#Questioningthesystem

[otaviogilbert]

Our Education System is a Fraud. Unlearn and Rethink

Challenging the Norms: Unveiling the Truth About Our Education System 🎓🤔 | Are our schools really fostering creativity and critical thinking, or is there more to the story? Join the conversation as we unravel the flaws in the system and explore pathways to unlearn and rethink education.

[ninjablog4trinity-blog]

SECOND SESSION

During our first session I had mentioned the idea of wanting to use specific West African grooves I had been looking at a couple years ago as a starting point for our project. There was no specific idea yet, but I definitely knew that I was keen to use this knowledge I had acquired though lone research dictated purely by my own musical interests... I thought a collaboration with dancers could have been a great opportunity to put some of this knowledge into practice, given that I am not a drummer “by trade” and that therefore I didn’t often get the opportunity to jam these rhythms at jam sessions or gigs...

Both Caroline and Abbie, two other musicians (both drummers) seemed fairly enthusiastic at this idea and decide to jump on board. They also asked if I wouldn’t mind acting as project leader, seen as I had come up with the idea in the first place and also because they both expressed the desire to not be put in that role. I agreed, provided that they also agreed to share the responsibility of getting the project up and running and provided that they also agreed to give plenty of creative input and constructive criticism.

Now all we needed were dancers and a more concrete idea!!

We were unable to get any dancers on board during our second session, however we did work on consolidating the vision for the project.

THE VISION

The plan was to create a piece for two dancers, with a strong metaphorical narrative. The dancers would play the part of two children, “the balled child” and “the rhythm child”. The ballet child would show of his/her ballet skills to Western Classical music, whilst the the rhythm child would sit on the floor confused and uninterested. The idea was to get a classical string trio (cello, viola, violin) to play the soundtrack to the ballet child, whilst Caroline, Abbie and myself would take care of the music for the rhythm child using adaptations of the grooves I had brought to class and/or any other interesting grooves we would come across during more research. The story would then develop and the roles of the children would invert - once the ballet child would stomp his/her feet on the floor in frustration, unable to get the rhythm child to dance, the rhythm child would immediately come to life through the rhythm of the feet. At this point the rhythm child would show off his/her skills, dancing to poly-rhythms, and demonstrating the rich diversity of dance thorough more complex rhythm structures.

The point behind this narrative was to create a critique of how Western Classical music has been given so much more attention than most other styles of music in music education for a number of centuries, and to try to encourage educators to be much more aware of the importance of rhythm, and not be so heavily focused on teaching harmony at the cost of rhythm awareness/acquisition.

[confessionsofanenglishprofessor]

Feeling Unprepared

I knew the first semester would be difficult because the school, requirements, and students would all be new; however, I had no idea that I would feel so disorganized and unprepared. The semester is almost to the mid-point, and I still feel like I'm barely treading water. Thankfully, I don't feel like I'm hopelessly drowning (that was the week before school started). Still, I consider the years, courses, instructors, and practice assignments that have helped me get to this point in my career, and I wonder why I was required to write many lesson plans and unit plans without ever covering the material I was most likely to teach as a first-year college instructor. Was my knowledge and ability assumed? If so, why was I required to prove my competence and knowledge where other materials and lessons were concerned?