Tryangulation

The best part of the lesson

This week I enjoyed the public performance of a young man I've been tutoring in classical guitar. I've been working with Peter for several months, and though I wish I could take more credit, he is so diligent and motivated that I mostly just coach and encourage.

Still, I was a little surprised when, at the end of our lesson a few weeks ago, he mentioned he might want to perform in his school's spring concert -- in two weeks! I gave him several pieces to look over, and he chose a rondo by Carulli that highlighted some techniques that he had only just mastered. We looked it over and discussed the challenging parts, and Peter took over from there. His performance was great, and it was clear that he was well prepared and totally in the piece.

My approach to music lessons is coming into line with my thinking on most educational endeavors these days: teach how at least as much as you teach what. Give them tools and the skills, not just facts. Teach them how to learn.

To learn to play a musical piece, you have to spot the difficult passages, understand what can go wrong, and plan your attack. If you're not patient with yourself you won't get very far. And no matter how much head knowledge you have about the rhythm and the fingerings, in order to know how, you must practice, practice, practice.

I've made mistakes a few times when I've played passages for Peter, so our lessons (and the embarrassment) have challenged me to push myself harder on the guitar. I have to be honest that whatever I expect from my students I need to expect more from myself. As a teacher, I have to always remember what it's like to learn, and I need to let my students watch me as I learn new skills too.

So, well done Peter, and thanks! The lessons have been good for me too.

Our efforts rewarded

Daily visits to our garden to get encouraging images like these make the whole frustrating project worthwhile.

We've had lots of unseasonal rain in the last few weeks, which has been great for our endangered wildflowers. I have a new Canon PowerShot this year, and our visiting film student son Andy has helped me figure it out. I'm doing better at getting the shots I want, and I'm eager to share them.

I just uploaded a batch to a Flickr photo set, which I've embedded here as a slideshow. (If you are reading this post by email, you will have to visit my blog to see the slideshow.) The photo set on Flickr has more detailed general information about the project, captions for most of the photos,  and links to other related photo sets and blog posts.

So go to the Flickr photo set for the project based learning main course.  This is just the dessert:

P.S. If you're a new email subscriber, you might not have noticed that the highlighted text (like this: Tryangulation) is actually a hyperlink, to make it easier for you to find the websites I mention in my blog posts.

Thank you for not smoking!

Today was the first school day in Turkey since the new ban on smoking took effect on Monday. The ban covers all enclosed public areas, with allowances for designated smoking areas for certain institutions. It used to be that, although students were never permitted to smoke, school personnel could smoke in designated areas away from contact with students.

On Monday and Tuesday we observed a national holiday, so this was the first time for everyone to get through the whole day without lighting up. It's going to be dicey for a while, since most people that I know are smokers (even though the stats say only 51% of adults), and getting through the whole day without conflagrations of any kind will take some practice.

Of course, as someone who unwillingly smokes from the unfiltered end of the cigarette, I got used to the arrangement in about a minute.

There have been plenty of anti-smoking campaigns here through the years, but they just make people feel guilty and discouraged over how hard it is to quit. In fact, the percentage of smokers in Turkey has been on the increase: it grew by 50% in the 1990s! It's no easier when those who should take health most seriously (53% of all male doctors) smoke as much as you do.

Everyone knows it's bad, and they wish their own children wouldn't take up the habit, but wishing hasn't been enough to stop a growing number of young people (14% of boys aged 7-13 at last count) from falling into the same trap.

So, to my dear friends who are not as happy about the ban, please remember that this is not a conflict in which the smokers are losers and the non-smokers are winners. Yes, it will be difficult to implement, but it will make it easier for some people to quit and for others to avoid even starting the habit. Even those who don't quit will still get through the day with fewer cigarettes. We will all feel better, and I'll be very grateful.

Sigara içmediğiniz için teşekkürler!

Background links:
The World Bank Tobacco Atlas and its profile of Turkey.
Today's Zaman: Smoke-free life begins in Turkey
CNN: Turkey introduces smoking ban

China's heroic teachers

I recently wrote about the problem of poorly built schools around the world in reflection on the tragic earthquake in China. I have just now read, and feel I must share with you, some very moving stories I have just read about the teachers in some of those Chinese schools whose love for their students led to the ultimate sacrifice. 

These stories are part of a collection of several stories compiled by Chinese blogger Bob Chen and published on Global Voices Online. Taking a break from grading papers and exams to read these will certainly put our own work, and our relationships with our students, in perspective.

Here's the link:  Global Voices Online » China:国殇; survival stories in QUAKE

Schools around the world are earthquake death traps

A lot of the news about the earthquake this week in China emphasized the tragedy of students trapped and dying in poorly built schools. Unfortunately, outrageously, perversely, school buildings around the world are potential earthquake death traps. Remember Pakistan, where 7000-plus schools killed 17,000 students?

On Thursday the New York Times published an article by Andrew Revkin on this global threat. Revkin writes:

Experts on earthquake dangers have warned for years that tens of millions of students in thousands of schools, from Asia to the Americas, face similar risks, yet programs to reinforce existing schools or require that new ones be built to extra-sturdy standards are inconsistent, slow and inadequately financed.

Revkin cited an OECD report that states "schools 'routinely collapsed in earthquakes around the world because of avoidable design or construction errors, or because existing laws and building codes were not enforced." That last bit was a polite way of saying "corruption" -- the allowance of poor design and pathetic construction in exchange for personal favors. Here in Turkey, construction contractors have a nasty habit of fleeing the country when their buildings kill people, so the system apparently works --for them.

The reports by Revkin reminded me again of the latest such tragedy we witnessed here in Turkey. Five years ago this month, an earthquake in the Southeast killed nearly 170 people. Half of those killed were public boarding school students in a single dormitory building (click here for the CNN report). More than 90% of the schools in the area were affected by that quake.

Revkin has also published a background story (click here) and links the Coalition for Global School Safety (COGSS). It's horrible to think about, I know, but is your children's school earthquake/ tornado/ disaster safe? How do you know? As the COGSS Turkey case study says,

It is better to be ten years too early than one day too late.

The photo was taken by Chen Jianli, Xinhua/Reuters, and is titled A rescuer held the hand of  a trapped student at Wudu Primary School. (image link)

Don't just sing along

I found out about this song today by way of CC Long on the Classroom 2.0 social network. It's Tom Chapin singing Not on the Test. One stanza goes like this:

Thinking's important. It's good to know how.
And someday youll learn to, but someday's not now.
Go on to sleep now. You need your rest.
Don't think about thinking. it's not on the test.

CC had a link to this NPR broadcast clip (link here), but I dug a little deeper and found that the song has its own website, Notonthetest.com, with additional lyrics that include a stanza about the US education policy package called No Child Left Behind. The website is actually advocating for more art and other programs to stimulate creativity, which are being wedged out of education that targets test performance rather than knowledge.

The website also provides suggestions for parents on how to lobby for change, although education policy out here in the rest of the world might be far less  susceptible to parental influence. Here, for example, the system is highly centralized with a rigid national curriculum that shackles students to test scores even though its leaders know it shouldn't (here's something I wrote recently about that unfortunate irony). Still, pressing for change is always better than just singing along.