school On the Road

“So how much money do I need to give her when we get to the campsite?”

My daughter asked this the other day because her and her friend are off camping for 3 nights, after finishing their exams. As I thought through the situation I thought too about the edexcel-maths-paper-pseudo-context-overdose that was in the news. 

I’d paid $3600 for the 2 of them to camp for 3 nights, and her friend’s mum had paid $5200 for the train tickets. I’d paid a 40% deposit for the camping already. So it was quite a good question- when they get to the campsite and have to pay the remaining amount, how should they sort out the cash so they’ve both paid the same amount. (Of course they both would pay the same amount - nothing, but that’s for bonus marks).

Part of the Curriculum of Common Sense, beatLit would look something like this:

Everyone is asked to bring along a small piece of writing that they feel is special, that they want to share. It could be from a book but really from anywhere; an article on a website, an advert, a cereal box, a poem....

The short pieces are shared, spoken aloud by the bringer, (or someone else, it doesn't really matter how it's shared). They talk about why this piece of writing connected with them, how it made them feel something. The group listen, discuss; did others feel it too? Maybe some in the group are shy, not willing to share, that's ok, give them time, build trust.

The group is now building some feel for how a piece of writing, no matter how short, can touch you emotionally, like a painting, a song, a dance. Writing is painting a picture with words. There are many styles. Some people like one kind, some like others, some change their mind, some are attracted by something new they see.

After this stage the group are asked to create their own piece in the style of either the work they shared, or another they heard if they’d prefer. Try to imitate, keep it short. This is like an art student studying the style of an artist. Like an art teacher, the beatLit teacher gives guidance as the work builds; a touch of shadow here, lighter strokes there, skills built and added as the need arises.

These pieces are shared and discussed again. Presented maybe as a collage, blog post, painting, performance piece....

All the time, everyone is reading, at their leisure. Anything new to share - make time or add it to a wall/website/poem.....

Next, the image needs to fill a canvas; build a story, a scene, a poem, some extended piece of writing, (maybe 500 words), around your imitation piece. Keep that style, extend it, stretch it, work it, test it, create a picture for us. Connect with the reader, aim for that silent gasp, an oooh of appreciation. Be guided by intuition- what feels right? Ask for help when you're not getting your drawing to look like the vase of flowers. Help can come from your family, your teacher, your friends.

Keep reading.

Sometimes these pieces will grow, develop into something bigger, other times they’ll be tweaked and polished to be framed and put on display. One piece might be a six month or year-long project, another just a week.

BeatLit is an art, a beautiful expression of ideas and emotions through words founded on reading. Like a great artist or musician, film director or poet, beatLit students are working always towards some perfect creation, while all the time drinking all they can from the pool of what has been made by others, using it for inspiration and relaxation. BeatLit is flexible, open to change, adaptable; do it your way. BeatLit is not examined or tested, what would be the point?

I want to improve how I've comunicated this, make it real, simple, obviously true, something you feel to be right, and that's beatLit. (Might change the name too)

BeatLit, the short version:

Read, and when you read something that makes you wince at it's beauty, fold down the corner and share it with anyone who'll listen.

Repeat.

I took part in this via strange connections, this is something like what I said in my 5 minutes:

I’m very happy today; it’s the start of a week long holiday at our school! Now maybe some of you are thinking ‘typical teachers! always on holiday……!’ but us teachers will tell you we deserve all the breaks we get, or we might say the students need a break! But whatever you think, on Friday last week my colleagues and I were definitely feeling tired, and no doubt the students were too. Yet our student leaders took a moment on Friday to invite all the teachers to the staff room where they force fed us delicious pastries and hot coffee, and thanked us for all our help and efforts. Suddenly, we weren’t so tired;  a kind deed, a few kind words, left us all nodding to each other that yes, of course it was worth it.

I started with this story because I think it’s what An Era of Conscience is all about; “...kind words and good deeds create a world of love and peace….”, and how beautiful that it was the students who led the way, showed the way, reminded us teachers about this. And it is a beautiful idea, it’s obvioulsy true.

So on World Teachers Day, if you don’t mind, we can talk about what the role of a teacher is in the Era of Conscience? But before that, perhaps we should look at the role of schools. I read recently on a blog that the word school is derived from a Greek word; skhole, which means, I was surprised to find; spare time, leisure, rest/ease. I wonder how many people in our staff room on Friday would have agreed that our skhole is a place for leisure!? Yet, what a beautiful idea; a place where children and teachers (and anyone?) come to learn at leisure, to engage in learned discussion as a leisurely activity. Can we, in An Era of Conscience, readjust the purpose of our schools? Can we replace the stress and anxiety many of our young people feel, (and the teachers and parents!), by creating places where they can grow up feeling comfortable and relaxed, not forever comparing themselves to each other, or to the expected norm? After all much of our stress in adulthood seems to come from comparisons with others, or with the world created by advertisers. ‘Why is he earning money than me, do I have a house as big as her, shouldn’t I have a family now, do I have the latest phone/laptop/TV…….Where does this habit of judging ourselves by comparisons with others start? At school!  I’ve given a lot of thought to this over the last few years and believe this change ultimately requires a change in our whole society, (and what is AECON if not that), a change in the sytem/workings of capitalism to be a system with a sense of rightness, something that ultimately has to unite us all in this Era. We can’t change schools without changing Universities and Universities can’t change without businesses and employers changing - it’s a big ask, but it’s right and necessary.

To really change education, (if that's what the new thing would be called), and have 'schools' that don't compare, that are something new, you soon see that the problem is getting into university with a qualification of being a really nice kid. So then you think; well in that case the 'universities' have to change too, but they feed into.........shit, we have to change everything!

You can't make real change in education without a total revolution, and you can't have a revolution without a plan about what education will become.

I don’t know how to define learning, when you start you get all bogged down in the words and lose the point. But I know it when I see it, so maybe, in order to plan activities that will involve/produce/encourage awesome learning, I need to start not with a bullshit definition, but with some actual learning?

The other day my daughter showed my son a new game called geometry dash. Two days later after he'd spent long hours in his room on his iPad I stepped up to do some parenting and found out he'd been on this game and he showed me a level he'd designed on his own. He played it for me and it was so cool. The teacher in me recognised this as a great learning activity. Not once had he asked for help, not even consulted YouTube, he just started playing and ended up creating something with what he found out. If he had a question he answered it himself by trial and error. When I can say this about an activity I've done with a class, I know it's a success, so now I'm thinking:

A. I should spend more time with my son

B. How can I get this happening in the classroom?

In the meantime he's gone away and come back to show me another level he's made that just plays itself! He hits start and sits back arms folded smug as the little block bounces across the screen to the music over obstacles and out the other end. Awesome, if I can get a group onto this game, and guide them through to create their own level, job done, and bonus for extra creative ideas like the non playing level. Wow, that would be the perfect model for teaching right?

Admittedly curriculum content is thin but if I'm pushed- maths vocabulary, the square rotates over the (isosceles triangle), function of path; music, add your own score; IT, what programming is needed?; art, how nice is that design, ..................minor details, this feels good so go with instinct and convince others later.

So I would give out the tablets and get them all playing, and sit back and watch independent problem solving, learning, creating.....but maybe they won't all be into it as much as my son? What then? What if I start having to push them all to achieve what I want them to achieve? Is that what I did with my boy? No, I did nothing, it just happened because he found the right thing at the right time and got into it. Like John Lennon picking up a guitar. If I try to get a whole class to do one thing that I've seen work amazingly with someone else I'm really missing the point.

I read this, "....you should be attentive to every movement of your mind wherever it wanders. When your mind wanders off it means you are interested in something else."

To make, allow moments like the one described above then you need:

A. Plenty of time

B. Plenty of opportunities for minds to wander off and learn from something they are interested in.