I think it can work Steve, serialising the book. The voiceover is the thing. I enjoyed listening to this one! For people who are turning more frequently towards audio material to fit reading in during other things, this makes your writing all the more accessible.
The three of us have since done what is described. We've posted the article A Poetry Lesson (https://steveshann.substack.com/p/part-a-d78) and made an audio. It was a lot of fun.
We're now searching for English teachers, pre-service teachers and English teacher educators who might want to take part in a discussion around the issues raised in the story.
I think stories are very important. It is not the lesson students remember, at least in an English class, but the story that frames the lesson. Before I retired I told students I don’t know much about education, I was a theater major. But I read Stanislavsky and know how to play the part of a good teacher. There was always a bit of song, and if not dance, stylized walking, in my classroom. A good part of good teaching is part entertainment part story telling.
These are some of my goals for the classroom:
Cultivate “personal density.” A character in Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow speaks of this, an architect named Mondaugen, and this is his “Law”:
Personal Density is directly proportional to temporal bandwidth
“Temporal bandwidth is the width of your present, your now. It is the familiar delta-t” considered as a dependent variable. The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker is your bandwidth, the more solid is your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are. It may get to where you’re having trouble remembering what you were doing five minutes ago . . .” ( p. 509)
What Pynchon is suggesting, I think, (it is always dangerous to think you know what Pynchon is suggesting) is that the more we live in the present moment the less substance there is to us and to our thought. It is our knowledge of our past (culturally and personally) that gives us substance, that enables us to more wisely interpret the present moment. It grounds and anchors us. Knowledge of the future, or what we would like it to be, gives us focus and direction. This is the goal of education. To give us “personal bandwidth,” to give us substance. Delta-t is the difference between Universal Time and Terrestrial Time, it tells us the precise time. It answers the band Chicago’s question, “does anybody really know what time it is?” The answer is yes, Delta-t does. But our own Delta-t is our ability to know where we are in time, where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. Learning and study gives us depth and helps us find our own Delta-t. This is why our education, if we are wise, is never ending. (I am indebted to Alan Jacob’s book Breaking Bread with Dead for this insight, for this addition to my personal bandwidth.)
Welcome! Remember, school, like life, is an adventure. We explore a world of infinite possibilities, of illumination, of magic, and of wonder. We explore the mind and the imagination.
The class that teaches a thousand skills, begins with a single assignment. (Ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, sort of).
Life is like baseball, to succeed you have to learn to hit curveballs.
Luck may get you over the goal line, but skill gets you close enough to get lucky.
Education involves learning beyond your knowledge and experience, that is why we need a teacher. Anything else is just practice and we don’t need a teacher for that.
I know Plato was a great teacher because he taught Aristotle, one of his most insightful critics. He taught Aristotle not what to think, but how to think. Teachers know they have succeeded when their students are the most effective critics of what they think, when their students become real philosophical pains in the neck.
“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.” John Stuart Mill (In other words, it is not enough to know why you believe what you believe, it is equally important to know why you do not believe what those that think differently believe. Know why you believe this and do not believe that.)
I think it is important to design assignments that give students as much freedom as possible to tailor the assignment to their interests. We are asking students to master difficult concepts, so the more freedom we can give in the choosing of the content those skills will be applied to the better. Students often want a prompt that tells them what to do, but I think that the content of the unit, in my case something they read, like The Winter’s Tale, should be enough. Suggestions might be necessary, but the suggestions should have some breadth to them. When our students get to college professors will ask that they write about a book or some issue that is being studied in class. The student will have to cobble together the nuts and bolts of whatever it is they are being asked to do.
Oh J.D., your posts (or responses) are always so full of meaty thought! Are you still blogging? If so, I'd love to post a link to your blog here, as your posts were not only meaty, but also beautiful. Beautifully arranged, beautifully illustrated. I hope you're still blogging.
I wonder how well I know the case of those I disagree with. One of the substacks I follow is by someone who argues for more direct teaching, a stronger reliance on 'the science of learning', a greater adherence to standards. I disagree. But do I understand her case? Perhaps I could do more to try to understand it.
I just started up the blog again. During my last six years of teaching I barely had stamina enough to do all I had to do as a teacher I had to stop the blog. I restarted it in February and posted again in March. I am hoping to post one blog a month, see what happens. I am still teaching two online courses for gifted students through a university. I developed a third course on fairy tales and literature and art and culture. It connects fairy tales to Shakespeare, Welsh myth, opera, ballet, film, and art. But as of yet parents see fairy tales in the title and won’t sign up their young students because they thing the class must be too easy. Here is a link to my blog, thanks for asking:
I think it can work Steve, serialising the book. The voiceover is the thing. I enjoyed listening to this one! For people who are turning more frequently towards audio material to fit reading in during other things, this makes your writing all the more accessible.
Thanks Kelli. The first chapter of Harriet is up, with audio. https://steveshann.substack.com/p/part-a-081
I'll post more chapters once we've got some folk subscribed.
The three of us have since done what is described. We've posted the article A Poetry Lesson (https://steveshann.substack.com/p/part-a-d78) and made an audio. It was a lot of fun.
We're now searching for English teachers, pre-service teachers and English teacher educators who might want to take part in a discussion around the issues raised in the story.
I think stories are very important. It is not the lesson students remember, at least in an English class, but the story that frames the lesson. Before I retired I told students I don’t know much about education, I was a theater major. But I read Stanislavsky and know how to play the part of a good teacher. There was always a bit of song, and if not dance, stylized walking, in my classroom. A good part of good teaching is part entertainment part story telling.
These are some of my goals for the classroom:
Cultivate “personal density.” A character in Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow speaks of this, an architect named Mondaugen, and this is his “Law”:
Personal Density is directly proportional to temporal bandwidth
“Temporal bandwidth is the width of your present, your now. It is the familiar delta-t” considered as a dependent variable. The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker is your bandwidth, the more solid is your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are. It may get to where you’re having trouble remembering what you were doing five minutes ago . . .” ( p. 509)
What Pynchon is suggesting, I think, (it is always dangerous to think you know what Pynchon is suggesting) is that the more we live in the present moment the less substance there is to us and to our thought. It is our knowledge of our past (culturally and personally) that gives us substance, that enables us to more wisely interpret the present moment. It grounds and anchors us. Knowledge of the future, or what we would like it to be, gives us focus and direction. This is the goal of education. To give us “personal bandwidth,” to give us substance. Delta-t is the difference between Universal Time and Terrestrial Time, it tells us the precise time. It answers the band Chicago’s question, “does anybody really know what time it is?” The answer is yes, Delta-t does. But our own Delta-t is our ability to know where we are in time, where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. Learning and study gives us depth and helps us find our own Delta-t. This is why our education, if we are wise, is never ending. (I am indebted to Alan Jacob’s book Breaking Bread with Dead for this insight, for this addition to my personal bandwidth.)
Welcome! Remember, school, like life, is an adventure. We explore a world of infinite possibilities, of illumination, of magic, and of wonder. We explore the mind and the imagination.
The class that teaches a thousand skills, begins with a single assignment. (Ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, sort of).
Life is like baseball, to succeed you have to learn to hit curveballs.
Luck may get you over the goal line, but skill gets you close enough to get lucky.
Education involves learning beyond your knowledge and experience, that is why we need a teacher. Anything else is just practice and we don’t need a teacher for that.
I know Plato was a great teacher because he taught Aristotle, one of his most insightful critics. He taught Aristotle not what to think, but how to think. Teachers know they have succeeded when their students are the most effective critics of what they think, when their students become real philosophical pains in the neck.
“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.” John Stuart Mill (In other words, it is not enough to know why you believe what you believe, it is equally important to know why you do not believe what those that think differently believe. Know why you believe this and do not believe that.)
I think it is important to design assignments that give students as much freedom as possible to tailor the assignment to their interests. We are asking students to master difficult concepts, so the more freedom we can give in the choosing of the content those skills will be applied to the better. Students often want a prompt that tells them what to do, but I think that the content of the unit, in my case something they read, like The Winter’s Tale, should be enough. Suggestions might be necessary, but the suggestions should have some breadth to them. When our students get to college professors will ask that they write about a book or some issue that is being studied in class. The student will have to cobble together the nuts and bolts of whatever it is they are being asked to do.
Cordially,
J. D. Wilson, Jr.
Oh J.D., your posts (or responses) are always so full of meaty thought! Are you still blogging? If so, I'd love to post a link to your blog here, as your posts were not only meaty, but also beautiful. Beautifully arranged, beautifully illustrated. I hope you're still blogging.
I wonder how well I know the case of those I disagree with. One of the substacks I follow is by someone who argues for more direct teaching, a stronger reliance on 'the science of learning', a greater adherence to standards. I disagree. But do I understand her case? Perhaps I could do more to try to understand it.
I just started up the blog again. During my last six years of teaching I barely had stamina enough to do all I had to do as a teacher I had to stop the blog. I restarted it in February and posted again in March. I am hoping to post one blog a month, see what happens. I am still teaching two online courses for gifted students through a university. I developed a third course on fairy tales and literature and art and culture. It connects fairy tales to Shakespeare, Welsh myth, opera, ballet, film, and art. But as of yet parents see fairy tales in the title and won’t sign up their young students because they thing the class must be too easy. Here is a link to my blog, thanks for asking:
https://christophernorthjr.edublogs.org/2024/03/06/got-questions/
Cordially,
J. D. Wilson, Jr.
Yep. Just as meaty, just as beautiful!
Thanks.