Music Works

Lessons Learned

Why Music?

They were from the far east side of town, and we were from the far west.  Our lives, our experiences, and our schedules were worlds apart despite the few miles that separated us. It’s not that we couldn’t have been friends; it’s just that our paths would never have crossed. That is, until “The Project,” that cast us all on the same team, transitioned from dream to enactment. Two very different fifth grade worlds were about to collide and in that collision, be called upon to create and then perform a rap depicting the story of our city, our shared story.  It was to be a part of a much larger original musical work entitled, “Hometown History,” and was dreamed and written to be shared by children to an audience of all neighbors from all neighborhoods of our hometown.  It was to serve as a big affirming hug to a city besieged by violence, unemployment, and fear.  It was to be just one step toward building a bridge of hope and trust between neighbors.  The first meeting of the fifth graders  occurred at the west side school and although the air was filled with a certain amount of  tentativeness,  a pinch of suspicion, and a good dollop of curiosity, the lengthy laundry list of tasks to be accomplished while together served to quickly  focus us all  beyond our piddily concerns and doubts. We attended to the business of getting the job done and that demanded immediate cooperative effort; all hands on deck, so to speak. We worked exceedingly hard, we learned, shared, collaborated, laughed, perfected, discussed, fell short, tried again, cheered each other on, applauded ourselves, supported, encouraged, questioned, explained, tried harder, kept practicing, saw progress, high-fived,  and, after a couple of hours, enjoyed a pizza lunch together with these precious new friends.  The next few weeks were committed to practicing on our own at our respective schools.  The second meeting occurred at the east side school, and the air was filled with excitement, anticipation and warmth as we reconvened our awesome fifth grade team.  The local news media showed up to capture the joy of this creative team of fifth grade bridge builders as they zealously rehearsed their proud rap, and sang, danced, played, and laughed as all children should and do from every side of town in every town around the globe. Music brought us together. Music brought balm to hometown afflicted with fear and distrust. Music brought laughter, peace, joy and friendship. Music built a bridge of hope and possibility. Music always does.  Music levels the playing field and invites each one to play. Music is a universal language that transcends circumstances and disengages exclusivity.  Music links us, binds us, welcomes us, and calls us into a shared joy.  Why music? Because it heals our hearts and makes us better.

If you, as a parent or a teacher, need sweet, heart-warming original children’s music to bring joy, esprit de corps, and celebration to your family or to your classroom, please visit the Teachers Pay Teachers store, One Arts Infusion Collaborative, to find simple sheet music and mp4 files of seasonal  and curricularly-relevant songs.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/One-Arts-Infusion-Collaborative

Harriet Tubman

Lessons Learned

The Araminta Project

Harriet “Araminta” Tubman, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, had every reason to surrender to the crushing despair of slavery that oppressed her, her family, and thousands and thousands of others, but she did not succumb. Instead, against all odds and all better judgement, she ran for her life and for her freedom and did not stop until she possessed it. Even then, in the exhilaration and bliss of freedom’s joy, Harriet was not content knowing that countless sisters and brothers still remained bound in the wretched, brutal, hopeless claws of slavery. So back she went, at inconceivable personal risk, to lead more than 300 others to freedom. Harriet made nineteen trips back, undeterred by the $40,000. bounty which was being offered for her capture dead or alive. Courage, perseverance, faith, hard work, generosity, patience, selflessness, confidence, strength, and hope are just a few of Harriet’s attributes that drove her to serve, lead, and rescue others.

This summer, we will gather 100 at-risk and special needs students from grades 3-5, and teach them Harriet’s story through script, song, poetry, dance, and spirituals, which they, then, in turn will share with parents, neighbors, and all in the community through a collection of performances. The cast of 100 will also take a field trip to an Underground Railroad(UGRR) Museum, walk through an actual UGRR tunnel, and then perform Harriet’s story on the lawn of the museum for museum guests. Learning Harriet’s story will teach them history, understanding Harriet’s heroic attributes will inspire their hearts, and performing for adoring audiences will fill their souls with confidence and gladness.  With immense anticipation and excitement, we are tweaking this original musical piece in preparation for the precious children who will learn it. The TpT Store, One Arts Infusion Collaborative, contains one of the “Araminta” songs as sheet music and as an mp4 file.

Harriet Tubman: The Underground Railroad Sheet Music

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Harriet-Tubman-The-Underground-Railroad-Sheet-Music-1659828

Harriet Tubman: The Underground Railroad Sing Along

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Harriet-Tubman-The-Underground-Railroad-Sing-Along-1675166

Can’t wait for the Araminta Project!

Any Creative Spirits In Your Home?

Lessons Learned

A Glimpse Into The Creative Spirit

Time. Patience. Non-judgment. Safety. These things all are mandatory for a creative spirit to feel free to create. A creative spirit comfortably and frequently dwells in a place of great vulnerability. This place is one where wide open emotions, wild imaginings, and novel, exciting connections intersect.  It is an exhausting and exhilarating place all at once. The birth of an idea occurs in a place where a brave creative spirit is willing to take a great risk and expose his or her heart. For example, a composing artist might be inspired by a landscape, an event, a relationship, a life story, or any other of an infinite number of inspirational sources, and then the seed of that inspiration takes root in imagination’s fertile soil. While germinating, the inspiration, for a composing artist, develops an identifying sound and a musical color which will ultimately be creatively translated into a melody. Sometimes this creative process takes a great deal of time, sometimes it unexpectedly bursts forth from seemingly nowhere, but in any case, it cannot be timed, measured, demanded of, or really even controlled. It just is as it is. Which comes first, the lyrics or the melody? There is no standard recipe. There is no prescribed order or flow chart design.  It just is. And when pen finally puts creativity to paper, we see the fruit emerge. The fruit of this particular creativity is a song.  A unique melody.  A unique combination of words.  A unique color of emotion extracted from the original inspiration.  This unique musical composition depicts the artist’s very own musical connection to the object of inspiration, and to be invited to hear this melody by the artist’s hand is to indeed be considered a trusted confidant.  Words need to be few in this moment of hearing a new song.   One who snaps to reckless judgment, one who values to the highest priority the narrow parameters of extreme efficiency, one who typically favors status quo in general, one who is easily distracted and unable to simply breathe in the awesomeness of newness, one to whom nothing is ever quite good enough, these would rarely be the ones invited into this moment of creativity unveiled.  These are actually the ones who bind the creative spirit within boxes of ordinary, predictable, beigeness.  Within these boxes creativity suffers and dies, for creativity must be free if it is to exist at all. Be gentle with the creative spirits in life, in your home, in your classroom, in your workplace. They see the world a bit differently. They see possibilities unnoticed by others, and possibilities stir hope. Sometimes the possibilities they see drive them, compel them to travel to distant places. The compulsion to see and to know and to pursue the possibility burns inside the creative spirit, unrelenting and intensifying until the bags are packed and the journey has begun. And the standers-by, the loving, safe, supportive arms that have held them all along need to loosen their hug and let them go. Let them go despite the fears, despite the tears, for a creative spirit is destined to fly, to seek, to soar. Although dream realization and dream shattering disappointment forever dwell concurrently as equal possibilities, the hope of the realization fills the heart and motivation of the ever-optimistic creative spirit. The try is worth the quest. The hope is worth the risk. The dream, the faith, the belief, the conviction is so unwaveringly fierce that doubt is buried and forgotten. A creative spirit is willing to leap into the unknown for the strong promise of what could be. They defy despair, and the gifts they bring to the issues of life which we all grapple with both individually and corporately may just hold the promise of a solution. Would that we each seek to be mentored through a season by one who is a creative spirit and experience first-hand the jubilation of possibility.

Guest Blogger: Dr. Graham Hill-Type 2 Diabetes

Dr. Hill presents a very creative, very understandable explanation of Type 2 Diabetes, a serious condition affecting a great many people. 

"I hope you all enjoyed the inaugural video on the HealthThatCares channel. Type 2 Diabetes is an epidemic in the world today affecting more than 250 million world wide. This video is meant to educate and inform people about the disease process and complications. If you know anyone with type 2 diabetes encourage them to see their doctor and to manage their blood sugar.

This video is not meant to take the place of any advice from a doctor. Manage the disease according to your doctor's directions.

Please like the channel and I welcome all comments!!

Suggest which videos you would like next!" Graham.


All Statistics taken from CDC:http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistic...

All information from UpToDate

Music:
"Perspectives" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

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  Education

• License

  Standard YouTube License

An Invigorating Week At Creativity Camp

Lessons Learned

Creativity Camp

Woo hoo! Three and a half hours each morning with first and second graders for a full week with the goal of “creating” things sounded like an awesome adventure to me; an arts integration enthusiast and specialist.  Because creativity requires one to see something new or perhaps to see a new possibility for something that is not new, I thought it best to begin with ordinary, familiar items and use them as our diving board into the lovely pool of imagination. We need to imagine to create. So out came the tinfoil, duct tape, pipe cleaners, burlap potato sacks, popsicle sticks, tissue paper, glue, pony beads, wooden beads, shoe laces, yarn, 64 crayons, empty plastic coffee canisters,  small clear glass vases, thin-wired coat hangers, polar fleece, and at least one hundred brown paper bags, and with that outstanding imagination-tickling assortment of tools, we began. Weaving was a great place to begin and paper weaving was easy, quick, and looked excellent without hours of practice. We handily graduated to weaving through burlap with pipe cleaners, feathers and yarn, and a shoe lace. Our creations were exciting, unique, and brought gleeful smiles of pride. After reading a Native American folk tale, we created friendship necklaces; one to keep and one to share. Our final activity the first day was to create tinfoil sculptures; anything each student wanted to make, but it needed to be accompanied with a clear verbal description and presentation to the class. I, then, ask each of them to make a canoe sculpture reminiscent of the one in the story we read. The homework assigned them was to float their canoes in the sink or bathtub at their homes. Hours flew and smiles never left. Day after day, project after project, story after story, we imagined and we created, all interspersed with lively ongoing conversation and an occasional nature walk outside in search of twigs or leaves or small stones on the ground for use In future projects. We played. We laughed. We exercised our imaginations. We learned new stories about new characters. We learned about and experimented with new art forms by recycling and rejuvenating ordinary, familiar items. We created something brand new from something that had always been there. We needed no kits nor step-by-step directions, for our imaginations led the way. Creativity Camp was a beautiful opportunity for the brilliant imaginations of children to romp happily and fully free, unrestrained by the highly structured, highly scheduled lockstep that is frequently life when it is not summer vacation.  Why couldn’t Creativity Camp be a regular part of an academic curriculum? The benefits would surely ripple infinitely through young hearts and lives.

OK, Metrics Again. It's Just Not Right.

Lessons Learned

Not That There's Anything Left To Say, But....

In a word, metrics. How do we measure up? Are we faster, better, or stronger than the last time we checked? Are all of our measurable qualities demonstrating continuous improvement? Success of any organization or entity, these days, boils down to numbers and can readily be assessed on the pan balance of comparison. Good numbers constitute good work, and good work is the all in all. Eons and billions are spent monitoring and managing metrics, and profit empires are built on such.  This is humongously meaningful for countless things such as those that are inanimate, but what of those that are not? What about people?  With respect to people, there are a number of immeasurable qualities which significantly influence successful outcomes. Many of the immeasurable qualities that powerfully contribute to success are contingent on the affective culture or mindset of the people involved. In the flurry of checklist assignment dispensing, deadlines pressing in, paper gathering, number crunching, outcome analyzing, and bottom line ramifications, where are the people? Where are the feelings of the people? Machines heartlessly and most effectively produce brilliant metrics. The human variable notches down the effectiveness because this pesky variable has feelings; unquantifiable feelings that can and do unpredictably tip the balance. Drat and double drat. Take schools, for instance. Are all of the boxfuls of voluminous paperwork generated and tabulated for each student honestly, truly honestly improving that student’s understanding of content, application of understanding, and capability of producing connection building scaffolding? I do not think so. From my vantage point of thirty years in the classroom, I see the areas in most dire need of bolstering among students to be relational.  Feelings, communication, empathy, and compassion are all immeasurable and they all lead to understanding. Understanding leads to meaning-making which suddenly brings relevance into the educational picture.  Encouragement is another immeasurable but remains by far the single most important and long-lasting motivator. We can try to motivate extrinsically but when the novelty of the incentive wears off we’ve lost. Encouragement, on the other hand, cumulatively builds confidence and commitment and requires no paperwork, simply words spoken from one heart to another heart.  A leader comprehends this human need and harnesses its power as a strong motivator of people. A leader comprehends that to create and to innovate, which exist at the top level of Bloom’s Taxonomy  of learning domains, the affective environment needs to be one of encouragement. The affective environment of a metrics driven organization is fear, fear of the pan balance upon which each one’s efforts are regularly measured.  Fear can surely be a motivator, but in a very sad, unhealthy, and dysfunctional sort of way.  Fear binds creativity. The data obsession of a metrics environment aligns all efforts on an efficient and lock-step path of conformity which is neatly quantifiable, but deals the death blow to all things time-consumingly creative.  The pendulum swing of those cultural values to which we most deeply cling is presently at its widest arc in metrics glorification, but it will swing back because historically it always does. Numbers can never and will never paint the whole picture when the hearts and dreams of people are involved.

An Unhealthy Metrics Obsession.

Lessons Learned

Ughhhhh Stop With The Obsessive Metrics Gathering Already!

In education today, as well as in most other areas, it all comes down to this; numbers. Scores. Metrics. Performance Data. These numbers drive funding, define success, delineate projections, and determine accountability for students, teachers, school districts, and states. As numbers are crunched, compared, and evaluated on flow charts and bar graphs presented in large beige-colored conference rooms to suit-clad metrics philosophers, perhaps it is easy to forget that these numbers represent precious, unique children filled with brilliant dreams, gifts, and wonder, anxious to explore the world and imagine and discover answers to challenging questions. States, districts, teachers, and students are staggering under the inscrutable weight of cold, hard, continuous metric achievement, which unquestionably demands the classroom focus to be statistical. The highly-pressured demands of this have been known to  result in unethical choices made in survival-type desperation. Unfortunately, although true learning cannot be quantified as such nor contained in neat statistical, numerical boxes, it seems it has become reduced to this very thing. Teaching to the test leads not to true learning. Teaching to the test inspires no imaginative and possibility-filled divergent thinking, clever invention, or mind wandering creativity. Teaching to the test opens no new windows of discovery, but rather denotes a more “shoveling in of information” style of fact dissemination. As there must be some sort of balance in all things in life, there appears to be no balance in this now. The metrics pendulum has swung to an unhealthy, inappropriate extreme with respect to educating our children and is in dire need of honest, immediate scrutiny and re-prioritization if we are to truly nurture and nourish tomorrow’s hope.

The Vulnerability Of Creativity

Lessons Learned

To Dwell In Creativity

A creative spirit frequently lives in a lonely place. Not bad lonely, just slightly misunderstood lonely. To create, one needs to be comfortable with vulnerability, and if not completely comfortable with vulnerability, then at least aware of the weight of this demand. To create, one needs to imagine possibility and unexpected connection and to do this one needs to drop the wall of fear that neatly and typically holds us captive and safe within our prescribed conventions and protocols. Dropping the wall of fear to see beyond it, is terrifyingly and exhilaratingly vulnerable. A willingness to live there is risky, but it is the only place for a creative spirit to feel the freedom necessary to dream and imagine. Creativity flows like a faucet through the imagination of the one who seeks to see a new connection or hear a new combination of sounds, but living in this refreshing flow is inefficient and immeasurable, whereby rendering it inconsistent with the standard rhythm of life which is much more lock-step and non-threateningly predictable. So in choosing to be a creative spirit, one is choosing to be different, and different is vulnerable and can be lonely.  The process of creating is extremely intense and focused, yet at the same time wildly invigorating. In the process of creating, one hears and sees through the heart of imagination in response to an idea or thought and then captures that idea in a new way through any of an infinite variety of creative vehicles. My choice is music, and it has been since I was a child. Unexplainable as it is, other than to say it is a gift, creating music fills my soul and gives voice to the emotion wrapped around an idea, a thought, a situation, or a chapter in a life story. Inspiration for the creative process can occur at most any time and it compels the creative spirit to engage; convenient timing or not is rather inconsequential. From the moment of engagement, out pours the creativity unrestrained.  When at last the creative piece is complete, there is a frozen moment of awe, when for the very first time the one who has dreamed and created views in actuality what previously had existed only in the heart of imagination. Breathtaking. Perfect. Thoroughly and absolutely unique. This precious moment of awe is a very vulnerable place where no judgment or critique is ever welcome and only the gentlest of viewers are allowed.  The creative spirit is strong of heart and faith and optimism, but in this moment of awe, the creative spirit is indeed fragile. If you are ever invited into this moment with a creative spirit, accept it as the true gift it is, offer nothing but your stillness, and allow the awe to bless your heart.

Build Bridges Of Collaboration And Watch Cities Grow Stronger And More Kind

Lessons Learned

Celebrate Your Hometown

Forbes Magazine has more than once listed Rockford as being among the most violent cities in America in addition to other equally unflattering distinctions. But to us it’s home. It may not be perfect but there is a tremendous lot of good here, and it is all of this good that we focused on when we wrote a musical play about Rockford’s story. We engaged the support and participation of more than 20 local organizations as we planned this project known as “Hometown History.” It became a grand celebration of Rockford’s story, our shared story, for which our Mayor issued a proclamation. We raised money so that all District 205  3^rd graders could be transported to the stunning Coronado Theater to see and hear our shared story free of charge. The entire event felt like a huge hug for our city and certainly served as a step toward building bridges of hope and trust between neighbors. This big, affirming collaborative event received a Mayor's Arts Award for Cultural Event of the Year, and that is a credit to all of the countless  neighbors with willing hands who gathered their hearts and raised their voices in a resounding “Yes” to our city. This event was not a one shot deal, however; for there will be more and more until the bridges of collaboration and hope and trust out-number the walls of fear and despair that divide and isolate us and cause us to concede to Forbes. What do they know? They see numbers, we see neighbors.

Where Does an Idea Start? by Darcy Hill

I wrote this song to coincide with our study of American architect and creative genius, Frank Lloyd Wright. As a Creative Drama Teacher, however, I find that the message of this song is very applicable to all things creative among all ages and all content areas. The posed question, "Where does an idea start?" is indeed one that triggers extremely interesting responses and subsequently, discussions. We need to create for our children/students an environment that's safe and welcoming to the generation of new ideas. Within these new ideas exist wonderful hope for tomorrow. Today's dreamers will be tomorrow's problem solvers.

A Moment Of Panic

Lessons Learned

Lights To Black

We were fifteen minutes from show time. The cast of youngsters was well prepared and perfectly ready to shine. The adoring audience of family members and friends had trickled in and, with fresh bouquets on their laps for their after-the-show stars, these enthusiastically supportive folks were a-buzz with gleeful anticipation to finally see in context the lines they had been hearing in isolation for months. Costumes, check. Props, check. All cast present, check.  We convened the full cast backstage for our final detail check and for the “fire-up, yes-you-can, you are awesome” talk. They were set, and, now, on their own, as I left them to go to the piano to accompany their show. Just prior to the curtain opening, the mood for the performance would be established with a quick five minute overture of music from the show, while the youngsters waited excitedly in the wings with their happy toes on the starting line ready to dash into the opening scene. As I sat upon the piano bench, our light technician took the lights to black; time for the overture. In the blackness which was fully charged with expectancy, I realized there was no light on the piano. Each second of blackness weighed as an eternity on this accompanist who could not see her fingers to play the overture. Everyone waited, but only one waited in sheer panic. Overture. Now. Before anyone noticed the problem. Reaching for the keys, those familiar friends I can see in my sleep, I set my hands in relation to middle C, closed my eyes and began to play the overture. It wasn’t perfect. But it was okay. It fit the bill.  It provided the adequate and expected mood-setting opening crescendo that ushered in scene one and then the rest of the youngsters’ brilliant performance.  In the flurry of accolades, applause, photos and flowers that followed the show, no one noticed the deep sigh of relief exhaled by the accompanist who would never forget a light again.

Don't Cut The Arts; The Arts Benefit Children As Nothing Else Can.

Lessons Learned

Infinite Benefit of Arts In Education

“How many are out there waiting for the curtain to open?” hesitantly queried a slightly nerve-stricken first grader.

“Looks like a million, cuz I just peeked,” her not-so-reassuring best friend co-cast member cringed.

“A million or one, it makes no difference as long as you look over their heads and project to the exit sign on the back wall. Just whatever you do, don’t look into their eyes cuz that’s when you forget everything,” sprightly piped in the resident class aspiring Broadway star.

“I feel sick. Really, really sick. Oooooo, my stomach!”  whimpered the friends.

***Pause the story***

This is not an unusual conversation to have or to hear backstage just prior to a performance. The rumbling tightness in a tummy before a show, sometimes called butterflies, sometimes called stage fright, sometimes called the jitters, is just the adrenalin running through the body getting a performer ready to do his or her very best by focusing attention on all that must be remembered. Understanding this and performing through the tummy tightness is very empowering and confidence boosting regardless of the age of the performer. The subsequent uproarious applause is glorious and affirming and is truly a sound everyone needs to hear as a recipient at some point in their lives, for the echoes of applause ripple through one’s memory forever. Thirty years of writing, directing, and accompanying children’s musical plays have given me an excellent glimpse into the power of the performing arts to reach, touch, and transform a child, a cast, an audience, a director. Perfection? That’s never the goal; never even mentioned.  Collaboration, cooperation, full participation, and best efforts all around comprise  the perfectly worthy and always attained expectations.

***Resume the story***

“Deep breath. Think about all of our practices and remember how good you all are together. We’re a team. And we’re fabulous. Your families and friends can’t wait to see all that you all know!”  cheered this teacher.

Just as our rumbling tummy tightness group was focusing on preparing to cast their eyes above the audience heads and in the process forgetting the rumbling, which by the way focusing does, the backstage door burst open and in sprinted a very panicky first grade cast member mother.

“Jane has the chicken pox; the doctor just confirmed it. She’s devastated. And I am so so very sorry. I have to run, she’s in the car,” gasped the mom as she turned and dashed out stage left.

“Send her a hug from us,” we offered to the whoosh that was her mother exiting.

Backstage silence. Ashen-faced cast. Wide-eyed shock. Breathless pause on the brink of tears.  Jane was the lead forest animal and had a solo to sing.

This teacher dared the question, “Who can do Jane’s part?”

Momentary backstage silence filled with dubious anticipation weighed rather heavily on the question, until a soft, unexpected voice in the very back simply said, “I can. I will do my part, and I can do Jane’s, too. I learned everyone’s lines.”  Focus returned. The show went on. Confidence soared. And the chicken pox ran its course.

    

Obsess Not About The Mess, Rather Work With It.

Lessons Learned

From Dirt To Treasure

The cousins would come inside exhausted after hours of adventure-having, fort-building, hike-taking fun in the rolling and seemingly boundless country landscape. Each day, a new brilliant chapter would be written by these cousins with imaginations on fire and love for one another bubbling over. Childhood paradise.  Imaginative adventures encouraged and celebrated.  Country life was wide and free and served as the perfect balm and medicine for the nebulous ills resulting from a typical urban rat-race.  One is well aware that imaginative, adventurous, outdoor playing frequently results in substantial rips and mud and scrapes and the occasional poison ivy itch, but one also soundly recognizes that those meager costs are ever so worth it for the infinite creative and relational blessings gained. Cousins with  dirty hands, covered in the happy grim of nature’s playground, would come bolting inside for a short breath-catching,  tummy-filling rest, sometimes finding the soap and water on the way in, but usually not. All adventurers dashing to the basement for ping-pong and an assortment of ice cream treats in the freezer, left their precious outside handprints in all the cousin sizes down the basement stairway wall. Precious handprints that represented love and fun and being together simply could not be washed clean when the cousins went back home. Absolutely not.   Instead, grandma and grandpa began to trace the handprints and color them in with permanent markers including name and date captions thus forever capturing moments and memories in time. It became known as the handprint hall.  Through the years, cousins continued to trace hands, color hands, and date hands as did their friends, guests and all such other important visiting adventurers. Hundreds of hands.  The handprint hall.  Famous. Perfect.  A gallery of rare, beautiful, ongoing art to which we were all connected, all key contributors, all precious. Amazing how a mud-splotched wall, seen as annoying dirt to some, could be seen as priceless treasured art to someone else.  Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

The Perfection Of Store Bought Creativity

Lessons Learned

Trading In Homemade For Store Bought

With bright, wildly excited eyes, he exuberantly shared with words spilling over words that the long awaited and much anticipated huge science project was to be a creation of the solar system. Artistic, creative, original, unique, any medium, any materials were all descriptors from the teacher concerning this wonderful project. What do you think you’d like to do? I have thought about this all day and all the way home from school, and I think origami planets in different colors of different sizes all connected with pipe cleaners would be perfect. That sounds fantastic! What do you think we need to get for you create this just as you imagine it? With supplies gathered and work space cleared, the imaginer set to creating. Other than peeking in now and again, we, the support team, were to not distract or disturb the imaginer. Colorful origami planets began to fill the space, while pipe cleaner connectors held them in their proper orbits. Evenings filled with brilliant, beautiful creativity flew by punctuated with awe speckled giggles and other sounds of pride.  When at last the stunning, fragile solar system was complete, we were invited to a viewing. Magnificent. Perfect. The imagined solar system had at last become the created one, and  hearts were dancing with joy as they do when creativity is swirling in the midst. Although this humongous creative science project was due on a Friday, several students had decided to bring their projects in Thursday, and what our imaginer saw on Thursday crushed the zeal that had set his spirit soaring through the numerous previous evenings. Most, if not all, of the Thursday solar systems were made from purchased kits with every component perfectly set in place per the specific directions contained in the box, which made them actually, perfect; quite the same but nonetheless perfect.  Friday morning in the parking lot, as other beautiful boxed solar systems streamed by, a very sad thought struck our imaginer. Suddenly, pipe cleaner connectors and origami planets were the tools of losers and others who created without directions in the box. The bright, wildly excited eyes dulled and from the previously jubilating heart came the whispered words, I can’t turn mine in; it’s dumb. My solar system doesn’t look perfect like boxed ones do, and the teacher will think I didn’t work as hard. Gentle, encouraging words from the support team were not quite enough to get us beyond the parking lot crisis occurring in our car, but an intuitive, sensitive, empathetic teacher saved the day, the moment, and a creative heart under siege. This wise and good teacher, upon hearing of the crisis, tenderly pulled the student aside, reminded the student of the excellence of creativity and imaginative work, and affirmed the highest priority and value to be placed upon all of the extra effort involved in creating a unique project, which was, in fact, the assignment.  The imaginer’s smile returned thankfully.  When do we actually trade in our out-of-the-box imaginations for boxed kits complete with perfect directions? Once we make the trade, are we able to go back?

The Birthplace of Out-Of-The-Box Thinking

Lessons Learned

Paper or Plastic?

We talk about the “jump” from ordinary to extraordinary in most any department and we realize that the “jump” we are speaking of, in a word, is the infusion of “creativity.” Creativity, as a full byproduct of a busy imagination, sees the infinite potential dwelling within the bounds of the ordinary, and then can see beyond that to the path that will lead to extraordinary brilliance. Creativity is imagination affirmed. Creativity is imagination with confidence. Creativity creates extraordinary. We plant the seeds for this type of thinking in children when they are very young and quite honestly, it requires a rather counter-cultural perspective. Marketers, who instruct our behavior, and the Joneses, with whom we love to keep up, might suggest or expect that we fill our toy boxes with the latest, greatest, flashiest, costliest items or gadgets or e-games, most of which make spectators of our children, but I would contest that the deepest, truest seeds of creativity are not found amongst these impressive devices. Out-of-the-box thinking comes from out-of-the-box toys; no surprise. Brown paper bags, for instance, offer limitless possibilities for anything anyone might need. From book covers, to drawing paper, puppets and crowns, from bricks(when stuffed), pirate maps, and  birthday cards, to trees(when duct-taped together), wreaths, and journals, from wrapping paper, fresh-out-of-the-oven cookie cooling paper, and cowboy vests, to masks, helmets, and valentines, and on and on and on out to the edges of one’s imagination, brown paper bags do it all and regularly make the “jump” from ordinary to extraordinary in the course of creative play. And they cost nothing more than the correct answer to the perpetual grocery store question, “Paper or plastic?” Paper, of course! Tinfoil, duct tape, pipe cleaners, empty thread spools, popsicle sticks, and countless other ordinary, inexpensive items would fill the toy box in the home of creativity seed planters. For our children to think creatively, they must play creatively, and to play creatively, they must be given simple, ordinary tools with which their extraordinary imaginations may work to create wonderful, magical, unique brilliance.

The esprit de corps of singing...

Lessons Learned

Singing Together Can Help Us Grow

Six languages in one first grade classroom.  Swedish. Greek. Japanese. Afganistan. Spanish. English.  Our hope was to teach them all to read.  Our priority was to build a community, to communicate, but the first few days of school made that priority seem quite remote and that hope nearly impossible.  We had no means by which to connect and our only apparent common ground right then was that we shared a classroom, a cold, lonely one at that. After lunch each day, we had a twenty minute window of time during which we played acoustic instrumental music, and the students were encouraged to either look at a picture book, quietly draw a picture, or simply relax and listen to the music. Surprisingly, most students opted to listen to the music. It was calm, soothing, peaceful, and biased toward no one language. Each mind processes music in its own language.  Perhaps music held a key. We wrote a song about counting to ten. We asked each student to count to ten in his or her primary language, which we phonetically wrote down.  We all learned how to count to ten in each of our class languages with great and enthusiastic help from each other. It was a spectacular song, made exponentially better by the robust participation and growing esprit de corps of our classroom community.  By sharing a little piece of each other’s language, we were able to share a little piece of each other’s heart.  Our community grew. Our trust grew. Our learning grew. We became readers.  We became friends. We shared a song.

Music Builds Community

Lessons Learned

Music Builds Community

Six languages in one first grade classroom.  Swedish. Greek. Japanese. Afganistan. Spanish. English.  Our hope was to teach them all to read.  Our priority was to build a community, to communicate, but the first few days of school made that priority seem quite remote and that hope nearly impossible.  We had no means by which to connect and our only apparent common ground right then was that we shared a classroom, a cold, lonely one at that. After lunch each day, we had a twenty minute window of time during which we played acoustic instrumental music, and the students were encouraged to either look at a picture book, quietly draw a picture, or simply relax and listen to the music. Surprisingly, most students opted to listen to the music. It was calm, soothing, peaceful, and biased toward no one language. Each mind processes music in its own language.  Perhaps music held a key. We wrote a song about counting to ten. We asked each student to count to ten in his or her primary language, which we phonetically wrote down.  We all learned how to count to ten in each of our class languages with great and enthusiastic help from each other. It was a spectacular song, made exponentially better by the robust participation and growing  esprit de corps of our classroom community.  By sharing a little piece of each other’s language, we were able to share a little piece of each other’s heart.  Our community grew. Our trust grew. Our learning grew. We became readers.  We became friends. We shared a song.

Coloring Outside The Lines...

Lessons Learned

Creativity In The Coloring Book

It was a Mary Poppins coloring book and the pages were all a very light green, which was extremely awesome because then one could freely use a white crayon. Everyone knows that a white crayon is the loneliest crayon in the box and rarely is selected as it cannot be seen on the usual white art and craft paper. The white crayon enjoyed a bold, frequent presence in my Mary Poppins pictures. My dad and I colored together a lot, for in his wonderful innovative creativity, he was an especially brilliant coloring accomplice. Rather than coloring in the lines, Dad used a black crayon to extend the pictures, and liberally added hats on heads, props in hands, hot air balloons in the sky, every sort of fish in the lakes, additional furniture in the Banks’ home, unexpected and delightful animals in the parks, vendors selling treasures on the sidewalks, and all kinds of excellent, wonderful, highly imaginative and creative fun. With his black crayon, my white crayon, and all of the colors in between, we smiled, laughed, and created masterpiece after masterpiece, all the while, narrating the stories of the pictures as we colored. From my earliest days, I fondly and vividly recall being encouraged to color outside the lines. This great gift of exercising and trusting creativity has joyfully served me and through my humble hands has reached hearts of students through thirty years of teaching.       

Numbers Numbers Numbers

Lessons Learned

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

In a word, metrics. How do we measure up? Are we faster, better, or stronger than the last time we checked? Are all of our measurable qualities demonstrating continuous improvement? Success of any organization or entity, these days, boils down to numbers and can readily be assessed on the pan balance of comparison. Good numbers constitute good work, and good work is the all in all. Eons and billions are spent monitoring and managing metrics, and profit empires are built on such.  This is humongously meaningful for countless things such as those that are inanimate, but what of those that are not? What about people?  With respect to people, there are a number of immeasurable qualities which significantly influence successful outcomes. Many of the immeasurable qualities that powerfully contribute to success are contingent on the affective culture or mindset of the people involved. In the flurry of checklist assignment dispensing, deadlines pressing in, paper gathering, number crunching, outcome analyzing, and bottom line ramifications, where are the people? Where are the feelings of the people? Machines heartlessly and most effectively produce brilliant metrics. The human variable notches down the effectiveness because this pesky variable has feelings; unquantifiable feelings that can and do unpredictably tip the balance. Drat and double drat. Take schools, for instance. Are all of the boxfuls of voluminous paperwork generated and tabulated for each student honestly, truly honestly improving that student’s understanding of content, application of understanding, and capability of producing connection building scaffolding? I do not think so. From my vantage point of thirty years in the classroom, I see the areas in most dire need of bolstering among students to be relational.  Feelings, communication, empathy, and compassion are all immeasurable and they all lead to understanding. Understanding leads to meaning-making which suddenly brings relevance into the educational picture.  Encouragement is another immeasurable but remains by far the single most important and long-lasting motivator. We can try to motivate extrinsically but when the novelty of the incentive wears off we’ve lost. Encouragement, on the other hand, cumulatively builds confidence and commitment and requires no paperwork, simply words spoken from one heart to another heart.  A leader comprehends this human need and harnesses its power as a strong motivator of people. A leader comprehends that to create and to innovate, which exist at the top level of Bloom’s Taxonomy  of learning domains, the affective environment needs to be one of encouragement. The affective environment of a metrics driven organization is fear, fear of the pan balance upon which each one’s efforts are regularly measured.  Fear can surely be a motivator, but in a very sad, unhealthy, and dysfunctional sort of way.  Fear binds creativity. The data obsession of a metrics environment aligns all efforts on an efficient and lock-step path of conformity which is neatly quantifiable, but deals the death blow to all things time-consumingly creative.  The pendulum swing of those cultural values to which we most deeply cling is presently at its widest arc in metrics glorification, but it will swing back because historically it always does. Numbers can never and will never paint the whole picture when the hearts and dreams of people are involved.

More Concerning Bridges

Lessons Learned…

More Concerning Bridges

The fifth grade class was down by five students due to early holiday family vacations, to some dangerously icy road conditions, and a bit to various colds and other bugs which kept a few students home. This meant our sixteen remaining students were going to have to really project as well as pick up all of the unaccounted for lines and scenes. Changing up a program on the spot while performing to accommodate for absences, such as this, requires a significant amount of confidence, memory, and ability. This is certainly an experience which would make most adults offer their most sincere apologies and then quietly bow out because this sort of “winging it” before an audience simply has far too great a risk of embarrassment. These dear fifth graders, however, were fearless.  With the audience excitedly gathering in their seats before us, we quickly accomplished some critical line reassigning.  With a room full of Christmas clad guests at the retirement center, our shining fifth graders sang and shared with great joy, flawlessly projecting every word and filling the hall with magical delight. Bright smiles and generous encouragement met each and every piece shared, and the connection between audience and performers was warm and strong and right. A bridge. They shared an emotional bridge of hope and joy, and it was precious and powerful. Minutes before our first song, we had learned that Ida, who sat in the front row and was wearing a purple sweater, would be celebrating her 100^th birthday tomorrow, and in honor of this and her, we added “Happy Birthday” to our repertoire as our concluding number. After the final song and the final bow, the fifth graders strengthened the bridge as each student carried out artwork gifts they had created for each resident. Heart to heart, the students and residents mingled and shared thanks for invitations and received thanks for singing. Eyes met, smiles erupted, conversations commenced, and bridges were built. The hall was filled with the warmth and beauty of friendship and kindness, despite the heavy drape of freezing rain covering the world beyond the walls.  Bridges bring blessing. After each student had greeted and brought an art gift to each resident, it was time to say good-bye. The fifth graders were anxious to know when they might be able to visit these friends again, and the residents unanimously extended an open visiting invitation. Smiles, hugs, and handshakes sealed the promise for more bridge-building to come.