Category Archives: Education

Character of Teaching

Posted on May 5, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

While having tea in a small coffee shop I inhabit, I jotted down the beginnings of a poem.

A phrase that repeated itself in my dissertation and the interviews was “differences make a difference.” When I began teaching, people asked “what made me go into teaching, particularly at 32 years of age.” It was the sentiment that I might make a difference, maybe not for every student, but for some. It reminds me of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song: Teach Your Children Well, but it is more than teaching. It is serving them and whatever I do well.

Someday, whether we are teachers or not, we feel a desire to be lost. Responsibilities weigh on us whether we are parents, at our work, partners in a relationship, etc. In our relationships with the weight of responsibilities, something calls us each back. It is more of a whisper. It can only belong to each of us. Teaching was this way for me.

I experience a desire to be lost,

Weighing down on me,

Responsibilities cloak me like a vapour

Covering me with their many coats,

They arrive without being asked.

From the multitude, one desire arises;

A clarion call from the cosmos,

It carresses my soul;

It whispers “be useful and kind.”

A flower sharing its pollen,

Spread on the wings of others;

Teach what is possible–

What is possible of each of us?

Save them from glory seekers and profiteers;

Gently, send them away

Pollinating a new generation,

Flowering anew with compassion,

Rejoice as they float around the corner,

Knowing not what they will sow,

Trusting your character.

I took this picture on the upper reaches of the Fraser River. Around the corner from Kathy, the river narrows quickly and there is a waterfall.

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Stones of Time

Posted on April 29, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Source: Stones of Time

Olga provided great pictures of water and stones along with a haiku and two quotes. Today, I had a conversation about how do we change the world. I commented that we can only live in the here and now.

Confucius reminds us to do any change we begin with small tasks. When we are mindful and present living in the here and now, we understand the small tasks that call for our attention.

Pericles counsels us that others see and understand the imprint of our living in our actions. Our deeds reflect who we are to children, students, co-workers, neighbours, etc. That was part of our conversation today, as well.

What is most indelible are not our words, but our actions. Who am I as a person is a strong message.

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Posted in Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized and tagged community, Confucius, conversational journey, creativity, education, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, Pericles, poetry, reflecting, Stones of Time, Stuff and What if, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

The Difference Between Judging and Discerning

Posted on April 29, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Source: The Difference Between Judging and Discerning

I am on the road for a couple of days, so I am not sure what I can post in terms of original material. I turn to pressing some great posts from others.

Val‘s post resonated with me, because judging and discerning were part of my dissertation. Hans-Georg Gadamer used these concepts in Truth and Method and they formed a significant part of my conceptual framework, literature review, and conclusions.

Gadamer proposed humans judge the world, ideas, and people as they encounter them. He used the term prejudice, which is a way of prejudging the world as we engage with it and others. In effect, there is a right or wrong way to engage. I used parentheses, because it has a negative connotation and to slow the pace of reading. It became (pre)judge and (pre)judice, which annoyed two of my committee members.

When we take more time to read text and (con)text, that which encircles us, we can (dis)cern and (in)form ourselves as we realize the world and people are complex. WE ask eloquent questions that do not have predetermined answers. We let the question frame dialogue with the world and others.

Val said “when we detach [ourselves] from the belief of good or bad, and discern life’s multicolors and shades, we find freedom beyond the rules and conditioning of the mind.” We let go of judgements of a world that is cast in binary choices of black or white, moving to complex (con)textual understandings (sub)ject to discerning and seeking new and continuous understandings. Ted Aoki contended “and” means more than the binary nature of “or.”

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Posted in 21st Century Education, Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized and tagged community, creativity, Dialogue, eloquent questions, Find Your Middle Ground, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, reflecting, teacher as transformer, Ted Aoki, Val Boyko. Bookmark the permalink.

A Gift

Posted on April 7, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Hans-Georg Gadamer described eloquent questions, as questions that do not have pre-supposed answers. Eloquent questions become and bound dialogue.

I used eloquent questions in my dissertation to explore how teachers experience using curriculum. Instead of arriving as a prescribed text with fixed answers, curriculum transforms into questions. Each student’s and teacher’s lived-experiences transform into questions held gently so as not to injure. The word transform means to go beyond the existing form and through the gift of dialogue and eloquent questions we can.

Denise Levertov‘s poem is about holding other’s questions as if they are fragile and are the answers to one’s own questions. Questions are gifts. When we watch a child open a gift, the joy is in watching them turn the gift to explore it from different angles. After all, differences make a difference.

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.

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Two Kinds of Intelligence

Posted on April 4, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Rumi‘s words remind me, as a teacher, that my teaching is more than just providing information for students to learn in a rote way for recall on a test. If what children and adults learn does not have meaning to them, it becomes “yellow or stagnates.”

On the last day I taught, my students gave me a card and gift, but it was the words they offered that meant the most. They told me it was not learning from an official curriculum, but the “other things” that would mean the most to them in later years.

Curriculum comes from the Latin currere and means “running a course” and relates to living one’s life. In running the course and living one’s life, the other tablet comes to life. It is who and what that are close to our hearts that mean the most. As we live life, we discover what that means in sometimes surprising ways.

It is what we reflect upon and are mindful of, reflecting who we are, that brings the greatest joy to our running and recounting the course of our lives.

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from outside to inside
through conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.

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Posted in Community, Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer and tagged community, creativity, education, Mindful Practice, poetry, Rumi, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Two Kinds of Knowledge. Bookmark the permalink.

Part 2, Sonnet X

Posted on April 1, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Rilke wrote romantic and philosophic poetry was ahead its time. In a time, when our tools are often taken-for-granted appendages, it is essential to take time and recall the mysteries of life. I think he reminds us that the systems we create act as a machine, too.

When we take time and meditate over living, we find those extraordinary moments lifted from the ordinary. To live in proper relationship with our world and each other, is to (re)member there are always things we cannot understand.

Remember comes from the Latin, meaning call to mind and mindful. John Dewey proposed the word mind was a verb. It is a way of caring and tending to the world much like a gardener takes time to care for their garden.

The Machine endangers all we have made.

We allow it to rule instead of obey.

To build a house, cut the stone sharp and fast:
the carver’s hand takes too long to feel its way.

The Machine never hesitates, or we might escape
and its factories subside into silence.
It thinks it’s alive and does everything better.
With equal resolve it creates and destroys.

But life holds mystery for us yet. In a hundred places
we can still sense the source: a play of pure powers
that — when you feel it — brings you to your knees.

There are yet words that come near the unsayable,
and, from crumbling stones, a new music
to make a sacred dwelling in a place we cannot own.

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Posted in Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, Social Justice, teacher as transformer and tagged community, creativity, education, John Dewey, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, Rainier Marie Rilke, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

A Bee

Posted on March 31, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

When I taught poetry, I included haiku and writing them overlapped with our Social Studies curriculum. Bashō was a traditional Japanese poets in a Social Studies unit. As well, I asked students to draw pictures to add richness to their poetry.

Several parents and one administrator questioned the value of writing haiku. I told them it was finding the right word to express one’s self. That was enough for most adults, but the administrator and one parent did not get it. What is ironic is both make their living speaking publicly and I think writing haiku might be helpful.

I chose this haiku, because quite often we struggle to give up things we do not do well and seek the comfort of safe places. In this case, the bee is comfortable in the peony and is reluctant to leave.

Usually, the students enjoyed writing poetry and understood the benefits. Several students used poetry to keep notes in other classes. The students were concerned about the 5-7-5 syllable pattern than actually writing poetry. I told them to get their broad ideas down, find new words, and massage the pattern into place. They took their time and learned how to use a syllabus in the process.

How reluctantly

the bee emerges from deep

within the peony

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Posted in Education, Haiku, Lesson Plans, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer and tagged Basho, conversational journey, creativity, education, haiku, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer, writing a haiku. Bookmark the permalink.

Anatomy Class

Posted on March 30, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Today, I looked for a poem and, after some searching, settled on this one by Betsy Franco. I had not heard of her before, but the poem is interesting. I wondered what my students would have thought of it.

The poem is playful and inviting. People want to play and explore the world they inhabit with others and we are often left surprised by what we discover.

Franco points out the paradox of the words we use and inanimate objects like chairs, clocks, and kites come alive. Perhaps, in the minds of children, they do live. Maybe words and language are less of an impediment to children. They are present to a world that is fantastic and subject to a myriad of interpretations.

The chair has

arms.

The clock,

a face.

The kites have

long and twirly tails.

The tacks have

heads.

The books have

spines.

The toolbox has

a set of nails.

Our shoes have

tongues,

the marbles,

eyes.

The wooden desk has

legs and seat.

The cups have

lips.

My watch has

hands.

The classroom rulers all have

feet.

Heads, arms hands, nails,

spines, legs, feet, tails,

face, lips, tongues, eyes.

What a surprise!

Is our classroom alive?

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Posted in Community, Education, Humour, Lesson Plans, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer and tagged Anatomy Class, Betsy Franco, community, conversational journey, creativity, education, eloquent questions, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Active Life

Posted on March 29, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

I am reading The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring by Parker Palmer. Parker included a number of quotes from The Way Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton, including this poem.

The poem reminds me of how I can misplace my priorities and they can overwhelm me. In the research I did for my dissertation, each teacher described how it was essential to step back from their practices and reflect. Each of them described how human relationships were at the heart of their teaching. How they each responded to their relationships was an expression of who they are as a person and teacher.

In the third stanza, Thomas Merton asked questions about people’s relationship with work. I think the first question is essential. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote about weeds as essential to a gardener’s work. When we lose ourselves in activity without time to pause and reflect on what it means to care for ourselves and others as we create, we lose ourselves as the poem points out. When we are attentive and mindful, we nurture the soul, beginning with our own.

If an expert does not have some problem to vex him,
he is unhappy!
If a philosopher’s teaching is never attacked, she pines
away!
If critics have no one on whom to exercise their spite,
they are unhappy.
All such people are prisoners in the world of objects.

He who wants followers, seeks political power.
She who wants reputation, holds an office.
The strong man looks for weights to lift.
The brave woman looks for an emergency in which she
can show bravery.
The swordsman wants a battle in which he can swing
his sword.
People past their prime prefer a dignified retirement,
in which they may seem profound.
People experienced in law seek difficult cases to extend
the application of the laws.
Liturgists and musicians like festivals in which they
parade their ceremonious talents.
The benevolent, the dutiful, are always looking for
chances to display virtue.

Where would the gardener be if there were no more
weeds?
What would become of business without a market of
fools?
Where would the masses be if there were no pretext
for getting jammed together and making noise?
What would become of labor if there were no superfluous objects to
be made?

Produce! Get results! Make money! Make friends!
Make changes!
Or you will die of despair!

Those who are caught in the machinery of power take no joy except
in activity and change–the whirring of the machine! Whenever an
occasion for action presents itself, they are compelled to act; they
cannot help themselves. They are inexorably moved, like the ma-
chine of which they are a part. Prisoners in the world of objects,
they have no choice but to submit to the demands of matter! They
are pressed down and crushed by external forces, fashion, the mar-
ket, events, public opinion. Never in a whole lifetime do they re-
cover their right mind! The active life! What a pity!”

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Posted in Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer and tagged Active Life, community, creativity, education, eloquent questions, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Parker Palmer, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton. Bookmark the permalink.

goldenquotesrb

Posted on March 22, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Source: goldenquotesrb

I began following this blog recently and it has many great quotes.

Einstein is one of my favourite sources for quotes. When I taught, I had a poster in the classroom with this quote: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

One day, a student asked who the person in the poster was. I replied that it was my dad. Another student said that could not be true. I answered that we both had wild hair and were eccentric. A third student pointed out Einstein’s name on the poster, but from that time on, students always asked which dad I talked about when I said something about my dad. It was a great way to teach about literal and figurative ideas.

Being present includes responding reflexively in appropriate ways. Listening to others mindfully, I can respond properly. When I began to teach, I found it hard to do that, often tripping up, saying the wrong thing, and sometimes nothing at all. With experience, I grew and became more effective, listening carefully to what others had to say.