First of all, Benjamin Zander is a wonderful speaker and extremely easy to listen to. I was a bit confused in the beginning of the video with what exactly a “One Buttock Player” was, but then I caught his point. You need to look at the whole, not at the individual parts.
Being a science teacher, I am constantly telling my kids to think outside the box.
One quote from the book that stuck with me was, “…even science relies on our capacity to adapt to new facts by radically shifting the theoretical constructions we previously accepted as truth.” Although I do completely agree that a world without measurement would be really nice and relaxing, I do not feel it is actually realistic. The author states, “You are more likely to be successful, overall, if you participate joyfully with projects and goals and do not think your life depends on achieving the mark because then you will be better able to connect to people all around you.” One point Zander makes is that if grades were not given, people would be more willing to take a risk. However, I feel that also needs to be understood by the instructor. My sophomore daughter decided to challenge herself on her Spanish assignment. She refused to take the easy way by using given phrases and really worked hard on her assignment, but made some mistakes with it and was docked points for doing so. If she had stuck with the easier phrases, she would have achieved all of the points for her grade. That instructor was teaching her to just do it the easy way and don’t challenge yourself because then you will get a better grade. In my classroom, when I ask a student a question that they do not know the answer or to think they don’t know, I tell them to just give it a try, the worst thing that can happen is they are wrong and if they haven’t been wrong yet today they should try being in my life! This usually relaxes them and they give it a try. They frequently surprise themselves with being right or having a new way to look at something.
As I continued to read through chapter 3 I realized that the authors were not strictly referring to a grade, but to a teacher’s encouragement of his/her students and the manner in which the classroom is run and allowing students to be contributors.
I just hope that I can rescue one starfish!
Photo by Susan Calland
Photo by Susan Calland
I agree with you that the instructor needs to understand that grades aren't everything. I know some teaches that tend to see in black and white, wrong and right, and find it hard to grade based on growth rather than right or wrong answers. Teaching art, I grade based on the individual student. I had a parent call yesterday to yell at me for giving her son a 'bad' grade. She had seen pictures of two students work in my class who did not look 'up to par' with her sons work and she wanted answers. I had to explain it to her like this; your son didn't challenge himself, Quite frankly, he gave up early, worked on other work in my class, and took 'the easy way out'. I'm normally the opposite of everyone else in academia as far as grading, but I like getting the change to see students work for what it is, and watch them grow instead of having them recite an answer they have been fed. Great points!
ReplyDeleteI echo the idea that instructors alike should understand that grades are not everything. The fact that I work in the area of music education, I am fortunate to be involved in a curriculum that focuses tremendously on performance. I guess it is just the overall nature of music education, especially when it comes to instrumentalists. I see that you view a world without measurement would be nice, however, you believe that to be unrealistic. My first question to you would be; on what premise did you draw the conclusion that the idea of a world without measurement is unrealistic? Did the very thought of measurement guide your thinking? Did you ask yourself the question of “How are my thoughts and actions, in this moment, reflections of the measurement world? I pose these questions based on the reading of “The Art of Possibilities”, which discusses getting to the heart of the matter with regards to what the practice is that orients us to a universe of possibilities. The framework talked about in that chapter, with respect to the example of the box around the nine dots, suggested that we should position ourselves in the realm of possibilities that go beyond the traditional boundaries.
ReplyDeleteMy students find out very quickly that making a mistake is a good thing in music. If a student makes a mistake and can keep going, I tell them that they are on their way to becoming a great musician. Great musicians make mistakes all the time but they don't let that stop them from playing. Hopefully, my students are learning that mistakes happen and we just keep going. That's what life is anyway, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThe situation Heather faced was something that one of my students faced this year in french class. They were asked to create a calendar using words that they learned in their cycle of French. He decided to use some of the extra words they had learned (as they spoke during class) and was docked points. His parents and I had to fight to get the student a better grade. In the end we got the grade changed but the teacher still did not see the problem with what he had done. This student is now terrified of not following the directions to the T, for fear of losing points. I feel like the stress of getting the A often takes the creativity out of work for the students.
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