Tuesday, as you already know, I visited the Music Department at Clarion University where I had the opportunity to talk to students about how the world of education is changing. It is interesting to me how much the world and the people in it are changing. There are so many fun and free tools out there: Blogs, wikis, forums. All you need is an internet connection. Connectivity is at your fingertips. Information is everywhere.
On one hand, people of all ages and backgrounds want to use these tools and do so on a daily basis without even really thinking about it. On the other hand, when it comes to using those same tools for "work" they can be very resistant. As I am beginning to find out, this an issue that both students and teachers everywhere are dealing with. Teachers don't want to use tools because they're afraid the students will know more about it than they do. Students don't want to use the tools because - well, I don't know why students don't want to use the tools. This seems to be the case everywhere you look -- in elementary schools, high schools, and higher education.
To those teachers I say, let the students teach you. After all, teaching something to someone else is one of the best ways to learn something yourself and isn't our main goal that our students are learning? To those students I say, please please please explain this to me. Why don't you want to blog in class? Why do you want to spend hours and hours creating your MySpace profile but then balk at the idea of building a wiki in class? Seriously, if anyone can provide some insight, maybe we can all start understanding each other a little bit better and start working together instead of against each other. I think it would be particularly interesting to hear from those of you that are currently studying to become educators as you will be dealing with both sides of this issue is a very short amount of time.
Anyhow, enough about that. On Thursday evening, we had an extra jazz combo rehearsal because the kids REQUESTED it. Does it get any better than this?
On Friday, both jazz groups played in the Battle of the Bands and did a great job! I think this was the best assembly we've ever had at East Forest. There were 4 student groups and 3 faculty groups. Everyone had a great time and everyone sounded good. This is the kind of thing a music teacher usually only dreams about. A entire assembly, with the entire school, all about music (and of course why you should stay away from drugs and alcohol) -- AND everyone was well behaved and seemed to be paying attention and having a good time. Special thanks to the East Forest SADD chapter and the guidance department for planning the whole thing (and for the super cool T-shirts)! Now, the big questions are: 1. How do we keep this energy flowing? and 2. What happened to the tenor sax folders?
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