wk 4 Response

Response to Bianca Woods wk 4 Reading: Reframing:

Thanks for the story Bianca. This reminds me of the Steven Jobs’ 2005 commencement speech at Stanford that Joe gave us. You took a risk to satisfy your heart and that is what life is about. If you stay in the same unhappy job, you will always be unhappy. I would be willing to bet that your time spent at the school will continue to pay dividends later in life. As Jobs mentioned with the calligraphy class, you can never be sure how a situation and a decision will affect you later in life. I am sure that life will show that teaching at that school was a great decision for you in the long run. I’m glad you have come to terms with it!

Original Post:

Week 4 - Post 4: Reading - Reframing

Posted by Bianca at 9:05 PM

What I liked best about this reading was the idea of reframing an event. In Zander's story about the misbehaving teenaged orchestra members, their behavior could have easily been framed as "these teenagers misbehaved and made the orchestra look bad." In that case the trip would be defined as one where some of the participants ruined things for everyone and those teenagers would be defined as people who misbehave on group outings. Both these outcomes take away from the overall benefits of the trip and may have shaded how those particular teenagers were viewed in the orchestra from that point onward.

Instead Zander reframed the event in a more positive way: there were individuals who were elated at their performance and just happened to get carried away because they were still so excited from earlier that night. He gave the individuals a second chance and he kept the event from weighing down the group. Had he verbally reprimanded the teenagers who misbehaved they likely wouldn't have misbehaved again, but the group morale would have severely dropped. Instead he gave everyone the chance to not only brush off the event, but also to focus on what good they could do during the rest of their trip.

When terrible or disappointing things happen to or around us it's important to try to reframe the event in the most productive way. That's not to say you should always put a Pollyanna-type spin on everything and sweep negative thoughts or feelings under the carpet, it's more to say that you try and view things in a way that allows you to move forward positively after the fact.

For example, back in 2008 I left a job where I was paid well and respected by my bosses but wasn't doing something I loved (I was working as an executive assistant) and moved to a job where I was going to be paid terribly but was doing something I was passionate about: teaching (that's my old classroom there on the right). I was quite excited about the opportunity, but it turned out to be a massive bust. As I've complained in class before, the school I worked for was a private institution that cared only about making a profit and truly didn't have the students' or the teachers' best interests in mind. I became so run down and put out by the situation that I quit my job after only 11 months even though I didn't have another job lined up.

I could have looked at that experience as a massive mistake. I left a good job at a company that really cared about doing their job well and moved to a horrific company that didn't care at all about doing a good job. I could have seen this as a terrible error and let that mistake haunt me... except I don't. I learned so much in that job about teaching adults, what I didn't want in a future job, and how I still really wanted to follow my passion for teaching; just not there. I think it was an important experience for me, even though it was also a pretty painful one as well. I was able to frame the experience in a way where I actually don't regret making that decision, even if it turned out to be a bad place for me to work in the end.

wk 4 Reading: Ch 11: Frameworks for Possibility

I think this video fits really well with this chapter as it discusses characteristics of a leader, and as the presence of the people in the video show, Ben Zander is a great leader.

I like what Zander says about being a leader of positive forces as opposed to trying to stave off disaster. What can we do? Not, what can we avoid? This is important for educators. We need to strive to advance our students, not to fail into the void of running through the motions and presenting stock information in standard ways that happens far too often.

I really liked the King Christian story; it reminds of the common saying that Professor Joe says a lot: a teacher should be willing to complete every assignment they give. This is important for teachers to remember. If a teacher is going to be bored with an assignment, odds are, most of the students won’t get into it either.

Being a musician, I really appreciated the discussion on tonal music versus atonal music. I feel Zander is on to something here in that atonal music was destined to fail from the start due to losing the listener and that most pop music (there are a few exceptions – typically the ones that continue for more than a few weeks or months) is destined to be boring after 4 or 5 times of listening to the same song due to its relative simplistic – compared to the other types of music.

Reference:

Zander, B., & Zander, R. S. (2002). The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life. Boston: Penguin (Non-Classics). (Original work published 1942)

wk 4 video - Steven Jobs

What a speaker! I certainly envy his speaking abilities…I’m terrible at it! I like what he says about the course that he audited and how that course affected his career later in life. This really brings home the point that you never what is going to happen. Something you might find to be trivial or inconsequential could end up being trivial or life changing. Take risks, Jobs advises, step off the common trail and try new things. Trust that those risks will pay off in the end and that is how to get ahead in the world. This really strikes me as it’s the American dream – the American success story and coincidentally the American failure. Some take risks and fail, some take risks and succeed. But as Jobs knows, it is exceptionally tough to get to his level of success without risk.

Love what you do, more great advice from Jobs. This is critical for life. We only get one shot at it; we need to make it the best we can. I look at my life and feel happy that I am doing what I want to be doing and getting married to the love of my life in 4 months.

“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today.” Wow. This really puts things in perspective. Its nice to get these reality checks every once in awhile to see if your life is really on a track that you want it to be on.

What great videos we got in this course. I am excited to show them to my students start some intriguing discussions.

wk 4 Media Project

See below for the website or check out the link!

After a busy week, my media project is finally well on its way. I am still planning on adding a couple of graphics on the introductory and concluding pages and anything else anyone might suggest ☺. So please suggest things! http://web.me.com/nick_oaster/Media_Project/Introduction.html

I am happy with how it has turned out thus far and really gives a sense of the scope of the Education Media Design and Technology (Full Sail University) degree program, as I could have done very little of this before starting the program. But now, being 1 month and a media project away from completing the degree, I am blown away by how much I’ve learned and what I can do now that I couldn’t do before. I am excited to start implementing these ideas in my classroom. I have started adding some of them, but by-and-large I have been too overwhelmed with work, the master’s program, and extra curricular activities to create the media assets the way that I want to.

wk 4 Media Project well on its way

wk 3 Reading: Ch 7 The Way Things Are

Finally, there is an answer: “The glass is half full.”

Seeing things the way they are allows us to act on truths and not on perceptions. So often, indeed, nearly all of the time, all of our experiences are tainted, positively or negatively, with our feelings towards those experiences. I’ve never really thought about what we get out of an experience if we do not view it through emotions. Zander says that pessimists are not as realistic as optimists. Pessimists see negative occasions where there are none – the negativity is an invention of humans not a true occurrence. But it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Emotion is a human construct. Good and evil are human constructs, but are essential to humanity. Be present in the moment – whether it is a rewarding experience, irrelevant experience, or a painful experience. Even the painful experiences. What an important suggestion to living a full life. Without the painful experiences, the rewarding ones don’t mean as much.

Zander brings up the point that what gets attention is what multiplies. This is no truer than in education and is very helpful with discipline issues. Beyond that though, I’ve found that this influences motivation as well. If a teacher praises failure and growing from that failure, students won’t fear failure, but if a teacher is only concerned with results, the students will only be concerned with results and will shy away from anything which they cannot produce immediately accurate results.

Reference:

Zander, B., & Zander, R. S. (2002). The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life. Boston: Penguin (Non-Classics). (Original work published 1942)

wk 3 Videos - Interview with Ron Smith

This video really hit me. It made me think about where education is going and where it should be going. Unfortunately, the education systems in my area seem to be heading in the opposite direction than the education system Ron Smith described. As I think about the possible future of education, I can’t help fall into the Downward Spiral Zander talks about. I had a discussion with my principal this past week on this topic and his feelings are that in 10 years, the school day will be longer, the school year will go all year round, and extra curricular activities will take a big hit and virtually fall by the way side. This last part especially is very dejecting to me. In talking to some of the middle school teachers – teachers of the class of 2014 (which needs to be 100% proficient or advanced in reading and math…haha – what a joke!), all things not being tested are falling to the wayside. This past week, one teacher pulled a dozen students from a musical dress rehearsal (2 days before the opening night) for remediation. That is half of a class. I might suggest that half of a class is not a remedial type situation, but another class. If the musical students needed help, odds are, non-musical students need help as well. So basically, the whole class would need remediation. Something doesn’t quite add up.

Some of the teachers have also mentioned pulling students from social studies, science, and other mainstream classes for reading and math help. Forget library science, forget art, music, and the agricultural sciences, forget proper typing technique and Internet safety, we need students to be able to find the length of the missing side of the triangle. Don’t get me wrong, math and reading are important. Vital even, but at what cost?

Enter Ron Smith. Students aren’t allowed to make a power point for a presentation – they must use…flash, animation? What an idea. Sometimes it seems that a power point is often a student’s crowning achievement. But they can do so much more. But when reading and math are only things being taught, none of the other stuff is learned. Which is more important to a worker in the workforce, finding the length of the missing side of the triangle or designing a city block? I vote city block. Project based assignments not only teach an enormous array of standards and usable skills, they are so much more interesting to students and more valuable to learners in their future life.