Original post at TeachSTEM
Week 3 reading post: Art of Possibility chapters 5 to 9
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| Image from Clipart Mojo |
I was very happy to find that Benjamin Zander revisits his notion of the “silent conductor” in the earlier part of this reading. (I say revisits because we were first exposed to this idea during his TED Talk on music and passion.) During the TED Talk, I was struck by his comment that a powerful conductor is one who can inspire greatness in his musicians; that the conductor’s success is not so much measure by what he does, but by what others do under his leadership. This idea extends easily to the profession of teaching. The most successful teacher is the one who inspires the greatest work from his students. And, I see the connection between conducting and teaching even more prominently, in fact, in my action research project that focuses on the flipped classroom. The overarching goal of flipping is to make the classroom more student-centered than teacher-centered. Zander describes how implementing small changes like allowing the orchestra members to contribute their insights to his musical interpretations made them feel empowered and valued. In the same way, I hope that flipping my classroom will enable me to work with and hear from more of my students, so that they see the material as more approachable and relatable than they might otherwise feel in a lecture-based class.
Zander, R. S., & Zander, B. (2000). The art of possibility [Electronic]. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Kim,
Your parallel between conductor and teacher is right on. I have always believed that teaching should be student centered, my job as a teacher is to bring out the student's greatness, not my own. I often find it hard to explain this to others when talking about getting a student to become motivated to do their work or participate, a lot of teachers have told me to just make them do it or if they dont do it threaten them with a zero or tell them that it is your class and they have to do what you say. I dont really believe all of this, it is the students class and I dont think anyone benefits when they do work just to please the teacher. I am going to aspire to be the conductor allowing for input from my students on how to be better at my craft while inspiring them to be great themselves!
Your parallel between conductor and teacher is right on. I have always believed that teaching should be student centered, my job as a teacher is to bring out the student's greatness, not my own. I often find it hard to explain this to others when talking about getting a student to become motivated to do their work or participate, a lot of teachers have told me to just make them do it or if they dont do it threaten them with a zero or tell them that it is your class and they have to do what you say. I dont really believe all of this, it is the students class and I dont think anyone benefits when they do work just to please the teacher. I am going to aspire to be the conductor allowing for input from my students on how to be better at my craft while inspiring them to be great themselves!
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