Fecho reiterates much of what we've read from Rosenblatt, Freire, Dewey, Delpit, and other educational theorists and researchers in an eloquent way. He uses narratives and metaphors and spends a while describing what his book is not. I appreciate his point that there's too much emphasis on "getting through" the school days instead of wrestling out-of-syncness in the classroom, but it wasn't until the narrative of the guitar lessons that I felt connected to Fecho. His thoughts on inquiry-based teaching, theory and practice, strong collaboration and learning with peers definitely resonated with me, and I made notes and everything, but when he described the futility of his childhood dream of being a guitar hero I saw his direct route to learning land. I took piano lessons for years, dutifully practicing chords and drills and performing in several recitals with perfectly executed concertos and opuses, but not with the intensity and passion I heard coming from the piano when my mom played it. The closest I came to that was when I sat playing a few songs that captured me--Canon in D, Moonlight Sonata, Water Music, Ave Maria, and Prelude No. 4 in E minor Opus 28. Those had meaning.
4 comments:
Yes....he experienced the atomized curriculum of his guitar teacher .... all these unconnected bits that float around and are caricature of real knowing. I'm glad you got inside some of the music. A person gets tired of standing with nose pressed to glass.
too much emphasis on "getting through" the school days instead of wrestling out-of-syncness in the classroom
I also liked this comment. We need to move away from the list of activities students need to complete in a class period and think more about what students are learning or not learning.
We always seem to go back to coverage and how that grinds against learning and thinking and inquiring and living.
I find myself cringing now when I remember saying things like, "Let's get through this first and then we can do this," or "c'man, ya'll, let's finish this." We're a country on a schedule, we've got deadlines and test scores to meet, and there are only so many weeks in a semester. But we're inadvertently setting up the lessons and their content as tasks, chores, to be finished up before you could have play time. We can't let a discussion wander and go to unplanned areas, can we? What might happen?
Good things, usually.
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