actually learning in school

In school, I’ve always been in classes with 30+ students…in college many of my classes had 300+ kids. The classes I took for the Spanish major were a little better at having smaller class sizes…until they turned many of our upper-division Spanish classes into lecture courses, aka turning our previous 30 student class into a 90 person class…virtually eliminating the conversational portion and replacing this with a lecture from the professor. (and how does this help us learn Spanish…?)

At this point, I became really good at memorizing answers for the multiple choice tests given to these massive language classes…but I’m pretty sure memorizing answers with completely unrelated mnemonic devices isn’t the proper path to language acquisition.

Oh, and at this point too, I’m pretty sure the native speakers were loving the Spanish major because they have been practicing speaking / hearing Spanish at home since day 1, so…for example…the “listening” portion of tests…well, this was a piece of cake for them because they’ve grown up hearing and speaking Spanish so it’s like second nature. However, for those of us who did not grow up with the language…well, let’s just say, by having such huge class sizes and not having the opportunity to converse and practice speaking…well, let’s just say, it was a challenge.

Oh, and let me also say…I hands down learned 100% more Spanish in the semester I spent studying abroad in Mexico, than in the 8 years of Spanish I took in high school and college. Perhaps this is because I had about an average of 5 students in all of my upper-division courses in Mexico and the structure of the program was very much an experiential one. Instead of being talked at, we conversed and did many hands on projects, took field trips, etc. I’ll also note that I earned 2x as many upper division credits during the time I was gone than I would have earned taking classes at UO (I earned ~28 credits abroad and 12 credits is considered a full-time student at UO). I feel safe to say that if I spent 1 year, maybe 2 in that type of environment, I would have Spanish down, backward and forward. But no, I spent 1 semester learning the way kids should be taught, and the other 7 1/2 years…well…still trying to figure out what I got from that.

Anyway, I am digressing…and quickly…the education system is something I could certainly go off on…so yes, let’s end it there for now.

The point I’m trying to make is this. I’ve been taking a Greek class since September. There are four students in my class. I have learned more Greek in the 4 1/2 months (no class in Dec!) than Spanish I learned in the first four years in high school. Perhaps rather than cramming 3 classes into one (like my Spanish classes), we could take one class, divide it by 3, and have kids go to school for 1/2 the time, but actually learn and benefit from the smaller class sizes.

Anyway, this is what we did last class. It’s probably all Greek to you (ha ha ha I’m so funny) BUT, the stuff in this picture is a little story about a classroom and a teacher. And the teacher is learning all the kids names. And one kid forgot his pencil and the teacher became angry with him. And the kid said: well, it’s not like I forgot EVERYTHING, just a pencil!

education, music + process

1 1/2 years ago in Dave’s curiosity class, my term curiosity project was to learn all that I could about education systems over the course of ten weeks. Since then, and especially now that I have joined the education field, I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about education models.

I won’t go into detail now (or else this will turn into a novel), but in my brainstorming (and by drinking the Ken Robinson kool aid), I realized that my orchestra + choir classes were the what taught me the most relevant and long-term content.

In Deb’s class, I made a book explaining how music has guided my education, using a piece by Tchaik. that my orchestra played back in 2005 – I don’t think I’ve ever played my orchestra music for anyone, but alas, the time has come (=

At first I was hoping to get a video up here, as I know we are a hugely visual culture and perhaps more of you would be apt to watch the song in its entirely if there was some sort of visual (= However, I was reminded of Mr. Nelson always telling us to “keep our eyes above the stand” AKA, stop trying to listen to the music with our eyes.

So…now it is that time for me to pass along this knowledge and encourage the same. Some of the best performances we had were when we turned the lights off and had to rely on just two senses to create music: touch and hearing.

Our generation is over stimulated – it’s so easy to multi-task and do 15 million things at once, but with this opportunity also comes the consequence of losing sight of the details that perhaps seem minute, but in all actuality are major components of the whole.

With that said…I encourage you to put everything else aside for 9 minutes and 31 seconds and enjoy some Tchaikovsky.

Here’s the recording of my orchestra at the 2005 Vienna International Youth + Musical Festival playing the 4th movement of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C:

why grad. school isn’t in my future

I really began thinking/learning about our education system about a year in a half ago in my curiosity for strategists class.  We were instructed to pick anything…a person, religion, idea, sports team, occupation, etc., learn about it for a term, and present our findings.  I chose to investigate education systems + mainly focused on the various types of school curricula structure and methods: traditional, home schooling, Montessori, unschooling, etc.

This year, I continued my education study through the cultural anthropology investigation I conducted.  Rather than structure + methods, I chose to focus my attention on curricula content and spent quite some time thinking about the validity and practical use of what we “learn” in school.

Last week, I watched a TED talk given by Liz Coleman. The main takeaway: there are repercussions of current over-simplified education curricula – rather than narrow areas of study, perhaps the best education includes cross-disciplinary + hands-on methods. hmm. interesting idea…

So, last night I found myself at probably the most stereo-typical Eugene college party I’ve ever been to in my life. Last weekend in Eugene…better late than never, right?  Anyway, the way I see it, there are three main types of Eugene house parties: the sorority/fraternity Greek themed / keg race parties, regular house parties, or SoCal/hippie/’dude’/vinal records/chill hang-out parties. I was at the 3rd type last night. …but I digress.

Anyway, the point is, I ended up talking to this kid traveling to Ecuador next term to do volunteer work.  He told me the reason he’s going is because he wants to be able to finally apply his knowledge to an actual … THING.  (this is where the lightbulb turned on in my head!)  We then spent quite some time discussing what we saw as the biggest disconnect in public school education – we learn about alot…but that’s where it ends. And that’s an incomplete education in my opinion. We need to be taught…and need to be practicing a practical…and actual application to what we are learning in school.  This system we’re using now basically is basically saying…teach the kids everything they need to know for 16+ years…but in this curriculum, do not include opportunities that actually allows students to apply their new found knowledge! Eurkea!  (except NOT!)  Doesn’t sound like a very smart idea to me (=

So this morning I read this article from Good (titled: the grad school brain dead)- my main takeaway: I now understand why grad. school is not in my immediate future.  Pigeonholing all grad. school programs into broad categorization aside, check out the follow snippets from the article:

A larger percentage of young, inventive, creative folk will enter an almost-bankrupt (to follow Taylor’s Detroit metaphor) graduate system. Most will not get teaching jobs. Many will never finish their dissertations. They will go into debt. And they will be trained to think deeply about an increasingly narrow range of ideas intelligible to only a few others. They will become increasingly unable to enter into conversations with colleagues, not to mention those outside the academy.

Academia over-specialized. The faculty lounge is silent, or is repurposed into a computer lab set up with 18 separate work stations. Non-academics deem the goings-on inside the gates uninteresting to those outside it (who wants a radio show on universities? Yawn). The result? No one, inside, outside, or over the ever thickening firewall between the two, is talking to anybody.

…so…what do you guys think? Is this really an issue with our public education, or just a handful of people with some crazy/extreme ideas?

s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g BEE.

I’m quite excited – I’m going to see Putnam County Spelling Bee tonight at the Hult.  I really do love this show – I saw it a few times it came to Portland last and…why do I love it?  Well, I learned how to spell a number of new words: acouchi, mohel, and syzygy.  I am also a fan of anything that offers some sort of cultural insight – this show being a prime example.  It’s funny, it’s quirky, it’s …educational! What more could one want?

Anyway, it’s tonight and tomorrow at the Hult – if you’ve got a free evening…go see Spelling Bee! (and use this to get discount tickets, always a good thing!)

my post-graduation plans…as of today

As graduation draws near, the question “So, what are you doing after graduation!” seems to be more and more common.

Short story long, I recorded my plans for post graduation in the following video.  Please note that these plans are subject to change and generally vary on a weekly basis.

(and p.s. please ignore the raspy voice…I am not a chain smoker, just a bit under the weather!)