Doing what you love - with trash

In a recent post I wrote about a PBL Proposal I'd written for a class, where the product would be home-made musical instruments. At the very end, I included a short article about a group of people who sorted through trash as a living, who had created instruments from trash. This video shows the results. It's a teaser for a longer movie, which you can read about here: Landfill Harmonic Watching the video, I couldn't help thinking about my recent post, "Doing What You Love." These children and adults have found music that transforms their daily lives.
This also connects up with several posts about trash I've written on my other blog, Sustainable Rays, about the environment.

Doing what you love

I saw this video on Facebook and had to share it. This child is completely taken up in his music. I love his expression at the end.

Compare that video with this one of some children in North Korea, who, according to the comments, are playing to provide food for their family.

Two very different kinds of motivation. I think I want my students to love what they're doing - and learning, not memorizing to get good grades for some purpose like $5 per A, or even getting into the right college.

I tricked them into enjoying chem lab

At my school we are experimenting with a "third trimester" after fairly early state testing in the beginning of April. Since many of our students need to catch up on papers and other work, the plan is to use this time for them to finish papers and do other catch up work.
For example, I have 2 seniors who really needed the chemistry class that got converted to "Integrated Science I" about when I started, so I meet with them about 4 hours a week going through the text book and exercises they should be working on independently. And then they join about 10 others who have "Science Enrichment" to do some real chem labs (except that we barely have any equipment. I just bought 10 inexpensive lab goggles to replace the cheap swim goggles they were using.)

But the 10 students felt duped that they had to have more chemistry, since they didn't have much say in the matter. So when they arrived in the first lab class last week they were mad.

Although they did enjoy getting into the disposable lab coats we save from lab to lab, they refused to read the 2 pages of lab prior to doing it, and wouldn't create the data table they needed.

But I tricked them. The lab was on purifying "foul water" (coffee grinds, garlic, veggie oil and salt.) So I took the jar of water, taking the top off so they could smell it, and everyone turned around, read the first lab section, created the table and got to work.

I had them come up table by table to ask for the materials they would need (mostly with apparatus I created myself) and sent them back to read if they didn't ask for the right things.

So they ended up reading, writing data in the table, discussing chemistry, and being amazed when they dropped activated charcoal capsules into their mixture for the last step, and discovering that the room no longer smelled like garlic. Most were very good answering the questions, being very realistic about the lack of proper chemical equipment.

I find it distressing that kids have lost the curiosity to want to learn. Some prefer sitting around doing nothing, or chatting with friends about nothing in particular, or doodling (we've had quite an outbreak of male organs this spring) than using their brains a bit to figure things out.

Students tell me I'm not teaching them anything if I ask them to read, or discuss something in groups. When I try to draw on prior knowledge or extend what they've learned to something they know, they say "but you haven't taught us that!"

They apparently think that "teaching" is presenting a PowerPoint, which they are expected to copy into their notes - and then forget!

I hope the students at our school, most of whom couldn't manage at the regular public high school, are the exception. Otherwise I fear for our future when these kids who have lost their imagination - and their ability to follow directions, or read or write their own thoughts - become the adults who are to lead this country on!

Mastering is more than expecting the best

In his article Fostering Mastery (Huffington Post, October 24,) Terry Newell discusses the delight of seeing students master a difficult skill, in particular a pianist.
As teachers we are expected to help students do their very best in their work, but sometime a student's very best would be real mastery of a subject or skill. In the article he points out that the only areas school place emphasis on mastery is where there are competitions, in sports, music, dance, or whatever - all of which are after school activities.
Of course there are many adults who do their day job just to be able to support their passion, which they aim to master, like an acquaintance who participates in very high stakes gambling, which I guess he figures he has mastered. Others use the subjects they work mastering in their day jobs, often as free-lancers. This could be professional photographers, IT developers, or even those lucky athletes who can make it as professionals.
In order to master something you have to be consumed by it. You practice hours on end, study the skills of others, read books, attend conferences or meets, compete with others in various ways. But that doesn't leave time for school work! Both my brother and my son got consumed by technology which competed with schoolwork and dropped out - although they "dropped in" again when they discovered a way to study their passion without the encumbrance of all the rest!
But life needs mastery in more ways than highly visible competitive activities. When I was teaching English and German in Denmark, I kept reminding my students that they needed to really master the languages, so that they could use them in their careers as fluently and precisely as possible. Many of the students had been abroad and understood why almost right can cause comprehension difficulties. They were motivated to work with their essays and practice conversation so that they would someday be praised for their fluency. That was more important than the grade I gave them (which, of course, was good anyway!)
As math teachers we have to encourage our students to master math. Any deviations from accurate math could cause serious problems in life (by not calculating one's financial situation well enough) or in a career - just think of what would happen if an engineer did imprecise calculations on a bridge, car, or space explorer!
Journalists have to master their skills of research and persuasion.
Is there a way we can motivated students to mastery in our classes?
I once had a mentor teacher who was inspired by words from an Olympic swimmer, about how he mastered his swimming techniques through many hours of drill. Unfortunately the teacher assumed that this could be applied to math students. He missed the most important part of the swimmer's message: motivation. Students have to be motivated to excellence, to mastery. Then they might be interested in drill. But I think they have to figure out for themselves in some way what they will drill. It doesn't help that a teacher says, "this is how you do it, now go drill it for an hour." Teenagers will often do the exact opposite of what you tell them to do, or at least do it unwillingly. We have to lead them to where they want to master the subject on their own with our support and guidance where they need it. There are many things they can figure out on their own. Sometimes they need encouragement to research the particulars they need, so we have to help them learn to be effective researchers, but there are also times when our own knowledge and experience is what they need, and they may be motivated to accept it, if we learn to present it at the right moment.
Let our job be encouraging mastery. Our job is motivation, not dishing out facts, procedures and drills!