Sometimes to make kids use their brains, I would respond to a student’s answer with “Don't tell me what you think, tell me what you know”. And a few minutes later, I would respond to someone else with “Don't tell me what you know, tell me what you think”.
Someone would always say, “But you said the opposite few minutes ago.”
“Yes, because sometimes you need think and sometimes you need to react and reacting is based on what you have learned.”
The 7.5 hour job is primarily concerned with what people know. The 16.5 hour business uses some time to think, dress rehearse ideas, and practice for the next 7.5 hours but make no doubt about it: when the 7.5 hours hit, you've got to be on and in total control of your material while in front of students.
We learn that the proper response is some version of “Tell me what is there”.
Taping our teaching is a good habit to learn “what is there”.
I’m a big believer in taping my lessons and gigs. At times, I feel like a glutton for punishment – but I always find something I can improve.
The reason we tape ourselves while we teach is for analysis afterwards and to learn not what we think we know but what we actually see - what is actually there. It's the only reliable way to make significant improvements in your teaching.
As Frank Schoonover, American painter and illustrator, told my uncle who told me, “Don't paint what you see, paint what is there”.
Our senses have a way of filtering what is actually in front of us. They're at their most distorted when we're in the process of thinking, “This lesson plan sucks, I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote it.” It is a variant of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in action: any attempt to measure something will inevitably alter what is being measured in real time. Just by collecting data as the event is occurring, we will alter the evidence and skew the data.
Try to live by these words: “Nothing is ever as bad or as good as it appears when you're living through it.”
Even if you get fired or RIFed.
One thing that happens to all of us when we teach is that we become distracted – and distraction always opens the door to mental errors. We typically say that we won't be distracted but we’re always tricked.
When you have twenty to thirty to forty to upwards of one-hundred-fifty students in front of you like I did in chorus rehearsal, something is going to divert your powers of attention. For me, the toughest thing to do was to have my accompanying parts down solid for chorus. I needed to be able to play them in my sleep, to perform them with my eyes closed, basically have them memorized.
There was a day and course where I was having trouble with a two bar phrase that I had thought I had mailed the night before after about an hour's worth of practice. During the rehearsal, though, I was battling several distractions with one-hundred-fifty kids in front of me and I kept missing a note or two when I would reach those two problematic measures. It wasn't an egregious mistake, nothing where the kids would say, “Mr. Holmes, you really messed that up”
At one point as we performed the phrase that included those two measures, I fumbled my way through them for the up-teenth time. I was beyond frustration with myself and slam my fingers into the next chord and yelled one of my go-to curses. I was distracted by my own mistakes and momentarily forgot where I was – and how many kids were sitting right in front of me.
“Son of a bitch!” rang through the PA system.
I looked up and the chorus resembled deer in headlights. They were frozen in fear that I was angry with them, that their poor singing was the reason that I lost it.
After being confounded by their scared, stunned expression for a few seconds, I realized their confusion and what I had done, started to laugh, and say “Oh, you thought that when I yelled ‘mother fucker’, that was about you? No, no, no! That was about Mr. Holmes . . it was about me and my bad piano playing. I apologize for my language. I kept screwing up in that one spot. Don't worry, you sound great; me, not so much today. Let’s take a break. You have go time!”
As the kids started to buzz on their break, one of the kids on the first row quietly said, “Mr. Holmes, it wasn’t ‘mother fucker', it was ‘son of a bitch’”.
“Thank you. Duly Noted!”
I checked the tape after school that day since I was recording my rehearsal. She was correct. Distractions can make you forget exactly what you said in class.
The more you prepare, the more you study the tapes of your classes and rehearsals, the more you get feedback of a constructive unbiased nature. The less you will need those feedback sessions.
Good habits will sink in.
And distractions will have a diminished effect on you.
Someone would always say, “But you said the opposite few minutes ago.”
“Yes, because sometimes you need think and sometimes you need to react and reacting is based on what you have learned.”
The 7.5 hour job is primarily concerned with what people know. The 16.5 hour business uses some time to think, dress rehearse ideas, and practice for the next 7.5 hours but make no doubt about it: when the 7.5 hours hit, you've got to be on and in total control of your material while in front of students.
We learn that the proper response is some version of “Tell me what is there”.
Taping our teaching is a good habit to learn “what is there”.
I’m a big believer in taping my lessons and gigs. At times, I feel like a glutton for punishment – but I always find something I can improve.
The reason we tape ourselves while we teach is for analysis afterwards and to learn not what we think we know but what we actually see - what is actually there. It's the only reliable way to make significant improvements in your teaching.
As Frank Schoonover, American painter and illustrator, told my uncle who told me, “Don't paint what you see, paint what is there”.
Our senses have a way of filtering what is actually in front of us. They're at their most distorted when we're in the process of thinking, “This lesson plan sucks, I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote it.” It is a variant of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in action: any attempt to measure something will inevitably alter what is being measured in real time. Just by collecting data as the event is occurring, we will alter the evidence and skew the data.
Try to live by these words: “Nothing is ever as bad or as good as it appears when you're living through it.”
Even if you get fired or RIFed.
One thing that happens to all of us when we teach is that we become distracted – and distraction always opens the door to mental errors. We typically say that we won't be distracted but we’re always tricked.
When you have twenty to thirty to forty to upwards of one-hundred-fifty students in front of you like I did in chorus rehearsal, something is going to divert your powers of attention. For me, the toughest thing to do was to have my accompanying parts down solid for chorus. I needed to be able to play them in my sleep, to perform them with my eyes closed, basically have them memorized.
There was a day and course where I was having trouble with a two bar phrase that I had thought I had mailed the night before after about an hour's worth of practice. During the rehearsal, though, I was battling several distractions with one-hundred-fifty kids in front of me and I kept missing a note or two when I would reach those two problematic measures. It wasn't an egregious mistake, nothing where the kids would say, “Mr. Holmes, you really messed that up”
At one point as we performed the phrase that included those two measures, I fumbled my way through them for the up-teenth time. I was beyond frustration with myself and slam my fingers into the next chord and yelled one of my go-to curses. I was distracted by my own mistakes and momentarily forgot where I was – and how many kids were sitting right in front of me.
“Son of a bitch!” rang through the PA system.
I looked up and the chorus resembled deer in headlights. They were frozen in fear that I was angry with them, that their poor singing was the reason that I lost it.
After being confounded by their scared, stunned expression for a few seconds, I realized their confusion and what I had done, started to laugh, and say “Oh, you thought that when I yelled ‘mother fucker’, that was about you? No, no, no! That was about Mr. Holmes . . it was about me and my bad piano playing. I apologize for my language. I kept screwing up in that one spot. Don't worry, you sound great; me, not so much today. Let’s take a break. You have go time!”
As the kids started to buzz on their break, one of the kids on the first row quietly said, “Mr. Holmes, it wasn’t ‘mother fucker', it was ‘son of a bitch’”.
“Thank you. Duly Noted!”
I checked the tape after school that day since I was recording my rehearsal. She was correct. Distractions can make you forget exactly what you said in class.
The more you prepare, the more you study the tapes of your classes and rehearsals, the more you get feedback of a constructive unbiased nature. The less you will need those feedback sessions.
Good habits will sink in.
And distractions will have a diminished effect on you.
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