Cadence of thought

Why do authors have to pace their stories, have to describe scenes, and use rising action? Why don't they just get to the point? Why can't the story just be problem-solution-done?

For some reason, it doesn't work that way. When I read back over the previous post, I find it hard to follow because it's over too fast for a reader to even get into, the pacing is too quick. The post seems like it could be just a condensed paint stroke, where I intended a whole painting to be. Maybe it would be okay with spaces separating the thoughts, or on different pages with pictures punctuating the text.

We are so big, our minds so teeming with brains, that there must be a cadence to what we do. This includes reading, and thinking. As a teacher, I find it helps to expose the class to certain ideas a little early, and repeatedly mention it before the day I present it. There is a cadence that our relaxed minds work best with. We are slow. We like concrete imagery, and time to process the thoughts being presented. Why are books so slow? Sometimes authors have to use filler to get their message across.

Swell of Fortune

When an opportunity to do things is not acted upon, a moment passes. You could draw a surfing analogy here, having to get up on that wave and ride it when the moment is right. I grew up on a farm in Eltopia, WA. with lots of unorganized time. Some was used to do work; much of it was spent playing. Opportunities could be felt by the pressure of their approach (every week my mom offered to take us to church) and lamented in their wake (most weeks I would stall my decision-making until it was too late to catch a ride with her.)
Although Spokane is a little more densely populated, those opportunities still happen. I'm just out of practice listening for them.

C E R A M I C S

Just ordered a video from Phoenix Films called "The Art of the Potter" that documents the work of Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada. It should be here tomorrow. I've decided that this summer will be full of pottery, and a minimal amount of working for others. I've started teaching how-to classes, and am lining up different projects for commission.

Still haven't found a Cone10 reduction kiln for rent, so it looks like Cone6 oxidation is the direction to go. Maybe Cone6 reduction with a saggar. This would depend on the kiln being used. I'm still working with Cone10 clay.

Recently I don't have a job. Oh well. Spokane is a service-industry driven place anyhow. This just gives me more time to network.
Don't do so well without structure, though.

End of School Year

It took till the end of the year to find out what to do that would get the kids learning:
PLAY
laughter is really important too. Makes everyone more easygoing.
Not getting angry is also a plus.
Getting angry, a minus.
They appreciated me when I wasn't trying so hard to teach things.
So that's where I'm going to start next time.

(Really, I will be aiming to teach self-motivation skills. quality vs. quantity of work, asking questions for your own benefit, and starting off the year with fundamentals for maintaining a positive environment already set in place)

Be the change you want to see.

Algebra Lesson for 7th Graders

I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what I'm going to teach and how I'm going to teach it. I came up with this lesson this morning--having fallen asleep worrying about how and what I'm teaching next week.

You have two children, one boy and one girl.
Whatever you give to the girl you have to give to the boy, and vice versa. They ar really loud and annoying, so you have to keep everything equal.

Bank Account Game:
Materials: Slateboards/Whiteboards, pens, erasers
Setup: Draw a girl in one top corner of the board and a boy in the opposite top corner. You're going to set up a bank account for the children. Your goal is to see if you can keep both sides equal.

Rules: Start with a solved expression (like x=2)
Student calls out an action and a number from -5 to 10
You can + or - a variable
You can + - x or ÷ by a constant
and we all do it. For example "Add 2x" or "multiply by 5"
X is just a fixed amount of money in a bundle. (Different banks use different ways of bundling their money. You're new at this bank and they didn't tell you).

I would do one example round, then one class round, using a different letter as the variable each round.

Then ask how we can get back to the original solved equation. You can follow the same steps backwards (using inverse operations) to get it solved...kind of like a rubik's cube.

One day, to keep them busy, you give one of the children 3 bags of comic books and 12 more, and the other you give two bags of comic books and 16 more. And they start to complain, until you say "I gave you EXACTLY the same amount, but I'm keeping them now until you can tell me how many is in one of the bags. Each bag has the same amount in it."

At this point the class would solve the problem together.
Then I'd set the kids on 5 problems for guided practice, making sure to throw in a negative number or two, and go over it 10 minutes later.

The independent practice would be a homework assignment posted on the board.

Finally, we'd review the guided practice and I'd ask for some feedback about understanding--this tends to be a slip of paper with a checklist and room at the bottom for comments from the students.

What I'm doing now

Motivation is strongly tied to success.

Success cannot be given. To be felt, it must be earned. (yeah, I came up with that!)

The Houghton-Mifflin style of math textbook that I grew up with does have its drawbacks, but it works well to motivate kids to success. Each day a new skill is taught and then the day's work is to practice that skill. Learning and applying a new skill is a success reward on its own. The teacher is free to meet with students individually and to answer questions, and the student gets practice applying the skill. Highly functional.

The current book that I'm using (the CMP2 textbook series) does much to tie big ideas together, thus making the skills learned meaningful. However, it does lack some in the motivation department. In Looking for Pythagoras, the book has students proving that a general case of the Pythagorean Theorem works before they understand how cool it is, or what it even does. Transitions are missing: Too much learning is heaped on without time to build up to it, and it is not easily accessible as an "I-just-want-to-learn-it" tool.

However, the CMP2 series is generally better because of the story-like approach it gives to each lesson. There are deeper questions early on, that require deeper understanding of the subject being taught. And it does provide practice problems at the end of each chapter. In addition, CMP2 books are much lighter, since they are broken into mini-units.

Although I am coming to a realization here about how motivating it is to learn, and how teaching a single separate skill each day is functional in the classroom, I am stuck with the CMP2 series, and I now just need to try fixing my teaching style to increase that motivation.

And I need to keep waking up with this kind of epiphany.

The Base Layer

They moved like hundreds of white flies

hovering in the air above the frozen ground

Afraid to land because it was so cold.

Each snowflake in turn,

brittle and light,

would gradually descend until it met the pavement

suddenly exploding into a thousand pieces

becoming fragmented clouds

of crystalline dust