Marsalis: master teacher

I have been listening to several Wynton Marsalis videos these past weeks; not just his Jazz at Lincoln Center sets, but this Skain's Domain series of talks and interviews. Marsalis is so articulate, intelligent, intense, and tender that he cultivates an amazing cadre you young performers whose relationship with him goes well beyond musical instruction.

This video reflects the thoughtful, respectful, and inspired dialogue that he carries on with his students about their thoughts concerning their role as artists during the pandemic.

I learned a lot from these young people. Give a listen to the young man at about the 24:00 mark.
Skain’s Domain: An Intimate Weekly Conversation with Wynton Marsalis - Episode 7 from Wynton Marsalis on Vimeo.

Speak Truth Plurally

On the heels of my previous post, I read an interview in the Chronicle of Higher Education with Scott L. Newstok which led me to his 2016 essay in that publication, "How to Think Like Shakespeare." He urges many of the rigors of the Renaissance (precision, inventiveness, and empathy) as a template for present-day habits of the mind: communication, collaboration, and creativity.

In explaining the complete meaning of rhetoric he writes:

In the Renaissance, the rhetorical tradition encouraged such "play of the mind" through the practice of disputation. Students had to argue from multiple perspectives rather than dogmatically insist upon one biased position.
Once you are familiar with Shakespeare’s training in disputation, you can easily see how it would lead to the verbal give-and-take that constitutes the heart of drama. As Zadie Smith marvels: "Shakespeare sees always both sides of a thing. ... In his plays he is woman, man, black, white, believer, heretic, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim. ... He understood what fierce, singular certainty creates — and what it destroys. In response, he made himself ... speak truth plurally." Now that’s the kind of critical thinking you should aspire to: speaking truth plurally.

I think that aligns pretty well with Chimamanda Adichie's avoiding the danger of only one story.

His reasoning for the value of rhetoric:

Antonio Gramsci described education in this way: "One has to inculcate certain habits of diligence, precision, poise (even physical poise), ability to concentrate on specific subjects, which cannot be acquired without the mechanical repetition of disciplined and methodical acts." You take it for granted that Olympic athletes and professional musicians must practice relentlessly to perfect their craft. Why should you expect the craft of thought to require anything less disciplined? Fierce attention to clear and precise writing is the essential tool for you to foster independent judgment. That is rhetoric.


Renaissance rhetoric achieved precision through a practice that might surprise you: imitation. Like "rhetoric," "imitation" sounds pejorative today: a fake, a knockoff, a mere copy. But Renaissance thinkers — aptly, looking back to the Roman Seneca, who himself looked back to the Greeks — compared the process of imitation to a bee’s gathering nectar from many flowers and then transforming it into honey. As Michel de Montaigne put it:
"The bees steal from this flower and that, but afterward turn their pilferings into honey, which is their own. ... So the pupil will transform and fuse together the passages that he borrows from others, to make of them something entirely his own; that is to say, his own judgment. His education, his labor, and his study have no other aim but to form this."

Sharing experience and having it valued

I enjoyed a swell visit today from both the Principal and Dean of Students at Walton Central School as well as the DCMO ISS STEM Coordinator. They are considering creating a MakerSpace and they came to pick my brain about our library's experience with that kind of thing. As always, it's wonderful to exchange ideas with colleagues who have experience in the trenches and are open-minded and appreciative.

Drawing with Pencils: Live!

Made my live presentation to 4th graders today about how artists use pencils. Had a blast! Very respectful class and so willing to ask questions and share ideas. Here is my prep video.

First-time video

A student introduction to creating a video began with staging a variety of about 20 assorted shots without a story line. The student then created a "story" from the pool of available takes. As a final version, he labeled the type of camera shots; establishing his knowledge of these building blocks and their usefulness.

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Subsequently, he has created a voice-over video based on a very structured script about kitchen safety. In this project, the challenge was quality control and attention to detail; not fun, but a useful rehearsal for the expectation of any job.

Best foot forward

Provided the setup/infrastructure for the annual recent-alumni/senior-class convocation. The over-riding message was " you need to be an advocate for yourself." Good tip for everyone.

Allowing each other to contribute

Doing some project-brainstorming with my Period E class; can we build on a suggestion? can we visualize tasks, possibilities, outcomes? who might be a resource, stakeholder? who are we teaching with our research? what will me make to demonstrate what we are learning: videos, flash cards, exhibits, games, mock-ups, events?

And, importantly, do I sense a willingness and enthusiasm to embrace this opportunity as their own?

Rockin' the Library

Some good community friends of ACSLIB brought in their rocks & minerals for a display in support of our Coffee House night. There are some awesome samples here! (Importantly, this very morning the display unlocked an opportunity for me to connect with two students; a fellow rock-hounds!)

Mid-October display

From reading

Every couple of months, my wife's friend gives us a small pile of New Yorker magazines. They make a fine nice night's browsing and reading; cartoons, poems, book reviews, articles.

A few weeks ago, I was going through a recent stack and read a poem by an author I did not know. The poem was, Claude Monet, "The Artist's Garden at Vetheuil, 1880", by Ciaran Carson. I really liked it. In fact, I hopped on Thriftbooks and ordered two of his books, blindly.

I have been reading his prose book, Fishing for Amber; alternating essay/chapters of pub myths and Annie Dillard-like esoteric dives into nuggets of the world. Frankly, I have been skipping the pub stories and deeply enjoying, and quoting, the others - all of them loosely connected like Nabakov coincidences.

So he's writing at length about marigolds, Genus calendula in Latin: colors, medicinal properties, etc. And that word, the sound of it, rings a bell. It was my Aunt Clara's "real" name, her Italian name, Calendula. So she was Marigold. Which, poignantly, was the affectionate name my caretaker/brother called my Mom, Marijane, when they were joshing - Marigold.

And then yesterday in the Sunday New York Times an obituary for Ciaran Carson. Of course, his words and books remain, but there is something of the passing serendipitous stranger in this (perhaps one you might meet in a pub), one who you meet once, but who somehow touches you deeply, changes you in an intimate way.

And so, I keep reading.

Inspiring stuff

New York Times access for ACS

I have forwarded the particulars of this NYT/Verizon offer to our Tech Team. If it passes muster there and with administration, it will provide a powerful resource for teaching and learning at ACS. Exciting news.

In conversation

"We should all take a Hardship Class where we learn about hardships all over the world."

Reacting to the Past

I was led to this site by an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. "Reacting" is a role-playing curriculum at the college level to promote engagement with big ideas, employ collaborative skills, and inhabit the historical moment in all its context. Although it might not fly at the HS level, the idea of immersing students in the dynamics of an historical moment by having them be historical characters in it sounds awfully good. Perhaps a good PD visit for one of our staff.

Math challenge

Can I find a way to "display" math? Going to try some end-cap questions.

Where am I?

Starting out the first week with some orientation, as they say. The two enter maps are part of our archives, but do the job better than any other I can find for New York counties and Chenango County townships. I remember my mother-in-law (Afton Class of '35) telling how they had to know and be able recite the townships of Chenango County.

How can you contribute to the world if you don't know where you, in fact, are?

2002 Library Project: Afton Volunteers

Took a walk down memory lane today; watched our 2002 video documentation of our 10-week Art/Library project. In many ways, I think those 10-week project anticipated very closely the type of skills-based learning opportunities we look to create today.

(This was the opening ice-breaker team-building bridge-building session to get the  juices flowing)

Prototype

An innovative key-chain design by a 7th grade maker: a detachable model.

Filling in the gaps

The NYRB is always such a wealth of diverse and wonderfully esoteric scholarship. And often it supplements or unseats an understanding I need to modify or discard.

An example is Howard French’s review of several books about the African Middle Ages. His thesis sentence sets the tone:

‘It may remain a little-known fact, but Africa has never lacked civilizations, nor has it ever been as cut off from world events as it has been routinely portrayed. Some remarkable new books make this case in scholarly but accessible terms, and they admirably complicate our understanding of Africa’s past and present.”

In the course of his discussion, he introduces the fabulously wealthy Malian ruler Mansa Musa who in the early 14th century journeyed to Mecca by way of Cairo with “13 to 18 tons” of pure gold and thousands of slaves and attendants. Beyond the legends of this entourage, it is the fact that only a few years later (1375) he earned an illustrated spot on the Catalan Atlas, spurring fortune-seekers and ultimately the competition of the slave trade between Portugal and Spain which “ was crucial to the creation of the modern nation-state and of what became modern European nationalism;” certainly a supplement to my understanding of that phenomenon.

He also highlights the observation of Herman L. Bennett “that the Sahara has long been miscast as a barrier separating a notional black Africa from an equally notional white or Arab one. In reality, it argues, the desert has always been not just permeable but heavily trafficked, much like the ocean, with trade as well as religious and cultural influences traveling back and forth, and with world-shaping effects.” Discard and update.

Reading the NYRB is a little more intense than browsing a magazine. I find myself underlining text, looking up books and references to research, and adding snippets to this bog so that I will remember how and when my understanding of the world changed and grew.

Sound bite for Danny D.

So I got my sound bite in 3D Printing: An Introduction by Stephanie Torta (full disclosure: Stephanie is the daughter of one of our ACS teachers; hence, my invitation to participate!)

I am proud of what I said in the interview because I believe every word of it.

Thanks again to all the Tortas for the opportunity.