Teaching practice Archives - Page 5 of 13

Pedagogy and its Discontents pt.2, Lead me where?

“It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement–that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

Let us not make any bones about the situation. The teacher is at the front of the room and hold the keys. There are places that students cannot go. There are places that students can go. There are places that students may only go if the teacher takes them there. Say what? This is the 21st century. This classroom is flipped. We are unlearning. Delearning. Relearning. It is our new pedagogy. You can’t front on that.

Or can you, Biz? Will you front on that? Is it the content, the context, or the process that is of value in the classroom? Some mix of the three, perhaps. Maybe, even, a fourth entity–the interaction of them all. In the same way that you may not separate nature and nurture, it is unlikely that you may separate the content from the context or either of them from the process that brings them to light. Further, it is unlikely that by explicitly valuing one part of the mix that a teacher or student will be sure to have the desired influence over those components.

Do you follow? If I, as a teacher or student make explicit statements of value, the reaction of students may be to value or devalue or, perhaps, to have no change in their valuation of the component. Some rebel while some draw near. It depends on how that serves their needs for safety, belonging, esteem, or actualization. Remember Maslow? Not to oversimplify, but if you have ever tried to teach a hungry student, you are probably missing more than my point.

Getting back to the matter at hand, students respond to the content, context, and process–along with the demonstrated valuations by the instructor in a given manner. They may follow, rebel, or have no change in their value of the experience. The teacher, assessing the response, may ‘course-correct’ mid-stream-of-thought BUT what may happen is not entirely predictable! Change on the part of the teacher–either re-emphasis, over-emphasis, or a decreased emphasis–may result in a different overall response.

The most significant (read risky) overall response may be an overarching loss of interest should the instructor effectively abandon ship on the premise or the beliefs that were held at first. Any teacher still holding the torch of pedagogy as a method of a priori distribution of information should probably have a widow’s walk built and learn a new lament. The kids are alright.

“And yet, in making any general judgement of this sort, we are indanger of forgetting how variegated the human world and its mental life are.”

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

Mat Rats–Contextual coaching towards Expertise

It is rare that I have anything that resembles spare time but in the words of Lemmy, who at the time was referencing beer, “There’s no such thing as extra, but you can have some of mine!”

Time is a hot commodity in the @DrTimony household these days and between the full time job, part time job, wife, pre-K mini-@Timony, and sleep, it gets downright sticky. When it gets sticky, stress has its opportunity to creep onto the agenda making the brief moments of repose seem barely worth the while. The first thing that tends to suffer the wrath of the scheduling blade is getting to my gym of choice, Balance Studios. And, as many of the sharper readers know, exercise is probably the one thing that could make a life less stressful.

Getting back to the mats has increased the calm in my life. Some friends have said that it must be nice to “blow off some steam” by sparring. I understand the sentiment but it could not be more distant from the truth. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (the gentle art) provides me with some of the greatest calm that I experience through the week. There is no steam. It is more like meditation. Meditation with chokes and joint locks.

Even while sitting off to the side to catch my breath, I enjoy watching the chess match unfolding before me.

Sloth/Mac — Josh R. Vogel earning his brown belt

This week I was able to take in some excellent instruction and engage in several challenging matches. Watching some friends ‘roll’ gave me time to reflect on my decision making process on the mat as well as the input that I received during and after some matches. It is common to pause after a match, submission, or major positional transition and have a training partner provide a few words of feedback. I sat watching and began to categorize the different types of training partners that I encountered that day and in days past. Listening to the narrative of breaths, compliments, corrections, and encouragements. The roles of individuals on the mat depended on the equity of skills. I found myself in the catbird seat among a dynamic context of coaching and made note of a few characters.

The nicknames that I give to these folks are non-judgmental and are solely intended to differentiate.

The Lion: Confident in skills and willing to let the training partner experience dominant positions to practice their offense. The Lion is conversely willing to place the opponent into unenviable, defensive positions with a fraction of the pressure to encourage escapes with good technique. Timely, rare, encouragements inspire.

Cubs: These are real gamers–there is equity in skill and respect. They match each other in intensity which often varies. The level of effort and challenge is often expressed in percentages. These training partners may agree on a level of challenge at 30-50-75% often called ‘flow-rolling.’ This is done to work on the transition more than the endgame. It is common to hear talk-aloud discussion during their training or to pause to make corrections or to discuss best methods for drilling a particular maneuver.

The Predator: This is the no-nonsense competitor who moves from dominant position to dominant position seeking the submission regardless of the equity of the matchup. For over-matched partners, you will typically see them spending their time surviving and tapping when they cannot prevent the choke or joint lock.

These are only a few of the models that may be seen on the mats and I cannot help but wonder how these context specific coaches may serve to advance high level skill acquisition and the progression towards Expertise. More to come.

At Seventeen

I learned the truth at seventeen
that love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired — Janis Ian at seventeen

The words of Janis Ian sting. They conjure images of bullied, ignored, thoughtful, and lonely kids. Seventeen is a hard age to learn those truths expressed in her hit song from 1975.

When I hear this song or when it becomes an earworm for days on end, I cannot help but think of my own time in middle and high school. Or undergrad. Graduate school. So on. Present day. Sometimes.

That is not to say that I was friendless or lonely. I place a mental pushpin every time in my life when truth is revealed. Signposts. Bread crumbs. Regardless of what or when, it always seems too early and too often that we learn a hard truth. In education, that is–as an educator, the pins drop like needles on songs. One after another whether you like them or not. Heavy rotation. Top of the pops. Hits. We take a lot of hits.

awkward teens — awkward teenagers lol
by ~JonathanTheSmex

Remember those veteran teachers scorning our eager, go-get-em attitudes with warnings? Their threats seemed so far-fetched. Trite. “Someday, you’ll be just like me.” We laughed them off. We worked hard. We came in early. We stayed late. We graded and prepped during late nights, weekends, and holidays. Grading parties. Thank God for TiVo. “I’m always a teacher so I always do teacher work,” we say. We learn a truth. Get a peek behind the curtain. See that all those appreciations we enjoyed were more fair-weather than once thought. We thought that we were on top of our game and have our legs cut out from under us. We are seventeen again.

Remember those who win the game, they lose the love they sought to gain

A decision is made. We will continue to do it for the kids. Of course we will. The kids. The only convolution is that we are not as resilient as we were at seventeen. Those wounds heal more slowly. Calluses thicken. Eyes look to the floor. We begin to have regrets. Begin to feel all those eyes that gaze.

Critical Demagogy, or, Stabbing the Eye of the Beholder

obtaining position and/or power through the manipulation of prejudice, emotion, and fear

When given the opportunity to speak, I often discuss topics connected to the theme of a particular context–assessment, teacher quality, and the like. Regardless of the primary focus of a discussion I like infuse information and exploration from my own research interests–Expertise, (nonexistence of) talent, skill acquisition, tacit knowledge and perceptions. Not so strangely enough, the discussion of perception is one that tends to permeate all aspects of many discussions. The pre-cognitive decisions that are made in any context have major sway over our actions and reactions to stimuli. What may be equally disconcerting is our inability to intervene despite any ‘awareness’ we may have regarding these prejudices.

That is to say, a person acts and reacts a certain way based on their prejudices–once made aware, their actions and reactions are still based on their prejudices.

scan — this is your brain on everything
Creative Commons image by Patrick Denker http://flic.kr/p/7ALY4″

It is a strange thing to be aware. One might even think that awareness provides some measure of control. In terms of perception, consider where beauty lies and how beauty lies.

I am reminded of my favorite scene from The Fly (1989) in which Geena Davis’s character tells Brundle, “…you’re getting worse!” to which he replies “I’m getting…better!”

Unfortunately, the profession of teaching has the potential to become a demagoguery. In some cases, perhaps you have experienced it, it already has become such. A teacher may become popular, well-liked, and possibly even considered a master teacher despite having little influence on actual learning in the classroom.

A challenge, acknowledged or not, that has been ever-present in education is that those who hold the gradebook are sometimes only judged by the gradebook. It is possible that students walk out of classes with inflated grades having learned little. Of all the stakeholders in the school setting, the ones who are not fooled by this are the students. The master teacher has no clothes and the students are unlikely to ring the alarm for obvious reasons.

Whether fooled, bullied, or simply convinced, what is most critical in our current pedagogical mess is that we unveil the charlatans who have risen in ranks due to this Critical Demagogy.