I'm not 100% certain where I'm going with this final project but I'm excited about going there. I especially want to learn about the 1,000 year old Malinke culture. I'm a little apprehensive about actually playing those drums though.....
Every day while my students trickle into class, I play music from a different culture. They all come in, sit down, and immediately begin writing in their journals. I like to watch the faces of the students whose language is emanating from the CD player. There’s always a wistful smile, and a faraway look as if they’re being taken back to place that’s so far away it’s from another life. And then they beam; a proud beam, from ear to ear. They always seem so excited and grateful that someone in this strange land is interested in something, anything, from their past lives. I’ve amassed quite a collection of music: Chinese, Burmese, Thai, African, Brazilian, and even chants from Tibetan Monks. So when Abubakar, a Darfurian, walked in and handed me a CD by the Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble, I just thought it was another interesting CD from another country. I didn’t know it had been recorded right here in Fort Wayne. I was even more surprised a few weeks later to find that I could combine my love of music from various cultures with a better understanding of what it means to be creative within a community such as TRJE.
I’m planning to take advantage of the service learning option in order to learn about community creation firsthand. I think such a creative community will be fascinating and service learning really appeals to me because I can learn through active participation. Not only will my participation help fulfill actual community needs, it will help me to further understand the concepts we are studying in class. To be able to see community and creativity at work in real-life situations and to become a part of that real-life community will benefit both me and the community I hope to become a part of. I have always wanted to be a participant observer, not simply studying a subject, but being a part of what I’m studying. Any of the scientific research and writing I’ve done was conducted in a more detached way.
The service learning site that I will use is the Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble, which is a Cultural Education Forum of the Fort Wayne Dance Collective. The Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble explores music, dance, and song of the Malinke people of West Africa. TRF students also learn about various other cultures of West Africa in order to develop their own strong family and community relationships. The Ensemble consists of over 20 local young people (ages 7 to 17) who have recorded several CDs and performed at more than 200 venues. Not only does the group express themselves through music, they are very creative writers as well. While exploring their website, I discovered a section entitled: Creative Expressions of TRJE students. They write not only of their lives today but how their ancestors have influenced their lives, something very insightful for such young people. Their writings inspired me to explore one of the goals of this class, and that is to understand how language constructs identities, both personal and social, private, and public.
The potential audience for my text will be teachers, students, and any members of the larger community who would gain insight into themselves by studying a culture that may be very different than their own. This information could be especially valuable to parents who are struggling for ways to guide their children through the maze of adolescence and who firmly believe it takes a village to raise a child. The TRJE community promotes meaningful inter- and intra- family relationships, things that many of today’s children so desperately need but search for in all the wrong places. It is the belief of the TRJE community that young people will gain valuable insight into their own cultural identity in America by understanding the link between their African American culture and the 1,000 year old West African Malinke culture. I would like to promote community awareness of this support group for young people.
The constraints that I’ll have to consider in undertaking this project are the obvious constraints of participating in a musical/dance/storytelling community when I am not skilled at any of those things. I will truly participate as a learner, and that I think, will be the most exciting aspect.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Re-visioning
I’m doing this backwards; I responded to someone’s forum writing before I’d written my own forum contribution or even my blog. Forever the rebel. But it’s given me plenty to cogitate on. After reading Doug’s response to the writings, I wrote: When referring to what happens in the author’s classroom, you stated, “These activities may be valuable as little exercises to generate ideas or freewrite, but they in and of themselves do not teach students how to write.” My sentiments exactly. As a student, the main thing I want to know is how to write. I’ve also taught writing so I know there are many students who are frustrated, feeling like everyone else seems to just pour their thoughts out on paper while they sit for an interminable time trying to conjure up more than a few feeble sentences. It’s like pulling someone through a knothole just to get a few paragraphs of meaningful text out of them. I know writing is like every other skill in that it takes practice to improve on and the author gives some wonderful ideas for this, but students are desperate for concrete instructions. More than anything else, they do want those real world skills!
It wasn’t long before someone very respectfully disagreed with both Doug and my comments and with some very interesting points. Sarah stated, “What happens if my students begin to see what constrains them when they write? What happens when they learn that they are being constrained, pushed, and pulled in all different directions, but that they can take control of their own text? What happens is this: they begin to learn how to be a writer”. Interesting point. I guess I was considering a few students I’d had that were so constrained (but by what?) that nothing ever seemed to help them just let it flooooow. Maybe a few more exercises like Summerfield’s article suggested? I think it would be interesting to try a few of these exercises in our classroom. I guess I could try them at home, alone, but it just wouldn’t be the same. Since I’m a science major, I haven’t had many experiences of writing in other classrooms.
Welch’s Rethinking Revision made some very good points. Looking back on my own writing I can think of times when I probably threw some of my best work down on the cutting room floor in order to produce work that fulfilled the narrow assignment. Welch’s suggestion that “instead of adapting a text to suit a particular reader or each sentence to suit a particular thesis, a writer my need to rethink that work of adaptation…especially in her first draft”. The first draft is most likely where the writer’s real voice can be heard. In the future, I’ll make a particular effort to search for that “dissonance” which Welch says is not necessarily a problem to be corrected but could be something that instigates a change in direction or a real “re-visioning” of the text.
I’m a little confused about the final project. It seems very open, which I appreciate, but it seems it will take a little time for me to define its final form. I’m really considering doing the Service Learning Option. I love becoming a part of any community that is quite different from the everyday communities I participate in. I have access to some very diverse communities though so I just can’t quite decide. There’s the community of Muslim women that I have been graciously accepted into. I especially like the cultural experience of visiting to see their newborns. There’s always the common bowls of food, shared by all the family and the anointing of all the wonderful oils they have made from bark, leaves, and berries carefully transported from their countries. I taught one to drive; it was a first for any female in her family. Would this be a good community to explore or should I become part of something new and completely different? I have never been musical so taking part in any musical endeavors would really be a challenge to my creativity. And that’s what I’m looking for; ways to challenge myself, do anything that causes me to reach and grow, look at the world in a different way or through the eyes of someone who has a completely different perspective.
It wasn’t long before someone very respectfully disagreed with both Doug and my comments and with some very interesting points. Sarah stated, “What happens if my students begin to see what constrains them when they write? What happens when they learn that they are being constrained, pushed, and pulled in all different directions, but that they can take control of their own text? What happens is this: they begin to learn how to be a writer”. Interesting point. I guess I was considering a few students I’d had that were so constrained (but by what?) that nothing ever seemed to help them just let it flooooow. Maybe a few more exercises like Summerfield’s article suggested? I think it would be interesting to try a few of these exercises in our classroom. I guess I could try them at home, alone, but it just wouldn’t be the same. Since I’m a science major, I haven’t had many experiences of writing in other classrooms.
Welch’s Rethinking Revision made some very good points. Looking back on my own writing I can think of times when I probably threw some of my best work down on the cutting room floor in order to produce work that fulfilled the narrow assignment. Welch’s suggestion that “instead of adapting a text to suit a particular reader or each sentence to suit a particular thesis, a writer my need to rethink that work of adaptation…especially in her first draft”. The first draft is most likely where the writer’s real voice can be heard. In the future, I’ll make a particular effort to search for that “dissonance” which Welch says is not necessarily a problem to be corrected but could be something that instigates a change in direction or a real “re-visioning” of the text.
I’m a little confused about the final project. It seems very open, which I appreciate, but it seems it will take a little time for me to define its final form. I’m really considering doing the Service Learning Option. I love becoming a part of any community that is quite different from the everyday communities I participate in. I have access to some very diverse communities though so I just can’t quite decide. There’s the community of Muslim women that I have been graciously accepted into. I especially like the cultural experience of visiting to see their newborns. There’s always the common bowls of food, shared by all the family and the anointing of all the wonderful oils they have made from bark, leaves, and berries carefully transported from their countries. I taught one to drive; it was a first for any female in her family. Would this be a good community to explore or should I become part of something new and completely different? I have never been musical so taking part in any musical endeavors would really be a challenge to my creativity. And that’s what I’m looking for; ways to challenge myself, do anything that causes me to reach and grow, look at the world in a different way or through the eyes of someone who has a completely different perspective.
Monday, January 15, 2007
No Man is an Island
Creativity and Community
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is
a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a
Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,
as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor
of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans
death diminishes me, because I am in-
volved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee.
John Donne
No man is an island…we are all interconnected. Even people we have never met exert great influences over us. It’s comforting to know that I am a part of other’s lives but on the other hand, it’s frightening when I realize the responsibility that comes with that.
On a microbiological level, are we the sum of our parts? Or are we fragmented? Just remove the electrical cells in the heart and the entire organism ceases to function. I read somewhere (Lewis Thomas?) that when someone dies, the cells do not all die at the exact same moment---further proof that we are not one single entity---there are some rebels within us who may refuse to give up that life force until the very end! Therein lies the creativity in a biologically determined context. Each cell may play its part within the whole but how and when it does this is somewhat up to the individual.
As a biology major, I loved having the opportunity to read Lewis’s work. I already owned the book, having picked it up one day in the bookstore after being intrigued by the few passages I’d read there. Things like: “A solitary ant…cannot be considered to have much of anything on his mind…(but) four ants together, or ten, encircling a dead moth on a path, begin to look more like an idea.” And: (referring to the individuality of our cells) ... “perhaps it is they who walk through the local park in the early morning, sensing my senses, listening to my music, thinking my thoughts.”
It was the vivid mind picture Lewis painted when he talked about how integrated schools of swimming fish were, that made me realize how closely human society resembles those coordinated masses. “Herring and other fish in schools are at times so closely integrated, their actions so coordinated, that they seem to be functionally a great multi-fish organism.” If you’ve ever been snorkeling and tried to touch an individual fish swimming within one of those masses, you can fully understand his point. It’s amazing how the entire school moves in concert just to avoid having one of its members touched. It’s a split second reaction and there’s no obvious communication that seems to instigate the movement. Human society seems to function in the same way. Every day, people everywhere, get up, do their jobs, go home, and start again the next day. No one told them: We need 500 doctors, 400 teachers, and a myriad of other players to take bit parts in this massive undertaking. Our society does resemble bee hives and anthills but with one addition; we have the opportunity (for the most part) to exercise free choice (creativity) in choosing which part we will play.
I could really relate to what Temple Grandlin calls “thinking in pictures”. I have always been a visual learner and have had to rely on pictures in my head, visualizing difficult concepts. Our educational system seems to rely more and more on verbal skills, ignoring people who are not language-based thinkers. This concept explains why she states: Differences between language-based thought and picture-based thought may explain why artists and accountants fail to understand each other. They are like apples and oranges”. For several years I taught teenagers who had been unable to pass the ISTEP test that is required for a high school diploma. Many of these students were extremely creative, in their artwork, writings, and their overall thinking. Grandlin comments that: “Our educational system weeds these people out of the system instead of turning them into world-class scientists.” She challenges the assumptions our educational system has regarding creativity and as part of that system, I hope to explore these assumptions.
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is
a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a
Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,
as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor
of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans
death diminishes me, because I am in-
volved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee.
John Donne
No man is an island…we are all interconnected. Even people we have never met exert great influences over us. It’s comforting to know that I am a part of other’s lives but on the other hand, it’s frightening when I realize the responsibility that comes with that.
On a microbiological level, are we the sum of our parts? Or are we fragmented? Just remove the electrical cells in the heart and the entire organism ceases to function. I read somewhere (Lewis Thomas?) that when someone dies, the cells do not all die at the exact same moment---further proof that we are not one single entity---there are some rebels within us who may refuse to give up that life force until the very end! Therein lies the creativity in a biologically determined context. Each cell may play its part within the whole but how and when it does this is somewhat up to the individual.
As a biology major, I loved having the opportunity to read Lewis’s work. I already owned the book, having picked it up one day in the bookstore after being intrigued by the few passages I’d read there. Things like: “A solitary ant…cannot be considered to have much of anything on his mind…(but) four ants together, or ten, encircling a dead moth on a path, begin to look more like an idea.” And: (referring to the individuality of our cells) ... “perhaps it is they who walk through the local park in the early morning, sensing my senses, listening to my music, thinking my thoughts.”
It was the vivid mind picture Lewis painted when he talked about how integrated schools of swimming fish were, that made me realize how closely human society resembles those coordinated masses. “Herring and other fish in schools are at times so closely integrated, their actions so coordinated, that they seem to be functionally a great multi-fish organism.” If you’ve ever been snorkeling and tried to touch an individual fish swimming within one of those masses, you can fully understand his point. It’s amazing how the entire school moves in concert just to avoid having one of its members touched. It’s a split second reaction and there’s no obvious communication that seems to instigate the movement. Human society seems to function in the same way. Every day, people everywhere, get up, do their jobs, go home, and start again the next day. No one told them: We need 500 doctors, 400 teachers, and a myriad of other players to take bit parts in this massive undertaking. Our society does resemble bee hives and anthills but with one addition; we have the opportunity (for the most part) to exercise free choice (creativity) in choosing which part we will play.
I could really relate to what Temple Grandlin calls “thinking in pictures”. I have always been a visual learner and have had to rely on pictures in my head, visualizing difficult concepts. Our educational system seems to rely more and more on verbal skills, ignoring people who are not language-based thinkers. This concept explains why she states: Differences between language-based thought and picture-based thought may explain why artists and accountants fail to understand each other. They are like apples and oranges”. For several years I taught teenagers who had been unable to pass the ISTEP test that is required for a high school diploma. Many of these students were extremely creative, in their artwork, writings, and their overall thinking. Grandlin comments that: “Our educational system weeds these people out of the system instead of turning them into world-class scientists.” She challenges the assumptions our educational system has regarding creativity and as part of that system, I hope to explore these assumptions.
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