Being OT on RCTN

As first a daughter of two teachers and a student, and now a mom of three kids, I've seen the education system from various angles.

It's rare to find a teacher in whom the spark of imagination has been allowed to thrive after a decade or more in the school systems. So many really good teachers are pressured into teaching to the lowest common denominator in their classes. Smart and gifted kids become bored. No child left behind means that kids are taught a set of answers to specific questions, but never encouraged to think. Teachers are also forced not to fail students who earn failing grades, teaching these students that it's ok to not try, because they'll still get pushed through the system. Personally, I think these students would benefit a lot more from the kick in the pants that getting left back or going to summer school might give them!

My kids go to a system with a gifted program, my oldest and youngest qualified, but only the youngest wanted to participate (oldest didn't want to join in 7th or 8th grade, felt it was already too cliqueish for her tastes by then) but youngest just started the 4th & 5th grade one this year. I was thrilled by the program, they don't give grades as such, they don't want the kids to merely learn, they want them to THINK!!! How amazing is that? To suggest that kids should be encouraged to actually think!

So many school systems can't support a program like this, nor the sort of magnet school that Susan's children got to go to. The kids in these districts are cheated in the worst way I think.

Teaching kids to pass standardized tests and only standardized tests will probably adversely affect the quality of citizens they become later. I'd rather have them be able to be creative and actually think than to be good at taking tests.

Caryn

I applaud your attitude but am mystified as to what giving out grades has to do with being able to think.

There recently was a public radio show about the changes in our society beginning with Generation Y. A tidal wave of change. The children have grown up not to think independently. They do not date as we currently know the term. They hook up. All of these changes will have a profound change on our society, from novels to greeting cards to far more important aspects, including what you are talking about above (standardized testing . . . little robots . . . the inability to think independently).

There is only one way to point the finger. You cannot blame it on someone else. It is the generation right under me that started all this. It was those in power at our nations think tanks and universities who set about this change with their writings and their rantings, and it was the gullible who drank it up all up without thinking. (Getting back to your comments on the ability to think).

Dianne

I see you remember how to spell it correctly, too!!! :))) Is there more at the end of it? I seem to remember *some*thing but not what.

Joan

(trying to edit this so that Cheryl doesn't get the blame, though I had to quote from her response to MBC, since I have MBC filtered...)

If you'd *really* been paying attention all these years, Mirjam, you'd

Well said, Dianne. It would be great to think it could be reversed, but we`re too far down that slippery slope now, I think. I`m glad I won`t be around for the next half century!

Pat P

With the current leadership in the U.S. it's clear that being able to think for oneself is not an asset they want in today's youth.

Nor in most of the adult citizens for that matter.

Caryn

I *wish* my kids were in the gifted program! My son missed it by 2 points. Yes, yes, I know, they have to have a cutoff someplace, but he has spent quite a bit of time bored because of it.

Also - why should interesting things be limited to gifted kids? I have a girl in my GS troop who is LD - she is in 5th grade but still reads at a second or third grade level. But she does amazing things, retains lots of information and loves GS - and learns a lot there because we spark her imagination! What a concept, huh?

You can very definitely reward creativity (and quantify it) by grading. I do it all the time when I grade student's performances at lessons. There's a huge difference when I put "OK" on a page (the work was performed as written), and when I put a heart with a smiley face and the words "WOW".

The more creativity (if that's what you're after in a class), the higher the grade. Mediocre thinking doesn't get A's.

My violin and piano lessons in college were graded. These are instruments which require playing more than what is written on a page. It requires a tremendous amount of thought and creativity.

You also said: "She also goes to a regular classroom 4 days a week, where she gets grades like 'normal'."

Do you mean normal grading system? (A-B-C et al) Or merely words on a page to express how the teacher "feels" the student is doing?

Dianne

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote:

Well, I can speak to that, in a tangential way.

When I learned "Claire de Lune," I played it in a way that made my mother just nuts. She said, "That's not the way it's SUPPOSED to be played." I got mediocre scores at contest with it, even though I liked it and did it right. I never knew what she meant, "That's not the way it's SUPPOSED to be played."

On the other hand, once I turned my hand to baroque music (which was not, by the way, encouraged by either teacher or mother--neither liked baroque, I found out later), I received STELLAR performance reviews. I liked it and it was fun and I did it right. Given my druthers, I would have played baroque all the day long. (I won't even talk about what happened to my stated desire to learn Gershwin and his ilk.)

I finally just stopped playing.

Then one day as an adult, I heard "Claire de Lune" played on the radio and the lightbub came on--THAT was how it was supposed to be played.

Now that I'm not a teenager anymore and have learned enough to know myself and to label my tastes, I realize why I excelled at baroque and sucked at romance.

Romance requires a certain level of life experience to add to the creativity. How can one be creative with tools one doesn't have? On the other hand, baroque requires a certain inclination toward the technical to make it work right, which is more intuitive and doesn't require a whole lot of life experience to understand how it's supposed to sound. Plus, if you have fun with baroque, there you go.

NOW, at 37, with some life experience underneath me, some loss and some grief and pain, love and laughter that's meaningful, I could play "Claire de Lune" like it's SUPPOSED to be played if I put my hand back to learning technique.

Some people just get the ah-ha moment late in life. As my dad always said, "We're a family of late bloomers and early diers."

Caryn, that sounds exactly like the gifted program I was a part of back in elementary school. We did Odyssey of the Mind, and well as interpretive performances of MacBeth (yeah, I was Lady M) and Midsummer Night's Dream (yeah, I was Titania too). Did a huge unit on Greek tragedy and Greek/Roman mythology. Did a lot of reading out of Junior Great Books, but everybody really hated that!

I have very fond memories of being in the gifted program in elementary. It really fell off in junior high. I had to go the the school in the "hood" because they needed to meet a percentage quota of white kids. Wouldn't let me attend out of district.

Still, I'll live on there as Quiz Bowl Goddess... Becky

Ahahahaaaa!! I was told that very same thing a few times. Some people just went nuts at how I interpreted the little black dots on the page.

Baroque, admittedly, is an aquired taste. I had a knack for it, but no particular love of it for the longest time. Then, one day, I was loaned a cello strung with authentic catgut and tuned to the proper baroque intervals. It was a dream.

I really and truly regret not playing anymore. I switched from cello to double bass in high school, and my university didn't want a female bassist and all their cello slots were full.

I suppose I could have taken the offer to play with either of the local symphony orchestras, but I just couldn't abide by either of the conductors. That, and being so shy...

I agree with your assessment. It's not just the technical ability to make the notes...it's the experience and the emotion to shape them.

I'll just hush now... Becky A

You know, I feel that way about a lot of things (karate, for instance), but I am just now starting to learn that I don't want to say "nevermore" to some things.

I will pick it up piano again, but when I do, it will be on MY terms and not on terms somebody else with different tastes sets.

As for baroque, I never found it to be an acquired taste (but my mother and teachers did). My ear always gravitated to its creative-yet-technical gait and I've also always wanted a harpsichord to play it on. When I sang in the local RLDS Messiah choir in 1988, the Kansas City Symphony had a harpsichord and it only increased my yearning for one.

Gershwin is on the very top of the list, BTW. And then Rachmaninoff.

Unfortunately, both wrote for way larger hands than what I possess.

Mimicry was not allowed, so I was not shown how it was SUPPOSED to be played, particularly with nuance pointed out.

Oh, I understand. I just "got it" with baroque, but again, how much I got it I can't say since I was not encouraged to play baroque.

It was all about romantic at home and modern (Dvorak) with teacher, which I did NOT like at all.

Oh, no, thank you!

I honestly think making music is just not something I have that lagniappe for...I can be technically proficient and if I like the piece, it will sparkle. But I never gained any particular enjoyment from it enough to devote time to it when I had a choice.

Honestly, I would have preferred art class.

I can very much appreciate your life experiences with music. However, you might be surprised how readily some children can add "life" to a piece. And teachers need to show nuances so that students can mimic.

But some "mimic" better than others . . . even without a life of pain or what have you. Just like some people are born poets.

I appreciate your love for baroque music, but there is more than technical skills required. Here again, there are subtle nuances that make it sparkle or fall flat. (Louds and softs, for instance).

Yes, maturing does make a difference in playing an instrument. Just as in all art forms, including poetry, dance, the list can be endless. But some very young ones show a spark for it. Of course, it helps to suround children with what you are trying to teach them . . . which makes humanities programs indispensible in education, provided there's enough time and effort put into them.

Thanks for the conversation!!

Dianne

lizard-gumbo wrote:

I had to laugh. I love Beethoven. Love playing him, love listening to him, love Gary Oldman as him.

I don't particularly care for Mozart on the whole, although I'll admit there are a very few pieces that are fun to play for playing's sake. My aunt was appalled. She said, "He's a genius and studies have shown that children's brains develop better yatta yatta yatta..." I said, "Yeah, but I don't LIKE him. So what?"

Funny how other peoples' biases affect us, isn't it?

Now...here's something I ran across quite by accident and my mother had never heard of it when I introduced it to her and she HATED it on first listen: Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. The KC Symphony & Chorale and the KC Ballet did this together. It was all tympani and voice. Two pianos, I think 3 sets of kettles, glockenspiels, you name it--but not a string or horn in the bunch. Best arrangement I ever heard.

I would draw a parallel between my attraction to Beethoven and to Orff--lots less nuance, lots more raw passion.