Tag: Pedagogy
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On Structured Fluidity and Off Ramps
With no structure I’m a boneless chicken, a gelatinous being, Speaker of the House. But with too much structure I’m Hannibal Lecter on a hand truck. I live in the gray area. That gray area can be the bane of my existence, but like most challenging fields, there’s treasure buried in the muck.
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The Teacher With A Thousand Faces
The dramatis personae of any school is enriched and enlivened by a healthy variety of demeanors. If my intention was only to diminish those “unlike” me, I would be simultaneously devaluing their contributions along with my own. What makes us unique is often what makes us great. I have become the teacher I am today,…
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The Bête Bricoleur
I can write about Cerberus—The Performer, The Gatekeeper, and The Ice Monarch—because at various points in my career, I have tried to be them. We are often drawn to the masks we admire, or the ones we fear we lack.
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Ceci n’est pas une école
If I had my way (and I probably never will in this regard), I wouldn’t burn books—knowledge is sacred. But I would take every piece of bureaucratic, gatekeeping, money-making crap from the College Board industrial complex, pile it in the center of an empty field, and surround it with sage. I would light the sage,…
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Teaching: Empowerment, Not Indoctrination
If I start demanding you see the world my way, I’m no better than a fascist. It is important to me that I teach you how to follow paths of logic. It is important to me that you know how to make your own paths when the well-worn ones are outdated.