Making music magic happen in the classroom, my dad the music teacher

When it became apparent that my time with my father was getting near the end I began thinking about all of the things that made my dad amazing.  There were two faces to my dad, the head of the Collins household and the music teacher at Van Tech. I am not ready to write about my dad on a personal level yet, but I thought I could write about him as a teacher. He was an incredibly talented musician, one who could listen to a song on a tape a few times and then go to the piano and play it.  For 35 years my dad passionately taught music to grade 8-12 students at a school on the east side of Vancouver at a school called Vancouver Technical Secondary (Van Tech). 

When he passed away on September 18^th, 2011 I decided to set up a memorial page in his name on Facebook, hoping to get a few stories about a side of him that I did not get to see much.  I was not sure what would the response be as he retired nearly 10 years ago.  I have been blown away by the response of former students and I would like to thank them for taking the time to remember my dad, as all I now have are memories.  Many of the stories that have been shared are personal and have brought a lot of joy to my family as we always knew he was a special person.

My dad never sought attention, limelight and did not like to be the center of attention.  His focus was always on his students.  I would often see him sitting at his workbench with a collection of tapes listening to music that his students had given him to listen to and consider using in his class.  My dad taught me a long time ago that in order for students to be motivated to participate in classes they have to be interested in what is happening.  He chose music that would engage his students, and created a classroom environment that made students want to come. 

He had over 300 students taking in his choir classes every year.  All he asked was that you give it your all.  His classroom was always open at lunch and students would come in and spend their lunchtime singing. My dad would record himself playing songs requested by his students who wanted to practice certain songs or enter competitions.  If he could play the song on the piano and the lyrics were acceptable he was game.  Students loved coming to his class.

His memorial page after about 48 hours has over 130 people.  Words that keep coming up are passion, energy, kindness, welcoming, enthusiasm, belonging, joy and respect.  Students from years ago can still name the songs that they sung.  The funny part of that is that the very songs they mention are the ones I remember my dad playing on his stereo at home.  I remember his playing the Phantom of the Opera over and over again.  I remember giving him the Proclaimers tape and I also remember the Lion King.  These are just some of the songs mentioned by former students.

Former students credit him for becoming teachers.  Others would invite him to their weddings because of how important he had been to them.  Others were naming songs that make them think of my dad every time they hear them.  So many students commented on the connection that my dad seemed to be able to make with so many students.  Every time I bumped into a former student of his they would ask me to say hi to him.  I would pass on the message and my dad 9/10 would remember the student and also name any siblings the students had.  When he could not immediately remember the student he would immediately go and grab a yearbook, find them and then be able to tell me a story about that student which I would pass on when I would see that student again.  He loved his job, his students and his school and his memorial page shows that.

This all brings me to ask a crucial question- if you had a memorial page, what would your former students write about you?  What would they remember?  What words would they use to describe you?  Something to think about as you prepare your next day’s lessons.  Is your class one that students would be able to passionately describe 10 years later?  How about 20?  How about 40?  If not, why not?  What could you do differently?  How are you going to be remembered?

Please feel free to visit his memorial page and see what an amazing teacher he was http://www.facebook.com/groups/273224379363786/

I miss him so much, but I am glad that his memory lives on in so many people.  Thank you.

Ed Camp Vancouver

Today was a most interesting day of most amazing professional development.  The day was presented as an unconference, no key note speaker, nothing lavish, just a bunch of dedicated people who are passionate about education.  It was representative of most stakeholders: parents, teachers, principals and some students. It is hard to describe the day in a way which accurately would reflect the conversations that were held today.

The beauty of the day was the respect for the knowledge of the group that was there, the fact that everyone had something to offer, something to share, something to reflect on, a question to pose and a desire to learn.  These were not sessions that were being offered by someone looking to pad a resume, someone who had not been in a school in years and was preaching nor was it someone who had already done the same presentation 25 times in the year and did not adapt it to the group present.  These sessions were lead by questions from people within the room. I was looking at the board of potential topics with people putting sticky notes on them to show which ones were of interest.

As we were looking at the board of topics there were other conversations that started and new topics were posted.  As new topics were posted some stickies migrated, others added their stickies to the new topics and 16 topics were chosen for the day.  4 sessions per time slot, 4 different time slots.  There were conversations around assessment for learning, bringing English LA into the 21st century, Social Media 101, moving away from letter grades, engaging all partner groups, moving away from awards ceremonies, creating online communities as well as many other great subjects.  We were there from 9 am to 4 pm, and then some of us went to a pub to continue the conversation afterwards, those who had the long commute home had their continuing conversations in the car, the #edcampvan hashtag continued to be used long after the day was over.  It is now 10 pm and that hashtag is still showing up and being used!  Talk about powerful pro-d!

I took in 4 amazing sessions, each one passed quickly, with conversations continuing long after the session was over.  The discussion were so rich, provocative and reflective. The varying points of view from different districts, levels, stakeholders and experience was so enriching.  I honestly feel that I would have happily attended each session for a day instead of just the 45 minutes sessions (which often continued well after the time elapsed unlike other sessions where people were packing up their bags before presentations were over).  It just felt as though we were just warming up.  To have that many people together is powerful pro-d.  There was so much to listen to, so much to share, so much to think about and so much to bring back to schools.  As I was driving home I started to wonder how we could make our pro-d days much more like this.  Good solid conversations, professional dialogue and getting to the meat and potatoes.  Let's get it all out on the table.

I would have loved to have school boards and Ministry of Education representatives there.  They need to hear our thoughts without the bureaucratic red tape that can exist when meeting with govenment representatives.  Open honest conversations without politics so that they can hear what it is that we are trying to do, hear what our barriers are, understand how it would be better for students and we could hear what their vision is without a podium and a rehearsed speech, what their concerns are, what their barriers are.  If we can truly have all stakeholders represented then we can really begin to make magic happen.

There is much to bring home to our schools and a lot to think about how the day was shaped and how we can use this format.  Is this the future of pro-d?

Sir Ken Robinson, Creativity and Pole Dancing

I had the great fortune of seeing Sir Ken Robinson in person twice this week.  Every time that I hear him, I re-examine my own actions in my school.  His thoughts on creativity are logical and path that we should be following.  Are we educating our children based on the skills that they will need, are we limiting their potential because we have narrow scopes as to what defines a successful student?

I kept on writing down some great quotes, and he is a master of powerful quotes.  He is
brilliantly funny, and some of his tangential comments are hysterical.  I believe that Sir Ken is person who can discuss the fact that dogs cannot pole dance and link it to education and creativity.  He was talking about the settlement patterns of humans, related to soil conditions, water availability, ports and so on, but that Las Vegas made no sense.  Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert with access to very little water and yet has been amongst the fastest growing cities in the United States.  Vegas was created on different principles then had existed before. Vegas -> Pole Dancing -> Dogs can't pole dance only humans can. 

Sir Ken is better in person that on video.  If you have not yet had a chance to see/hear him, you really should take the time.  Here are 3 links to different presentations that Sir Ken Robinson has done.
 Do Schools Kill Creativity
Bring on the Learning Revolution
Changing Education Paradigms

His views on education are bang on.  We seem to try to fit too many square pegs into round holes with many students being asked to follow the same course loads as their neighbour even if that is not the best path for them.  The time limitations are the same, the school year is the same, the blocks of time are the same.  We tend to use the same material with the same strategies even each year the classes are different and the kids are different.  He used a great metaphor that makes perfect sense:  A farmer knows that what made a successful harvest last year will not necessarily make a successful one this year. Conditions change and as those conditions change, they need to adapt to them.  Why are do many classes seem to be the same year in, year out.  Something else he said that brings this point home was that life is not linear but education is.

One of the more powerful comments that I heard was that creativity is a person's birthright.  Everyone is born with huge natural talent.  He defined creativity as putting imagination to work, it is the power to bring to mind things that are not present.  He showed a longitudinal study that measured creativity as the children aged.  When they were kindergarten-aged 98% scored at a genius level on creativity and as they aged the percentage of students who tested in the genius range decreased dramatically.

He often used the term organic, and linked it to culture, and that creativity was never dead but rather dormant.  He brought up Death Valley, the hottest and driest place in North America.  The reason that he discussed this was the fact that a few years ago it received about 7 inches of rain and suddenly, for a short time, flowers bloomed where they hadn't bloomed before.  I felt this was an excellent portrayal of a child's potential.  If you create the right culture in the classroom or at the school then the students will flourish.  Human resources are like natural resources, they are often buried and you have to find them.

He had an opportunity to work with Sir Paul McCartney and discussed Sir Paul's education.  Sir Paul mentioned that he hated music at school.  He and George Harrison, who attended the same school two years behind him, were both told that they had no talent.  Imagine having two members of the Beatles in your music class and not seeing their potential.  Will this continue to happen as we seem to define at schools useful and useless subjects.  If children are denied the arts and denied the opportunities to express themselves differently, how many other amazing people are we crushing?

As he was talking about the segmentation of the school curriculum it really got me thinking.  He mentioned that creative schools have creative timetables and do not separate everything into chunks.  Let's take Language Arts as an example.  Over the course of the year we might teach students poetry, expository writing, descriptive writing and so on.  Yet when it comes to projects and final assignments, how often is it limited to essay style paragraph writing with limited opportunities for the students to freely express their thoughts?  How many times does this occur in Science and Socials?  Do we allow students to write in verse, put together movies or presentations if they are more comfortable or better able to communicate their knowledge in different ways?  There is as much Art in Science as there is Science ad Art.  Why do they have to be segregated?

Sir Ken said that we are living in times of revolution, where things we take for granted are mistakes and things that we believe to be obvious are false.  We are in a crisis of of human resources where we process people in education with a certain type of role.  Students who are "quirky" tend to be shut down, when they try to do things differently they are told that it is wrong.  They begin to fear ridicule and failure.  If kids spend all day at school doing stuff they're not good at, they begin to feel as though they are no good at anything.

He said that great teachers make everything interesting.  If you are engaged, you do not watch the clock, you lose track of time.  He made reference to Ewa Mataya Laurance

He left us with some thoughts to process.  If the environment of the school/class makes a huge difference to how we feel, what changes can we make?  If being born is a miracle, what are we going to do with that miracle?  Lastly he discussed assessment.  He feels that assessment should be looking at the value and originality of the work under specific and relevant criteria.

We were very fortunate to have our Superintendent at our session as well as the BC Minister of Education.  Our Superintendent told us that he will support us in our endeavours to make this happen in our schools.  The challenge for me now is, what changes can I make to create the very environment that he describes.