authors, but certainly in light of the 'transformative shift', there are all sorts of 'transformative implications'.
And I do think that this means the careers of teachers are before long going to take a very different shape and offer very different possibilities for the act of teaching itself (not to mention the even more important act of learning). But, as the reader surely knows, such has been the case throughout the history of teaching and intellectual transmission from the Stoa to the University.
One last thought: I do think that teachers and schools in general would be wise to learn something from the example of what has happened over the past ten years in the music industry. Or face a similar irrelevance.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
What WoW Can Teach Us Teachers
Something happened over the weekend that really impressed me.
The ‘thing’ was Blizzard Entertainment’s announcement of the next World of Warcraft expansion. On the surface, this might seem like nothing more than a video game promotion. But, when your ‘video game’ consists of an online world inhabited by more real human citizens than New York City, we as folks working with tech on a daily basis should take notice as to what they are up to.
And what they are up to is something phenomenal.
Whereas previous expansions of the adventure game have offered users new quests and new areas to explore, this expansion does one of the most radical things ever attempted in a virtual reality MMOG.
It destroys the world.
Literally. The expansion, called Cataclysm, actually destroys and re-creates the entire multi-continent virtual world that WoW players have come to know over the past few years.
In effect, what the folks at Blizzard Entertainment are banking on is that serious gamers want change.
And what could signal a greater change than actually turning the entire virtual environment on its ear?
Now, in my thinking, there is something to be learned here. For thirty+ years, we’ve treated schools like boardgames. And every few years, we’d announce that the game was changing, but we kept using the same board and the same pieces. We changed the rules, but forced the players to use the same old dice.
Now, we have the opportunity -- as in what Blizzard is doing with WoW -- to dramatically change the environment itself. We can keep the knowledge we've gained through our experiences, but apply it and let it manifest in new ways over a changing and changed world. And we can let that changing and changed world to inform us. To inspire us. And to push us off onto new adventures.
Because our kids are dying to take on new adventures. After all, they live in a world where they expect upheaval and change; they don't understand why so many of us are so afraid of it. Change -- whether in school or in an MMOG -- is a challenge; it's not in and of itself a good thing or a bad thing. In a way, change is worth only what you put into it.
And by destroying the very virtual world so many gamers have come to expect, Blizzard is really putting everything they've got into change.
So here’s the challenge to teachers: be like Blizzard. ‘Destroy’ the world you’ve created for yourself. All of those things you’ve spent years working out -- from seating arrangements to the way you assign homework -- take all those things, crack ‘em like eggs, and see what’s inside.
Try something new at least once a day. Don't let the kids predict you. Mix it up. It's not going to confuse your students (for long...); it's going to intrigue and inspire them.
Don’t be afraid of the cataclysm, embrace it.
The ‘thing’ was Blizzard Entertainment’s announcement of the next World of Warcraft expansion. On the surface, this might seem like nothing more than a video game promotion. But, when your ‘video game’ consists of an online world inhabited by more real human citizens than New York City, we as folks working with tech on a daily basis should take notice as to what they are up to.
And what they are up to is something phenomenal.
Whereas previous expansions of the adventure game have offered users new quests and new areas to explore, this expansion does one of the most radical things ever attempted in a virtual reality MMOG.
It destroys the world.
Literally. The expansion, called Cataclysm, actually destroys and re-creates the entire multi-continent virtual world that WoW players have come to know over the past few years.
In effect, what the folks at Blizzard Entertainment are banking on is that serious gamers want change.
And what could signal a greater change than actually turning the entire virtual environment on its ear?
Now, in my thinking, there is something to be learned here. For thirty+ years, we’ve treated schools like boardgames. And every few years, we’d announce that the game was changing, but we kept using the same board and the same pieces. We changed the rules, but forced the players to use the same old dice.
Now, we have the opportunity -- as in what Blizzard is doing with WoW -- to dramatically change the environment itself. We can keep the knowledge we've gained through our experiences, but apply it and let it manifest in new ways over a changing and changed world. And we can let that changing and changed world to inform us. To inspire us. And to push us off onto new adventures.
Because our kids are dying to take on new adventures. After all, they live in a world where they expect upheaval and change; they don't understand why so many of us are so afraid of it. Change -- whether in school or in an MMOG -- is a challenge; it's not in and of itself a good thing or a bad thing. In a way, change is worth only what you put into it.
And by destroying the very virtual world so many gamers have come to expect, Blizzard is really putting everything they've got into change.
So here’s the challenge to teachers: be like Blizzard. ‘Destroy’ the world you’ve created for yourself. All of those things you’ve spent years working out -- from seating arrangements to the way you assign homework -- take all those things, crack ‘em like eggs, and see what’s inside.
Try something new at least once a day. Don't let the kids predict you. Mix it up. It's not going to confuse your students (for long...); it's going to intrigue and inspire them.
Don’t be afraid of the cataclysm, embrace it.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Practically Impossible
Thinking a lot lately about the parallels among and intersections between the arts and education.
As an artist who teaches, this is one of those things that comes up often in conversations with colleagues in both fields. Some of those conversations are pretty funny... like the one where a new high school art teacher was asking me if I thought she should remove her nude self-portraits from her website.
But some of those intersections can be quite gentle and inspiring as well: like the time a very great, but very troubled artist friend of mine living in a far off place made a short video for one of my students -- considering a career in the arts -- telling her quite honestly and powerfully about what it takes to make it in art school and in the art world on your own terms.
It is humbling to be one of the lucky few whose life and work bridges art and education. And so, as I'm just finishing up a new website where for the first time I am trying to bring into full view both aspects of my life, I of course thought to myself that one of the things that would make the site most meaningful to me would be a forum where artists and teachers could share ideas, observations, and stories both humorous and telling of the difficulties of each vocation -- and the links between them.
The new site is called Practically Impossible (it's still in beta form... not that it won't always look like it's in beta form given my challenges with graphic design) and it'll serve sort of as the nerve-center for all of my work in the arts, organization, and education.
TeachPaperless will continue being a daily blog -- you don't have to worry (or do have to worry) about that. But the Practically Impossible forum I see as both a meeting place and a place to post responses to life's most vexing questions as well as a place to take many of the great questions and conversations that pop up here via reader comments as well as in the Friday Chats and continue them in a forum accessible to everybody.
As an artist who teaches, this is one of those things that comes up often in conversations with colleagues in both fields. Some of those conversations are pretty funny... like the one where a new high school art teacher was asking me if I thought she should remove her nude self-portraits from her website.
But some of those intersections can be quite gentle and inspiring as well: like the time a very great, but very troubled artist friend of mine living in a far off place made a short video for one of my students -- considering a career in the arts -- telling her quite honestly and powerfully about what it takes to make it in art school and in the art world on your own terms.
It is humbling to be one of the lucky few whose life and work bridges art and education. And so, as I'm just finishing up a new website where for the first time I am trying to bring into full view both aspects of my life, I of course thought to myself that one of the things that would make the site most meaningful to me would be a forum where artists and teachers could share ideas, observations, and stories both humorous and telling of the difficulties of each vocation -- and the links between them.
The new site is called Practically Impossible (it's still in beta form... not that it won't always look like it's in beta form given my challenges with graphic design) and it'll serve sort of as the nerve-center for all of my work in the arts, organization, and education.
TeachPaperless will continue being a daily blog -- you don't have to worry (or do have to worry) about that. But the Practically Impossible forum I see as both a meeting place and a place to post responses to life's most vexing questions as well as a place to take many of the great questions and conversations that pop up here via reader comments as well as in the Friday Chats and continue them in a forum accessible to everybody.
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