Some Random Thoughts from the Bushnell Article

IMPROVISATION.  The Bushnell article talked about improvisation.  On Tatyana’s blog she talked about how a person must really be an expert musician to be able to effectively and confidently improvise.  I agree.  She also talked about improvising as a teacher.  I agree.  As a teacher, one of my favorite sensations occurs when a student asks a question that takes us off on a bit of tangent from the lesson.  I have to dig deep down into the ancient history of  my education and remember some obscure aspect of botany or genetics or history and answer the question, field the follow-up questions, and gently lead us back to the topic.  Because we were discussing questions of student interest, the students are engaged in that teachable moment.  There’s nothing like it.  As the students file out, I’m practically glowing with satisfaction.  Those moments are rare, but that’s partly why they’re so precious.

MEMORIZATION: BAD.  Absolutes and recitation.  Everything has its place, but never should be employed at the expense of teaching kids how to do critical thinking.  In our discussion, someone mentioned an education of mostly rote memorization being in conflict with creating responsible citizens in a democracy.  Too late, I remembered an example from Animal Farm.  The leaders teach the populace to recite, “Four legs good; two legs bad.”  (Trust animals/communists, not people/capitalists.) And the sheep are taught to chant this to drown out dissenting points of view.  When the political tide changes, the tractable sheep are re-programmed to chant, “Four legs good; two legs better.”

MEMORIZATION: GOOD. Recitation is useful for times tables and some other things.  An elementary teacher had the class memorize some inspirational poems, which I remembered long after high school.  A sixth grade teacher made us recite the definitions of the parts of speech and a list of prepositions each morning.  I resented it then, but knowing those things stone cold was a great help many times, like analyzing and proofreading my own writing. 

For my kids, I’ve set the definitions of the parts of speech to music.  Because it’s easy to remember music, the “musical definitions” give the students an opportunity to learn the definitions and have the same benefits, but without the pain and suffering of rote.  Think how easy it is to remember a song.  "1-800-Safe Auto…" What’s next?  You know!  You can hear it in your head!

 Here’s my adjective song to the tune of “There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o.  B-I-N-G-O.”  Remember that one from school or camp?

An adjective describes a noun, tells which one and which kind-o.

(B-I-N-G-O section) Shiny fast new Porsche 

Pat’s wild racing horse

These five purple squash

And rubb’ry yellow Jell-O.

Pronouns to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

Pre-po-si-tion:   "on the sea,"     

"in our language," "through the tree."

Tell   po-si-tion:   next   to,   toward,       

Under,  over, at, aboard.       .                    

Tell   re-la-tion-ships:   about,          

from, until, except, without.     

Some of the other songs are shorter with only the definition and a couple examples, but because they’re shorter, they’re not quite as much fun.  The pleasure of a parody is in how well it mimics the original.

MORE ON THINKING SKILLS.  We also discussed high stakes testing rarely tapping critical thinking skills.  When I make a unit test, I purposely design it to include questions that require higher level thinking (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation from Bloom’s Taxonomy).  On the OGT, a bigger concern than real thought is learning to follow the proper pattern for answering short and extended response questions.  Another plus on the OGT is maintaining interest long enough just to finish it. 

BUMMER.  The article talked about a girl who built a model of a Greek building to honor her Greek heritage.  (Should we be thinking about 3-D representations for our autobiographies too?)  Unfortunately, the building is identified as the Pantheon.  The Pantheon is in Rome, but the Parthenon is at the top of the mountain in Greece. 


Bushnell, Mary, and Sue Ellen Henry. "The Role of Reflection in Epistemological
     Change: Autobiography in Teacher Education." Educational Studies 34.1
     (2003): 48-59. Print.