It's That Easy?

I’ve been playing guitar for about fifteen years. It’s a hobby, if it can be even called that when I dust it off infrequently. My first guitar was a Christmas gift and rather than taking lessons I began with a self-teaching set of booklets and CD’s. After abandoning that mode once I got through the first booklet, I decided I could advance myself further by picking up a book of popular sheet music with the guitar tabs in it. I rapidly learned my first real song, comprised of chords I knew I could play - “No One Needs to Know” by Shania Twain. 

Many who know me may laugh when they read that hidden gem of personal history, because, despite my eclectic personal music selection, I’m known favor classic rock. To justify my beginnings as a “musician” and restore my credibility, it should be stated that Twain used to be married to John “Mutt” Lange, the very producer of albums for The Cars, AC/DC, Def Leppard, and Foreigner (and Shania Twain). 

The reason for my introduction as a “musician” and its following departure is due to a comparison I’d like to share. I have recently rekindled my engagement in playing by performing a few songs during worship services at our church. While practicing this week, I was strumming a few very simple chords in a pattern and noticed that it aligned with a Marshall Tucker Band song, so I began to sing “Can’t You See”. Personally, I believe that song to be one of the most appreciated and well-known songs ever recorded. While its expression and mood promote a deep sense of despair, loss of hope, resulting in a compelling musical performance, it can’t be ignored that “Can’t You See” is comprised of three simple chords in a simple pattern.

What’s more is that many of the “greats” are equally simple. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Simple Man” are only three chords, Zeppelin’s “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” has four, Aerosmith’s “Amazing” has four, and Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” is essentially two. In my limited experience, the songs I play that are most appreciated share this same characteristic (that’s why I play them). If they’re so simple what makes these songs so great?

Now the translation and the point to all this. Where do these songs become great? Hopefully we can all agree that their greatness comes from the artists that wrote/recorded them, with particular emphasis on the performers. It is no mistake that the concert performance of any musical work is more valuable than the recorded album version. Similarly, a cover of a song can be more riveting than the original. We thrive on the performance. 

Lately, a significant emphasis has been placed on the perceived and debated value of the teacher in a classroom. Conversations are abuzz with talk of value-added evaluations and their role in the improvement of the system of education on state and federal scales as a ticket to promote good teachers and weed out bad. For many, the importance of the teacher is clear and needs no additional explanation. However, for others the individuals in front of students are deemed easily replaceable by technologies and individualized curricula. 

And speaking of curriculum, there are administrators leading an ambush of micromanagement demanding that teachers co-write shared curriculum in order to ensure that they are teaching the exact same lessons at the exact same pace the exact same way in order to assess using the exact same tests. Although this practice may serve some practical purposes, I’d like to witness a “success” story - I can only imagine the automated droids reading from a scripted lesson. In fact, I can attest to an experience where a co-written, co-designed unit was taught in multiple classes in very different ways. Through a lesson-study experience funded and promoted through a Teaching American History Grant awarded to and administered by the Battle Creek Schools Consortium, I was able to see how different teaching styles executed a meticulously planned set of lessons very distinctively. The results were equally positive, but still quite different.

The performance is what makes the teacher a teacher. But it is also what makes a professional a professional. Just as the great musicians with simple tunes, even the most mundane lesson can be brought to life by a skilled professional who understands the content, their students, and the methods that can bring the two together (even more so with purposefully integrated technology). 

This evaluation and comparison is not intended to promote the practices of an inept teacher. The performance is part of what makes teaching a thrill - taking the edge off of a stressful class period, dodging the monotony of teaching the same class three or more hours per day, or handling the constructive criticisms of the building administrator. Every performance has its share of critics. Musicians know this well. Skilled professionals know the difference between critiques that are valuable and those that are just noise and are able to adjust their practice accordingly. If you are not professional enough to handle the parameters of the job, perhaps this profession is not for you. 

As for me, I still love going to school every day - rockin’ out the same three chords.

The Crime of Education

As a U.S. History teacher I strive to produce lessons and procure content that stirs my students to feel history as much as possible. Historical empathy is not an easy thing to conjure up. For help I have often turned to Howard Zinn and his “Voices from a People’s History of the United States” and other sources that provide a voice for those whom were cast aside in the history books to make room for presidents and senators. While looking ahead to the consequences of the American Industrial Revolution, I came across a timeless reflection on the social roots of poverty and it got me thinking about the appropriation of technology today.

In 1885 Henry George addressed a crowd in Burlington, Iowa. As a 19^th century human rights activist, George worked to debunk the contention that poverty was the fault of the individual. His poignant message from last century floored me. In “The Crime of Poverty” George proclaimed that with all of the enormous powers of the human brain, people are still subject to toil and work all day, all week, and still fall short of the promise of humanity, or rather, they are being robbed of that promise. He states:

“Think how invention enables us to do with the power of one man what not long ago could not be done by the power of a thousand… We have not yet utilized all that has already been invented and discovered… In every direction as we look new resources seem to open. Man’s ability to produce wealth seems almost infinite -- we can set no bounds to it.”

Now, where George takes this is where paradigms diverge. George’s solution rested in the socialist view of an equal distribution of wealth and resources. However, we all can agree with the utter truth he speaks on the vastness of human potential. And yet there’s a problem. His message is 135 years old. Haven’t we continued to surpass great achievements and redefine society through innovation and technology? Every generation trumps the achievements of their parents. Americans have witnessed the greatest century technologically in human history, and yet we can’t seem to figure out how to proceed in educating our children for our future.

The problems and questions regarding the American educational system is complicated by multiple opposing parties and special interests that all claim to have the highest stake in education. All the while, the voices of those who fall victim to the poverty of education remain silenced. If we as an advanced society have learned anything it is that we can communicate. Students in our classrooms “deviantly” text, email, post and reply to status updates on Facebook, and network through multiple sources for a variety of reasons. They have been appropriating resources toward these ends naturally while academics and policymakers hash out theories of learning in the 21^st century. The ecology of the school system changes some when teachers fear about how they are referred to on Facebook. A student recently told me he advocated on my behalf in response to a Facebook post regarding my class. What surprised me most about this is that the student shared his behavior, not that those conversations exist, because they do more than we know.

I’d like to see what would happen if students became “self-aware” like SkyNet from The Terminator. We all know that the tools exist to allow them to launch a coordinated effort, yet this does not happen. What would it take to empower them to take control? 

We all know we are better than what we’ve become, yet we can’t reach a consensus as to exactly what that is or how to proceed from here. As a result, a century later, we are still robbing individuals from the promise of humanity. It seems educating for our future has us all tied up.