Ah... kids.
I was sitting with my colleagues today during a professional development meeting, musing over the most recent PSAT data for our school. We were looking for weaknesses, discussing the effect of the most recent scores, and any fallout that we may experience. There was discussion about "what went wrong" and "what we did well." along with some tactics and theories on improvement; the general teacher, administrator, education consultant banter. While this was happening, a thought occurred to me...
I don't think the kids are as worried about this as we are. In fact, I'm quite sure they don't care at all.
In my dealings with students I've come to a general conclusion, one that I believe to be true: kids don't want to think - they want to feel. Several psychologists and neurologists have been looking into this and have suggested that teenagers don't make decisions in a rational way. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology, Science Daily, and most notably, National Geographic, have all run articles discussing this issue. The conclusion is that when a parent, teacher, coach, or mentor looks at a kid and says, "What were you thinking?" the kid is being honest when they shrug and say, "I don't know?"
How does this translate in a classroom?
We ask them to think all day. Think about this, give rationale for that, explain this, and they - being good students - attempt to. Some students do a pretty good job of thinking, while others have trouble focusing. We have to teach meta-cognition of course, I'm not suggesting that we drop the idea of thinking for some lunacy where students just exist by feeling (that would be chaos indeed). It is our job to get them to think, but does the thinking that we're asking them to do have to be so... unnatural for them?
Let me give you an example...
The nature of my position has given me a little room to experiment. Let's take the concept of Love. We have a project in our LitMus (English 10 Lit./Musicology) class that deals with Love. Inevitably, the first question students ask is, "What is love?" That becomes our driving question, and we try to define exactly what "Love" - as we know it - is. We use lectures. We use data about dating, marriage, and divorce from magazines and psychology journals. We encourage the students to ask adults in their lives what they believe love is.We have small and large group discussions and allow students to give their own opinions. The students have some presentation options for their project, and write a research paper on their findings. Also students create original music, or - at the very least - make connections to current songs that they feel best explain their opinions on love. It's a fun project, but at the end of the day kids still have a distant and somewhat fabricated understanding of Love.
Walk down the hall to my Chamber Choir at the very end of the day. We begin singing "Il bianco e dolce cigno" by Arcadelt. I stop them and say, "What does this mean here... 'A thousand deaths a day I die, and am content'?" and my students will say something to the effect of "Every time he sees her, he dies a little because of his desire to be with her. That's Love... er, Lust?" It doesn't take much work to get them to naturally comprehend and start considering the outcome questions that will follow. This understanding seems more tangible and... well, REAL to them.
What's the difference? The experience.
As a teacher we can't assign everyone to "Go out and fall in love." so that they will better understand it, but we can let them experience Arcadelt's concept in song, and, through that experience, understand just a little bit of what love might be? Arcadelt understood how the sounds cooperate with the lyrics to amplify the symbolism that is translated by the ear and perceived in the mind. The understanding of the situation comes through the allegory of the text, but the meaning, the emotion, the soul of the work... that's given through the music. The combination of the two creates an aesthetic experience that quickly teaches. According to Dr. Tim Brimmer at Butler University, this acceleration of learning can be up to 70% faster. The retention can be eternal. Consider Dr. Oliver Sak's work with the Music and Memory project. In it, he describes Alzheimer's patients that recall bulk knowledge when they hear music. They come alive, as it were. ("Henry's Story" can be found here via YouTube. If you are interested in more info., check out Music&Memory.org ) Another example? How did we all learn our ABC's? A little song that we all remember.
It's different, too, for those just listening and those performing. Listening involves thinking and we've already established that that is difficult for a High School student to do. However, connecting them to the action seems to exponentially increase their understanding of all of the said concepts. In Chemistry, which is better: Showing the students the lab as the sage on the stage? Or allowing the students to perform the lab as a guide on the side? The experience of doing is much more potent than seeing and hearing. Of course, for something like a Chemistry class resources can be a problem, but most students come with their own voice and you can find copies of a 500 year old piece of music like "Il bianco e dolce cigno" for free on the internet (no one is renewing that copyright). If you're good, you don't even need a piano to teach the kids the notes, just sing the part to them and have them sing it back.(Yes, I know this is rote learning and yes I know it's considered uncouth, but that's how they learn most of the songs they know!) When they put it together they'll take to it right away. A few run-throughs and they'll start to put it together. Once they taste it... there's no going back.
Our students crave experiences. I think that's one reason that video games are so prominent. I can't climb a mountain. I don't have time, money, training, or any other resource to do that - but I can in Skyrim. I can explore a whole world and then save my game and do it again tomorrow night after the kids go to bed. It only cost me a one time fee of $60.00 and a couple hours of my evening. Game designers are getting better at creating those virtual experiences too. Even my digital football game is getting closer and closer to the real thing. I don't want to think about it, I want to experience it. Throwing a touchdown pass, climbing a mountain, killing a dragon... it feels good at the end of the day. That's what our kids are looking for.
What do we do then? If students are feeling and we're trying to teach thinking is all hope lost?
Again, we can't just exist on feelings - we have to exercise thoughts. Meta-cognition, higher order thinking, and scientific method is our job. We must teach it. That's what we were hired to do, yes, but that doesn't mean you have to be stuffed up and boring. It doesn't mean that you have to be conceptual and removed from situations. No, in my mind it means you have to be creative. We've got to find a way to create experiences for your content that will exponentially enhance teaching and, subsequently, enhance learning.
Using music is a great place to start.
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