Dr. Timony, Author at Welcome

You Must Be Certain of the Devil

It was Diamanda Galas who sang it. Admittedly, I had a crush on her in college. For years I did not even know what she looked like, but it was her voice. She boasts a 4 octave range. She sings in Greek, Latin ,and sometimes in English. She played piano, for a time in the early 1980s, with Ornette Coleman.

Her grand work, The Plague Mass, addressed the rampant spread of AIDS in America and was written for her brother. Her take on the disease blew me away. She was an artist, an activist. She felt deeply. She said that we all have AIDS because it is a societal problem. She was right and I felt it right along with her. It was gorgeous and grotesque. Parts of it are hard to listen to for many reasons. I remember falling asleep to it and waking up in what I thought was a lucid dream: the room dark with booming drums and other-worldly screams echoing through my small house on Pemberton Street in South Philadelphia. I remember hearing those words echo in the halls:

I woke up and saw the face of the devil. I said, “What time is it?”

He said, “How much time do you want?

The title of one of her songs stuck with me from the first time I heard it. I was sure that it was the name of an old gospel song, but I could not find it anywhere that I looked.

You Must Be Certain of the Devil

It came to take on different meanings to me over my life. Right now and for the last several years it has meant one specific thing. You must know what it is that you are fighting so you do not waste your time and energy on the wrong things. Too often, we spend time on the symptoms of our

problems rather than getting to the root cause. Before you spend time on what you suppose may be the issue in your life, your relationships, your school, or your self–stop. Make sure you are certain that you are dealing with the real problem and not just the symptoms. We do not have the time or the energy that we once had. In dealing with education, we cannot waste what time we have to correct situations that are so crucial to the lives of our students.

I look at my students. I think of their strengths. I cannot wait to know how brilliant they will be. It makes me think of my own daughter. It makes me eager to know how brilliant and beautiful she will become. Do not waste a second putting another band-aid on that peripheral issue. Get to the heart of the matter and if you cannot, get help. Just be certain

Top 5 ways to Convey Competence–according to students

In discussions with high school students, I was eager to find out what teachers do that conveys competence in their eyes. What are the behaviors that teachers demonstrate that allow the students to view them as possible Experts in their field? You are being watched. Evaluated.

These “Expert” teaching behaviors do not represent perceptions of all students. Some of these may resonate with you and your population while some may make no sense whatsoever. My challenge to you is that you consider the perception of your students in your classroom and consider whether incorporating these behaviors into your teaching scheme may improve their perception of your competence.

5. Controls class through teaching: We are talking about the whole deal here. I have told countless students the same story with the same scenario many times and it is true. As soon as the first student asks to go to the bathroom, you are done for. This is your sign from above: You have lost them. You do not have to believe me. But know that it is true. How, you may ask, do you control bladders? Plan. Maintain interest. Make the content relevant (I did not say teach relevant content–that is another discussion). Use teaching to control all aspects of the class. Know your students, their temperaments, and develop your methods for the content in ways that keep everything under ‘control.’ The opposite of this would be threats, begging, disciplinary action, and yelling.

4. Control the pace of learning: Sounds simple enough, right? There are many components to this item and that is (another) discussion for another day. Keep it as quick as you can without losing minds or interest. Keep it slow enough to stick. Cycle back to firm up details–not with the same notes, discussion points, and examples but with new approaches. Your students should not feel as if you simply repeat things to improve their memorization.

3.Explains their subject clearly and effectively: Repeated attempts to explain material tend to gum up the works. You have probably seen this scenario: the material is covered ‘according to plan.’ There are a few questions that get answered and then you begin to investigate the depth of understanding. Additional explanation creates more questions and dissolves prior understanding so that the information has lost consistency and dribbles to mush on the floor. You can almost touch it. Refine, refine, refine. And do not mistake student questions for a depth of understanding.

2.Has all information memorized: Yes. Sorry. You may not like that one. You can go one for a few days talking about how memorization is so basic and how it does not prove anything and how it is pointless and how you have open note tests and how you do not think that anyone anywhere should ever have to memorize anything ever because this is the information age and we are surrounded by information and haven’t you ever heard of Google or the internet or the kid who delivered a baby with a Bic Biro and YouTube?

1. Teachers are not reliant upon the textbook: Hate to break it to you, but your students do expect you to have all the answers. Before you run yourself through with a rusty steak knife let me remind you that this is likely limited to the information that was covered to-date. We would call it fluency with the material–it requires that you know the material you are teaching inside and out, that you are able to manipulate abstract ideas with the material, and that you have anticipated many of the questions that will arise. This is, after all, your content area. Is it not?

This is not a comprehensive list and it is definitely not a construct that boasts a one-size-fits-all approach. It is a springboard for renewal and experimentation. Reflection. Try a few of these on for size and see if it makes a difference. Perceptions of competence result in better outcomes for both the teacher and the student. Put plainly, if your students think you are competent they will change their level of effort to match that perception. Comments are welcome!

Beg to Differ. Go ahead, BEG.

Rebel: Noun. Verb. Adjective. Sweet.

I should probably spend more time being positive. Surely, that is what Tom Whitby thinks. I would say that I am more serious than negative. My goal in this post, aside from contributing to the REBEL post-o-rama-thon, is to be helpful. Comments are always welcome. If you like it, maybe I will write a part two/three/four.

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” Albert Camus

I only have a few thoughts about the educational revolution and it is all about the world between the walls. From bell to bell. Ding. Ding.

re-evolution

re-educational

de-evolution

re-de-evolution

redevo?

devo?

oh.

my.

If you want to cause a rebellion, treat everyone the same. If you want to lead a REBELlion, treat everyone as the exception to rules that do not matter. The single most important thing that a teacher can do is to teach children with a discrete awareness and appreciation of their individual differences. Change and reform will not succeed as a top-down process. Change happens on the ground, as I like to say in my classes; where the teaching takes place.

My ideas are simple. None of them are revolutionary–with apologies. These are simple pieces of advice from my experience as a classroom teacher and a teacher educator. They are focused on needs of our students and ourselves. I believe

1. Stop being cutting edge (I totally stole this from Peter Sellars). We have already done cutting edge. We are cut. We are bleeding. It hurts. Please stop. We need change that heals and we know how to do that.

2. Think. Have you considered the short/mid/long-term results from change that you are proposing? I mean, look at the schools that produced REBELS like us? VERY unlike anything that we are proposing. We have to consider the outcomes of our “progressive” ideas.

3. Share in the name of selfishness. Giving away your knowledge, techniques, and ideas makes you better. Really.

4. If you focus on results, you will all treat all of your students the same. That is not fair, that is stupid. You had better be ready to look to yourself for the cause of problems. There are ways to teach and assess that recognize individuals.

5. The answers are already in the room (I totally stole this from Sir Thomas Beecham). The collective knowledge in a given room is probably all that you need to get your points across. Bruner called it scaffolding. Do that.

6. You are not the first person who thought that.

7. If you are thinking about being famous for something, please stop teaching and follow your dream. Nothing worse than a bitter failure in a room full of kids because he/she is using the backup plan.

8. Be consistent with things that matter. Is it worth it? Yes. Do not give me the Emerson quote about consistency being the hobgoblin of the small mind. The qualifying adjective in that quote is “A foolish consistency…” I am not suggesting that you maintain foolish consistency but that you maintain consistency in the things that matter.

9. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Treat students as you would like others to treat your own children. I remember the last time I said something that I would consider “unacceptable” to a student. I did not yell or say something foul or rude. But I did say something to a student that I regretted. As soon as it left my mouth, I remember thinking–what if I walked in when someone said that exact thing to my child? I could have cried right there. We have to be honest with ourselves and allow that type of thinking to occur.

10. Consider needs before anything else and then advocate appropriately. Someone once asked me how I would change schooling. The answer was nothing revolutionary. I said that I would find a way to make sure that the kids got a good night’s sleep, a healthy breakfast, and clothes that made them feel secure. Beyond that, I would help to make sure that teachers were able to do their jobs to the best of their ability.

11. Find people who can help, reaffirm, critique, and develop YOU. They do not need to be all different people or all the same person, but be clear about what you need in a given conversation. Do not make assumptions about others and do not expect them to read your mind. If you need reassurance, begin your conversation by letting that person know.

12. Being the best at something is a decision. Pick one thing. Then pick another. Maybe your decision is based on a need. Or interest. Or innovation. Either way, it will be worth it.

13. You have a lot to say. You have a lot to give. You have a lot to offer. You are not like me and you can help me with something even if I do not know what it is yet. Me too.

Mind the Gap, Jacques

Émile Jacques-Dalcroze had a few things right and it wasn’t just about music education. It was about where knowledge begins. Not in some deep ethereal way. In a tangible way. You have to know when to hold ’em; know when to fold ’em. Know when to walk away and know when to run. The same rules that we have learned from gamblers and from Nirvana apply to education. Keep it close to your heart–at the beginning, at least.

Best known for the concept of eurhythmics and for teaching music through movement, I find the heart of the Dalcroze method is the most profound and most immediately applicable to all education.

Dalcroze taught us that concepts begin close to the body. The farther a concept gets from the heart, or gut in some translation, the more abstract it becomes. That is why, in a typical Dalcroze setting, you will see young students stomping their feet, clapping their hands, patting their knees, and slapping their bellies. You are more likely to see students moving to demonstrate a musical concept than, say, writing about it. Or, perish the thought, typing about it on a computer.

How does this translate to education in other domains? Consider the process that we require of students. Consider whether knowledge begins close to the heart before it is in the hands; in the mouth before it is on the pen; on the paper before it is in the computer. With each added distance, there is an added level of abstraction. When tools are involved and the information moves beyond the body–using a pencil, a drumstick, and beyond to a computer keyboard that places words onto a screen–the learned concepts take significant leaps into abstraction. Are your students prepared to make that leap and are you prepared to intervene if they are not? If you prefer, you may think along the lines of another Swiss theorist, Jean Piaget. According to Piaget, the final stage of development is most notably marked by the ability to think abstractly. While Piaget’s stages are developmental across years, it may be a worthwhile consideration to parallel these stages through the teaching and learning within your content.