A Detailed Creation

I teach in a Christian school in which a view of God is woven into everything we teach.  Since I teach science, where we study creation, it only makes sense that this points students to more knowledge of the Creator.  To that end, on my midterm exam, I have a question in which I ask students to tell me something they have learned about God through their study of science.  Since their first semester was basic chemistry, the theme of their answers often focuses on atoms, elements, and the periodic table.

This year, like many others, there was a theme to their answers: how detailed creation is.  Now that they know that what we see externally is a result of what is happening internally, they understand that the tiniest of particles is important, which leads them to an understanding that God is involved in the small details.

While this has been a theme of the answers to this question for many years, it hit me differently this year.  I think it is because my art teacher friend and I have spent a lot of time this year talking about stone sculpture.  I love a lot of genres of art, but there is none that impresses me more than stone sculpture because there is no margin for error.  If an artist paints something that they don't like, they can paint over it.  A pencil drawing can be edited by blending and erasure.  If a sculpture makes a mistake, there is no fixing it; that sculpture just doesn't have a nose now.  My favorite artwork on planet Earth is Michaelangelo's The Pieta, a marble sculpture at the Vatican in which Mary is grieving her crucified Son.  There is much to love about it as an artwork. For one thing, it is overwhelming in size, almost seven feet tall and weighing over six thousand pounds.  

But when I talk to students about this work, I talk about the small parts of it.  Zoom in on the right knee of Jesus, and you find some astounding detail.  The little indentation just behind his knee is on your leg as well, it is the tendon, where the thigh muscle connects to the femur.  The same thing happens when you look at the ankle.  Not only can you see the Lateral Malleolus, the bone that protrudes from the side of the ankle, but you also see the veins on the top of the foot.  Others may feel differently than I do, but I find this much more impressive than a basic sculpture that is a crude outline of the human form without much attention to the details.

You may be thinking, "Okay, we get it, Beth, you are a nerd.  But what does this have to do with your students' answer to the question on their exam?"  Well, I am so glad you asked.  When I marvel at the details of The Pieta, I learn something about Michaelangelo.  That tendon isn't there by coincidence, and it is too specific to have been based only on observation.  This level of detail means Michaelangelo had an intimate knowledge of human anatomy.  According to the Getty website, he participated in dissections of human corpses and made extensive sketches of bones and muscles.  He studied how the underlying structure is affected by the movement of a limb (a tendon may be more visible when the hand is moved in a certain way), which give his sculptures authenticity.  Looking at the detail in the sculpture tells us what the sculptor cares about.  

In the same way, looking at the details of God's creation tells us what He cares about.  Electrons are so small that we don't even count their mass.  Yet, the itty bitty electron determines the behavior of the atom more than any other particle.  The outer electrons determine what type of bond an atom can make, which determines things like intermolecular force which influences things like boiling point.  Everything about water that makes it life-sustaining arises from the electron structure of hydrogen and oxygen.  So this tiny detail is critical to the world in which we live.  

What does this mean for education?  It means the details matter.  In our push to cover so much curriculum, it is tempting to remain at the surface level (and, don't get me wrong, sometimes that is appropriate).  But, at certain points, we should show our students the really important details of what we teach them.  That will reveal what matters, what we value, and be more inspiring to students to study our discipline further.  If we want to create lifelong learners, we need to show them the inspirational details.

The Pandemic and the Arts

Yesterday, I got to do something I haven't done since February 2020.  I got to sit in an auditorium and watch a live production.  While the audience was masked and the actors were wearing face shields, it was the closest thing to normal I have seen in quite some time.  

Like all sectors of business, the fine-arts world has been hit hard by the pandemic.  With singing and wind instruments being high-spread risks, choirs have been forced into zoom boxes or stopped altogether; symphonies have been moved online.  Museums have operated with limited capacity, and the lights on Broadway have been darkened for over a year.  

My school had, fortunately, already had its spring play last February.  It was heartbreaking to watch as other schools had to cancel their March and April performances.  It was hard for all involved.  While the focus was on seniors, there were also those who were going to participate in their first play and teachers who had worked hard to train their students, only to have the culmination of that training called off.  When the school year began in the fall, every school was in a different situation.  Some were fully virtual, and plans were made for virtual plays.  Some were in hybrid situations.  Our fall play involved some kids on stage and a few projected on a screen as they participated from home.  There was no live audience; it was streamed online (which involved jumping through legal hoops with the distribution companies).  

During this time, I have watched four virtual productions from Fellowship for the Performing Arts.  This is a great organization that deserves your support, but some of them were better virtually than others.  The Easter Passion was harder for me to watch because I found being sung at by people who are used to singing in a theater is a little overwhelming when it was happening inches from my face.  Virtual musicals may not be for me.  They used greenscreen to produce The Great Divorce, but that's a complicated story that was made confusing because five actors played nine parts.  While I appreciated what they were trying to do, it just didn't work as well on screen as it would on stage.  I truly enjoyed Martin Luther on Trial and Shadowlands because the performances of those actors were stunning, but I can't wait to see them live in the future.  Those incredible performances will only be enhanced by the immersive experience of the darkened room and the set and the shared feelings you only have with an audience.

What I experienced in our school chapel yesterday was something that cannot be experienced virtually - shared emotional response.  When something was funny, we laughed together; and the actors responded to that laughter.  That only happens in a live show.  While you might laugh at your laptop while watching a virtual performance alone in your living room, you won't laugh as hard or as long (and the actors won't know you are laughing and react to it) because laughter is social.  I might cry listening to a sad song on my iPod, but it is not the same experience as an audience being moved to tears by a powerful concert performance.  The feeling that comes from a large group of people being silenced by awe is unlike any feeling I may experience on my own.  

In ancient times, the arts were created for the purpose of social bonding in the village, sharing culture, passing down oral history, and expressing and receiving emotion.  It is still meant for all of those things.  If you can, donate to your local theater, visit a museum in a socially distanced way, support your school's arts programs in some way to keep them going during these times.  Do that for them.  When the pandemic is over, go to a choral performance, a ballet, a musical, a play, or a concert.  Do that for yourself and your sense of community.  

Our Common Rival

In sports, there are many rivalries.  Whether it is UNC and Duke, Alabama State and Auburn, or OU and OSU, there are certain teams that you just care about beating more than others.  Friday night, GRACE Christian and Cary Christian set aside their rivalry for one night.  Don't get me wrong.  Both teams still wanted to win their basketball games.  But, that night, they had a common rival, and that was cancer.

In GRACE's eleventh Hoops for Hope (Play for Kay) event, the gym was absolutely packed.  There was a lot of activity.  Cakes were sold in a silent auction.  T-shirts, jewelry, and child-friendly prizes were available for kids to win in games. 

Coffee and snacks were sold in addition to normal concessions.

There was face painting for kids of all ages.

The National Anthem was played and sung.

Funds were raised that resulted in two faculty members getting pies in the face. 

Kids posed in a photo booth. 

Survivors were honored and prayed for. 

And, oh yeah, there were three basketball games. 

The goal was ambitious.  We had hoped to raise ten thousand dollars from one event.  We did not meet that goal.  With the help of our friends at Cary Christian, we crushed it beyond belief.  Just before the final quarter of the last game, it was announced that we had topped FOURTEEN THOUSAND!  We know much good is being done with these funds.  From better patient treatment to clinical research trials, the Kay Yow Fund is committed to keep working with every dollar raised until a cure is found.

Learning and the Brain Conference - Reaching for Greatness - Sunday

Keynote 6 - Sir Ken Robinson - You, Your Child, and School:  Teaching to Their Talents, Passions, and Potential
(Disclaimer of bias:  I adore Sir Ken Robinson.  I have zero ability to be objective.  I will gush.)

There are groups all over the world having this conversation - about how we develop systems of education that are faithful to the talents of our children.  Around the world, this is happening in the face of a political headwind.

We all have some deep talents, and there is a need for education to develop them and provide access to them.

Politicians of all parties seem to take the view that education is a form of preparation for something that happens later on.  It's like a holding camp for the jobs market.  This is how they became so focused on the need to raise academic standards and lead to the downgrading of vocational programs.  Society depends on people pulling on the rope together, but our education systems have come focused on competition for political reasons.

"I'd rather have an electrician rewire my house than a man with a PhD in electrical engineering."  The unemployment rate would be lower if we didn't tell kids they had to reach a level above of what they want to do to contribute to the world.

"If you design a system to promote certain abilities and downgrade others, don't be surprised when that happens."

All grandparents think that their grandchild is the smartest, most beautiful, wonderful child that ever was born.  However, like every other child, each is a human being, who grows and depends on resources to live.  As humans, we have curiosity and have desires to create culture and change the world rather than adapt to it.

Speaking multiple languages doesn't mean you are linguistically gifted.  It has to do with your background and environment.  There is a natural capacity that the environment develops.  Nobody teaches you to speak.  You couldn't teach it if you wanted to because you don't know how you do it either.  They learn to speak because they want to and because they can.  Learning is natural.

Learning is the natural process of acquiring new skills and understanding, and it is a gift of nature (God).

We have education systems because
- there are things that are important to us culturally and want to make sure kids don't miss them.
- there are some things we want kids to learn that are to difficult to learn left to their own devices.

A school is a community of learners, where people come together to learn with and from each other.

Video showing extreme enthusiasm - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzry8ATXvX0&disable_polymer=true

All kids love to learn, but many have a problem with education and school because of the pressures inherent in the system that have been caused for political reasons.  Humans have a sense of enthusiasm and enchantment in discovery and learning.  That joy of learning should impel learning.

We fall for the lie that if you do well on tests you will get better jobs and live happier lives.  It used to be true, but it is not anymore.  We need forms of education that fit the way the world really is.

Technology has utterly transformed every aspect of childhood, from work to play.  Kids are rarely outside.  By the time a child is 7, he has spent two years in front of a screen and one year of that time alone with the screen.

After contracting polio, he was sent to a special needs school for the physically disabled.  He was at school with people who had cerebral palsy, partial blindness, heart problems, etc.  None of the children thought anything about it.  They didn't see each other in terms of disability.  A boy with CP sat next to him who had very clear thinking, but the lack of muscle control kept him from speaking well.  He wrote with his feet and had excellent penmanship.

Reflecting on his childhood as he was writing recently, he had this thought.  "If you have a narrow view of ability, you have a broad view of disability.  Our education systems are structured around a narrow view of ability."  People probably have abilities that you don't notice just because you aren't looking for them.  We have to broaden our view of ability, intelligence, and creativity rather than compliance and linear skill development.

Capacity is different from ability.  You may have the capacity to play the cello, speak multiple languages, or be a master of calligraphy but not have the ability to do it because no one ever taught you.  If you don't find the thing you love and are good at, you will get through the day; but you won't really enjoy it.

There is a difference between physical energy and spiritual energy.  You can be exhilarated in your spirit while being physically exhausted when you are doing something you love.  You get energy from doing the things you love.  People are like that too. There are people whose energy you sync with, and you fall in love with them.  You just love being with them.  There are people drain the energy from you.

Paul McCartney and George Harrison's music teacher didn't think either of them had any particular musical ability.  He had half the Beatles in his class and missed it.  Elvis wasn't allowed in the glee club because they said he would ruin their sound.

"The aim of education is to enable students to understand the world around them and the talents within them so that they can become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens."
(Personal note:  This is a secularized statement that perfectly aligns with the GRACE Vision Statement:  Students at GRACE Christian School will be grounded in God’s Word and challenged to achieve academic excellence as they prepare to use their gifts and abilities effectively to follow God’s plan for their lives.)

Human talent is highly diverse.  Life is organic, not linear.  Every life is unique and unrepeatable.  We need a broad enough curriculum to let them find their talents.  (I have never met anyone who doesn't have special needs.  There are just some that are more obvious.  It's in the nature of human beings to have special needs.)


"To be born at all is a miracle, so what are you going to do with your life?" - Dahli Lama

Every one of us bears the imprint of humanity, but we all bear it differently.  People settle for too little.  At a time when we are better off than any other time in history, the most prevalent condition among people is depression.  We must create conditions for human growth.

You can raise the value of education without raising the status of teachers.  Politicians are focused on the curriculum rather than the teachers.

Wikipedia shows us that knowledge is a shared fabric and shows what people can do when they collaborate.  There's never been anything like it.

"I don't know.  I've never thought about that.  What do you think?" - Dahli Lama  (Great teachers are great learners, and they ask others to teach them.)

Concurrent Sessions C
Part 1 - 10,000-Hour Myth: Lessons From Child Prodigies (Young Children) - Ellen Winner, PhD

The Anti-Talent View 
- "Every child is born with the capcity for becoming richly musical so long as he or she is brought up properly.  There is no inborn talent for music ability." - Sinichi Suzuki
- Ericsson believes that deliberate practice can lead to high achievement in any domain.  It must be designed to improve performance, structured, effortful, and motivate by improvement, not enjoyment.
- Ericsson's study was based on 40 people divided into 4 groups.  Because the highest two groups practiced more than the bottom two groups, it was concluded that there was a direct correlation between practice and expertise.  Correlation is not causation, and the method is flawed scientifically.  Perhaps innate proclivity (talent) motivates more practice.

Evidence for Drawing Talent: Early Skill and Rage to Master
- Practice is necessary, but it is not sufficient for greatness.  There are individual differences innate to the human being. 
- Prodigies are precocious and learn rapidly.  The come to you already with greater skill.  You can't tear them away from their domain.  They have an intense desire to master that skill.  They tend to make discoveries on their own with little scaffolding from adults.
- Realistic drawing studies of young children show early skill is shown prior to practice in some kids.

These were drawn by two different 3-year-olds.

These are drawn by the same child as he aged.  The first one was at 4 years, 7 months.  The others were drawn at 6.

These were drawn by the same child at 3, 4, and 6.





Experimental Evidence for Talent
- To sight-read music, while playing the piano, you must look at the notes ahead while playing the current notes.  This involves working memory.  Experiments measured working memory in children using span tests.  It was found that deliberate practice led to better sight-reading skill but that working memory predicted sight-reading skills regardless of the amount of deliberate practice.  Therefore, working memory can limit ultimate attainment.
- Gobet and Campitelli studied 104 chess players.  Assessed the deliberate practice hours and whether they had reached Grand Master level.  They found that deliberate practice accounted for 34% variance in national rating.  In the 34 that had achieved Grand Master level, the average practice time was about 11000 hours, but the range was from 3016 to 23608 hours.  Some in the study spent 25000 hours without reaching Grand Master level.
- Deliberate practice is harder to measure in some fields than others.  
- One of the problems with the deliberate practice studies is that they are looking at people who are already elite.  You need a random sample to get an accurate view.

Is Talent in Drawing a Splinter Skill?
- Prodigy study: Drake and Winner - 12 drawing prodigies who achieved realism 2 years ahead of their peers were compared to a control group of typical drawers.  They were given IQ tests and visual-spatial tests.  IQ was not correlated to artistic skill.  There were two areas in which the artists visual-spacial skills were better or faster, but not all.  They did not find the underlying core capacity that might lead to realistic drawing talent.


Potential Dangers of the Anti-Talent View
- Drive and talent are associated, not learned.  
- Parental pressure cannot replace or overcome rage to master.
- If the child doesn't achieve, the implication is that the child just didn't work hard enough.

An argument among attendees about whether gifted kids could be gifted in domain-specific or domain-general areas.  Suggestions that parents might not be able to influence because of kids resistance, so a parent could enlist a peer as a stealth strategy.


Part 2 - Fantastic Failures: How Learning from Great Minds Can Help Students Reach Their Potential - Luke Reynolds, PhD

- We are so deeply interested in our students' success that we might be failing them.
- When a student fails, how do you respond?  You should help them figure out how to go deeper and examine the causes.
-  Told a story about a movie making him believe that people who drove vans were killers.  Kids can get wrong ideas in our head without even knowing it.  It is sometimes necessary to unlearn things that we have deeply ingrained in our minds.
- "I want you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It's when you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through, no matter what." - Atticus Finch
- Start with your passion and what causes a creative burst, and you will walk right into any standard a state can devise.  If you start with the standards, you might not ever get through to the passion.
- For the kid who feels like they don't belong, the goal of education is telling them that they do belong.

- Christopher Reeve's wife gave him the will to live after his accident when she said, "You're still you, and I love you."
- Charles Dutton took a book of African American plays into solitary confinement with him while he was in prison.  He said "I found my humanity in that cell and I was a changed man when I got out."  He asked the guards if he could start a theater group in prison and kept asking until they let him do it.  Upon release, he went to Yale and then Broadway, movies, and television.  Perhaps, if he had read these plays and gotten him involved in acting in school, he might not have ended up in that cell.
- JK Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers.  They thought Harry Potter was too weird a concept and didn't know how they would market it.  The agent who took her on told her children's books don't make a lot of money.  Bloomsbury's editor brought it home planned to reject it as well, but her daughter started reading it.  She told her mom, "If you don't publish that book, I'll never speak to you again."  

- You should have high standards for all kids, but you have to walk through it with them through the context of their life.  Join them where they are to get them to the standard.
- How do you want to be measured?  When kids talk about you ten years from now, what do you want them to say?  Measure others in that way, too.  
- Don't get so distracted by data that you forget the authenticity of learning.  It's not always measurable.

- If you can find a way to make a paper or speech on something a kid likes, you can accomplish the same skills without making them hate or fear it.  Find ways to reduce pressure on kids.  
- When you ask kids to tell you a story, they don't get scared about public speaking.  They are achieving all the elements you would have on your rubric, but there's no fear and loathing because they don't see it as a big deal. (Personal Note to Kellie: I will change my rubric a bit for next year's element speeches.  On the delivery part, I will change PVLEGS to how natural the delivery is to encourage them to be themselves or personify the element naturally.)
- You can reach any standard with creative methods.  If you are with your kids in the store, and you need 11 things (standard), you can say to your kids, "Aliens are coming to destroy the earth.  These are the 11 items we need." (method)  The more creative the method, the less pressur the kids will feel. 

Concurrent Sessions D

Part 1 - The Science of Innovation: Overcoming Obstacles to Creativity in Your Classroom - Anthony J. McCaffrey, PhD

All his students have been diagnosed with some sort of learning impairment.  

uPuzzles (Universal puzzles) can be adapted to any subject matter.

Show a doodle and ask what they see.

When asking people to solve a puzzle, it is difficult to get people to break out of the common use of an object to see how else it could be used.  Asking students to break those objects down into descriptions of their parts might help them see it in a different way.  

When asking people to design something new, they often get fixed on making variations to already established things.  If you are asked to design a new candle, you will probably only change color, size, scent, or shape.  You should focus on what other people have overlooked.

Design puzzles in such a way that the solution includes a feature that is commonly overlooked.

The brain hates nonsense.  It wants to make sense of what it sees and hears.  Nonsense makes the brain work hard.  Sometimes it needs clues, which is why it often becomes clear when someone else says what it is.  

Three degrees of separation among concepts.
Example: Brick and Banana - A brick can be used to make a building.  A supermarket is a kind of building.  Supermarkets sell bananas.  You can do this with vocabulary words in any subject (e.g. Mitosis and Basketball)

Noun-Sense (leads to metaphorical meaning)
Take any two nouns and have students tell what they could mean. (e.g. Diamond messages, Stake puddle, Dictionary treatment, Jello marriage, Drama mitosis)

Memes and Themes
Show a common meme and have kids write the words based on the material.

Strange Line
Give students a strange sentence (He met himself just yesterday.) and ask them to come up with the scenario.  When you present a text, before reading it, give students an interesting line.  Ask them what they think it means with no background or context. (To be or not to be.  That is the question.)  Then, when they are reading, they can find out what it really means.  

Complete the Famous Saying
Ask not what your country can do for you . . .
One small step for man . . .
Then, compare their answers to the real answer.

How did that happen?
Give two unrelated sentences. (The king is dead.  The evergreen trees are flourishing.)  Ask students to give a narrative chain of events to get from one to the other.  If you do it in history, you can use something like "Chauffer takes a wrong turn.  Sixteen million people died."  They fill in the details of how WWI started.  In Biology, you could use "The sun is shining.  People can breathe."

Making Headlines
Give a news story or historical event.  Have kids write the headline.  You could then look at real headlines from the time.

Group Creativity - Brainstorming in groups is not very effective.  Extroverts dominate, and they speak differently depending on who is in the room that they want to impress or don't want to be embarrassed in front of.  Brainstorm alone first.  Come together to share ideas.  Don't brainstorm together.

Shoevolution
Give students a collection of pictures of shoes.  Ask them to design a new shoe with aspects of two others.  Show the new shoes as a new collection of pictures.  Then, have them do it again with the second set of shoes.  Discuss adaptations.  

Brainswarming
Put goal at the top and resources at the bottom.  Figure out where the things can come together to find the solution.

Automaticity is the enemy of creativity.  It is an important neural process for everyday living, like why you can sit in a chair without fear, but it stops you from having new ideas of what to do with that chair.  To overcome automaticity, 

Just a Story? There's No Such Thing

This weekend, the movie The Shack, based on the book of the same name was released and opened third at the box office.  I believe this book to be heretical and don't expect any more from the movie and have shared a few posts on my social media regarding it.  There are enough of those, so that's not what this post is about.  This post addresses the most common response I have received with regard to these posts.

"It's just a story."
"Come on, it's just a story.  It's not scripture."
"It's just a story.  Lighten up."
"It's not supposed to be the Bible.  It's just a story."

Here's the thing; I'm not sure there is any such thing a just a story.

Stories have a powerful effect on us.  It's why people write them.  Before there was even writing, there was storytelling.  It's why we teach literature to students and read books to children.  It's why there are book quotes in my twitter feed.  It's why I was upset when Atticus Finch let me down in the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird.  It's why a teenager quotes Harry Potter to me almost daily.  It's why I think about The West Wing when I consider what might be happening inside the white house.  The stories we read become part of our collective consciousness.  They become part of us and our shared beliefs.  They affect our thinking in ways we aren't even conscious of.

I'm not a fan of censorship, so I'm not advocating boycotts or book burnings.  I am, however, a big fan of self-censorship.  I believe we must take care in our own lives about the stories we choose.  This is especially true when a story is about God.  I don't know much about William Young; he may be a perfectly lovely man.  The only thing I know about him for sure is that he is fallen and has, therefore, a fallen imagination.  Do I want his imagination to become part of my theology?  Do I want a woman named Papa to bleed into my thoughts about the Creator?  Even if the effect on my thinking remains small, we aren't talking about a small effect on my thoughts about dogs or space aliens.  We are talking about the way I think about God.  THIS. IS. IMPORTANT.  This isn't something for me to lighten up about.

We live in a world of books, movies, music, and art of various kinds.  There is no way to consume it all, so we make choices.  It is our responsibility as teachers to help our students make wise choices, and we cannot do that if we are modeling passive consumption.  We must use wisdom for ourselves as well.  I'm not suggesting that we insulate ourselves into a bubble that only include art that agrees with our worldview.  The world is a more complex and interesting place than that.  I am suggesting that we don't judge a work of art casually because it is JUST a work of art.  Francis Schaeffer's great work Art and the Bible gives four criteria for judging a work of art faithfully.  Only one of those four is the worldview of the artist and the message the work communicates, but it is one of the four.  Those responding, "It's just a story" are leaving it off the list entirely.

Draw a Flower on Your STEM

My school has an annual meet and greet at the beginning of the year.  I stand outside my door and enthusiastically answer the same 5 questions about my physical science class.  Physical science is an introduction to chemistry in first semester and an introduction to physics in second semester.  Yes, it is fun.  Yes, it is hard.  No, you will not have to memorize the periodic table, but yes, you will learn to use it for the tool that it is.  Yes, I like to blow things up, but don't expect it every day or anything.

A few years ago, a mom cornered me, literally close-talking me to the corner between the lockers and my room.  She said, "I don't think we are placing enough emphasis on STEM."  She was expecting me, as a science teacher, to jump right in with agreement; so she was pretty surprised by my response.  "Actually, as a society," I said, "I think we are placing to much emphasis on it.  We shouldn't only educate kids from the neck up and slightly to the left." (That last part comes from Sir Ken Robinson, not me.)  Kids need to learn a little of everything, including science and math but not limited to it.  No one cares about a well rounded education more than I do.

It's time for a science teacher to say it - Enough with the crazy emphasis on STEM.  Yes, we do need classes in science, but scientists also need to be creative.  Yes, we do need our kids to be proficient in math, but those same students should be taking music as well.  I absolutely want to produce engineers and computer scientists, but I am just as proud of my student who is a professional dancer and another who composes music for Disney.  There are all kinds of kids, which means we need all kinds of education.

We have many discussions in our school about the fact that some of the best jobs there are now didn't even exist when we were in school and that many of the ones our kids will have don't exist now.  We know, of course, that kids will need courses that are classified as STEM, but we have to also expect that there will be a need for well-educated writers, farmers, carpenters, photographers, news anchors, real estate agents, insurance adjusters, salesmen, lawyers, coaches, tour guides, and social workers. Does anyone see these careers going anywhere?  Also, do we think an engineer doesn't need a knowledge of history?  Do we think a physicist shouldn't have learned to be creative?  By the way, there will never be advancement in physics without creativity, so that's a bad plan.  I want computer scientists to work in collaboration with poets and musicians so that their work can be brought everyone.

When we place value on only one kind of learning, we cause students to de-value learning.  Let's stop pushing our kids into one thing as though the future is monolithic.  The future needs educated people of all varieties, which is why God wisely gave different gifts to different people.  We don't have to abandon one type of learning for another.  You can have all.  You draw a flower on your STEM, giving the world more depth and beauty than tunnel vision will ever accomplish.

Someone in you-tube land compiled seven minutes of scenes from Mr. Holland's Opus, which work well here to make my point, so I leave you with them.

Fine Arts Pep Rally

If you read last year's Yearbook Dedication Day posts (Anticipation and Dedication), you know that a big part of our tradition is a Fine Arts Pep Rally.  Your school doesn't have one of those?  You are missing out.  We just had our fifth one.  In a time when many schools are slashing their arts programs to ribbons, this pep rally shows GRACE's fine arts to be growing, diverse, and dynamic.

As soon as the yearbook is finished in early March, I start doing two things - the graduation slide show and organizing for this pep rally.  Our visual arts teachers send me photos of much of the year's artwork.  The theater teacher sends me cast lists.  Our music teachers tell me what groups they want to perform and what songs they will be doing.  I put together a slide show, and we do some planning in a shared document (thanks, Google).  This all culminates in a big event that involves every one of our students and teachers.

Our school is one K-12 school, but it is on two campuses.  While they are only a quarter of a mile apart, the other campus sometimes feels very far away.  We don't get to see the elementary students as often as we would like, and this is one of only two times that were are all together in one place each year.  The first is the homecoming parade.  I love that the thing bringing us all together is a celebration of the fine arts.

As students enter the gym, a slideshow containing photographs of visual art made by our students is playing.  High school students get to feel nostalgia about art project from their childhood when they see elementary projects, and kindergarten students get to see the kind of work they can one day aspire to make.  Our middle and high school combined chorus sings the national anthem, and our sixth grade chaplain opens us in prayer.  Our visual arts teachers then recognize those who have won awards in art competitions this year (several dozen students have excelled in some competition).  Some of those kids are also athletes, and some are scholars.  Some will also be performing during the rally.  I love how well rounded our kids are.

Our performance arts are well represented.  The elementary chorus sings, and 6th-12th grade bands play.  This year, they played a Star Wars medley, so a couple of drama students had a light saber battle.  The crowd loved it.  Our dance team performs, and our strings group plays a jazz number.  The sixth grade theater class performs a short number.  This year was "Step in Time" from Mary Poppins.

The rally leads up to the unveiling of the yearbook dedication.  This year, it was for our middle and high school visual arts teacher and my friend, Elizabeth Walters.  She is an amazing woman, capable of pulling talent out of students that they don't know they have.  Her students' work covers our hallways.  Without that artwork, our school is just a building.  She is a friend, mentor, and inspiration.  It was the perfect way to end this celebration of the arts.

Look, I know academic, fact-based disciplines are important.  I teach science, for heaven's sake.  I believe, however, the God created us in His image.  Part of that image is creative, and we should all reflect that.  As a Christian school, GRACE knows that students are created with diverse talents - from math to music, from science to dance, from writing to sculpting, from Latin to theater.  We strive to help students to discover them.  The list of names on each of our fine arts rosters makes me happy.  Our students are finding their God-given talents, and we get to be part of that.  Today's pep rally was a great reminder of that.

Thank you to our band, chorus, theater, strings, dance, and art teachers.  Your work is inspiring.

It's All Related

My favorite middle school history teacher, Danny Watkins, used to say, "You thought we were off the subject, but we've never been more on the subject in our - what - lives.  Everything relates to history."  Aside from just loving to hear him talk like that, I'm not sure I truly understood what he meant until much later in my life.

Like most middle school students, I did not yet have the ability to see the intertwined relationships of all the subjects I had at school.  Your life exists in 50 minute segments at that point, and it is hard to see past that.  It seemed like math was math and science was science and history was history.  It was probably when I started taking chemistry in high school that I started seeing the relationships between science and math.  When I was in college, taking the required humanities courses, I began to see the connection  between art and literature and history (which I now realize is the reason they require these courses).

It wasn't until I began teaching, however, that I realized how related all the subjects are to each other and to truly understand Mr. Watkins assertion that "everything relates to history."  This week, I took my physics students (in conjunction with the math club and an art class) on a field trip to the art museum.  Why? Because they have an exhibit on MC Escher and one on Leonardo DaVinci.  If not for space restrictions on the numbers, we could have totally included Latin and history classes on this trip.  Art reflects the thinking of the artist, and Escher's schooling (small though it was) was in architecture.  Is it any surprise that his art work often involved impossible structures, building architects could dream of but not build?  DaVinci is often referred to as a Renaissance man, meaning he was good at a lot of things.  While we are not all as gifted as Leonardo, shouldn't we all be Renaissance in our thinking?  Shouldn't we be interested in a lot of things?  If we were, wouldn't we all be able to better view the created world as a whole, instead of the specialized niches we operate in these days?


Why does it matter?  You may be wondering.  Seeing the relationships won't change the price of milk or change my gas mileage.  Why should I care enough to see the world as a whole when doing so does little to affect my daily life?  I think there are at least two good reasons.

First, it applies more to your daily life than you probably realize.  When I am teaching about physics, I may not consciously be thinking about art work of Isaac Newton's time or the fact that the periodic table was invented in Russia around the same time that the civil war was happening in America.  However, it is in my subconscious.  It does inform the depth of my understanding of what I am looking at.  You may not think consciously about whether the Mayans or the Babylonians came up with the concept of zero when looking at your bank statement, but their understanding of the concept IS why you have a bank statement.  A Facebook friend of mine recently posted that he had not diagramed a sentence in his adult life.  Neither have I, but I do know when to properly use who and whom (and I'm pretty sure that my understanding of that came from sentence diagraming even though I HATED doing it).  I know I'm not going to convince you of this, so let me move on to reason number two.

Second, and more importantly, God's work reflects God's nature.  If he has created both beauty and function, we should care about both art and engineering.  If His patience is reflected by the erosion of the Grand Canyon, we should absolutely want to understand that erosion.  If his dependability is reflected through the consistency of mathematical relationships, then we cannot fully understand how to depend on him without caring about those relationships.  Having a deep and full relationship with God should mean caring about the things He has made, whether or not they apply to our career.  When did our career become the measure of importance?  You would never say to your spouse that you don't care what he does during the day, except for the parts that impact what you do during the day.  You would never ignore your child's drawing because it has nothing to do with the price of groceries.  No, you hang it on the very refrigerator that holds those groceries.  Why, then, do we do that to so many aspects of God's work?  We have allowed ourselves to be deceived into believing that education is about getting a job and being prepared for that job.  I may have to write a separate post on this some time because it is difficult to convey briefly.  Education is about repairing something that was fractured by the fall.  It's nice that we are able to use some of what we learn in our education for our jobs, but we must let go of the utilitarian philosophy that makes us think that is all we need to learn.  I teach physics, but I would be the world's most horrifyingly dull person if that was all I could talk about.  I also love art and literature and music and television and film and dance and theater and theology and the unit circle.  I can hold a conversation on just about anything because I am interested in everything God has put for us to enjoy.  It is part of being what He created me to be as a WHOLE PERSON, not just as a physics teacher.

Mr. Watkins was right (as he usually was).  It is all related.

Athletic Artists and Artistic Athletes

My role as yearbook teacher has given me a unique take on my school.  I am in and out of classes from Transitional Kindergarten through AP Biology.  I go to at least one or two games of every athletic team we have.  I have at least some communication with every teacher who works here, and I attend most events.  One of the most interesting things that I get to observe in this role is the variety of artistic opportunities we have.

My school offers visual art, dance, theater, band, strings, and chorus.  As other schools have cut some of their arts programs for budget purposes, we are trying to grow ours.  Our school's vision statement is, "Students at GRACE Christian School will be grounded in God's Word and challenged to achieve academic excellence as they prepare to use their gifts and abilities effectively to follow God's plan for their lives."  We don't believe that God made people the same, and we want our kids to seek out whatever gifts God has given them to use for His glory.

I teach both science and yearbook, and people always respond to that as though it is strange.  Apparently, I am supposed to be one dimensional.  Our AP Biology teacher also holds a history teaching degree, and he loves them both.  One of our earth science teachers also teaches history, and the other one also teaches Bible.  At one point, our math teacher took up Irish dance.  She eventually gave up math to teach dance full time, but our students were able to see that a person is not one thing.  We want our kids to have a well rounded view of the world and themselves.


As the person who photographs everything, I have had the opportunity to witness this in action.  Some of the leaders on our girls basketball team have also been the most devoted members of our chorus.  This violinist, who is one of the founding members of our strings group, is the same guy protecting our goal on the soccer field.  He understands that he can do both of those things well and not have sacrifice one for the other.  Much of the visual art that decorates our school halls and wins awards at competitions was made by runners and soccer players and volleyball girls.  We also have artists who excel academically or in more than one artistic endeavor.  My yearbook editor just completed her role as Badger in Wind in the Willows, excels in multiple AP classes, and is one of our most accomplished visual artists.  When a student graduates from GRACE, we hope that they have explored all kinds of activities and found Christ in all of them.  They are all reflections of God's creation, and we don't want them to limit themselves to one thing.

I understand the difficulties faced by schools who are wrestling with budget problems.  Financially, it is easy to say that the athletic programs bring in money and should be kept while the artistic programs do not.  I get that, but our students aren't numbers on a spreadsheet.  The contribution they will make to the world can't be measured that way.  The impact that the arts have on a student's brain will change them in ways that cannot be quantified.  I am proud that I have a school that knows this is important and funds our arts programs.  We even hold a pep rally for them.   Don't get me wrong; we still struggle with the balance between athletics and arts, just like other schools.  I think our struggle is often for a different reason, however.  We struggle with the fact that a student can't be in two places at once.  They can't be at cheer practice and play rehearsal at the same time.  While I know that is frustrating to both the coach and the director, I'll take that struggle any day over the struggle of cutting back.

Love reading.  Love computers.  Love music.  Love tennis.  Love fashion.  Love knitting.  Love math.  Love painting.  Love science.  Love Latin.  Love writing.  Love God and learn about him through all of these things because these are all reflections of His nature.