Matthew Harre: What I learned...
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What I Learned About Teaching Children From Teaching Adults
Copyright ©1999 by Matthew Harre
I teach in a privileged environment. I meet one to one with my students. I
have no institution looking over my shoulder. I give no grades. I work with a
constantly fluid situation that requires immediate assessment. As a result I
can't plan too far ahead and have great flexibility. I have the opportunity
to get to know my students better than most teachers do.
What I've learned from my adult students is that the bruises they suffered
in their education as children and young adults interferes with their learning
to play the piano much more than any problems of an aging mind or body. What
I have learned to do for my students who are children is to try to do no
harm.
I don't mean that sweet goodie-goodie stuff, that everything's "all right"
when it's not. I hate that. It's dishonest and without integrity. It's wrong.
I'm talking about making corrections with compassion. Letting students know
it's difficult being corrected, especially when they think they're right.
Letting them know that I know being wrong can be embarrassing and humiliating.
Letting them know it's all right to be angry and hurt. Even letting them know
I won't be angry with them for being angry with me.
I enjoy my adult students very much. I'm struck by their cautiousness,
carefulness, desire to be perfect, and their utter lack of charity towards
themselves. Where's the insatiable curiosity of infancy? Where's the eagerness for
adventure? Where's the willingness to try new things? Where's the little kid
who's willing to fall down over and over again in his desire to learn to walk?
For virtually all my adult students, and myself, this has been somehow
knocked out of us.
How did we arrive at this state? I believe we got bruised in many small and
big ways at all levels of our education. People who teach can be insensitive,
inconsiderate and, sometimes, even sadistic. Parents are our teachers, too,
and sometimes they can be the biggest problem.
If you'll permit me a few moments of gross over-simplifying, I'd like to
make some observations about our learning. Infants are insatiable in their
curiosity about the world. They do all kinds of things to find out what's what.
Unfortunately, some are dangerous-like chewing on the electrical cord; some are
inconvenient--like flushing their shoes down the toilet to see what happens;
and some of their experiments just don't fit the timing or moods of the
powers that be. All these limitations reign in this unbridled curiosity. I
consider these bruises. They're little hurts that stopped us and began a long
process that took our learning agenda out of our own hands. These limits on our
curiosity may have been necessary from the adult perspective but not, certainly,
from our perspective as a child.
It's not too long before we become curious about words and ideas. With this
curiosity comes the necessity of learning to read. What if you're interested
in ideas but not interested in reading, or have difficulty reading? You're in
trouble in our society.
When people go to school or take lessons they lose control of the agenda of
their curiosity. Teachers take over the subject and timing of learning. The
individual's curiosity no longer leads. In some places it counts for nothing.
No matter who we are, how good or bad a student we are, the natural instincts
of our own curiosity suffered many bruises.
In a real sense, the pleasures and rewards of satisfying our curiosity were
taken away from us. School is not about rewarding our own curiosity, it's
about learning what others want us to learn; it's about pleasing teachers. If we
were successful in school the one thing we had to learn was to make teachers
happy enough to give us good grades. We may or may not have learned things
interesting to us, but that wasn't the point. Successful students must please
enough teachers to get enough good grades to continue in the process.
Then, having already lost the agenda and rewards of our own curiosity, we
come to believe that pleasing the teacher is the same as pleasing ourselves. We
substitute learning how we want with learning the way that will make the
teacher happy. We think pleasing the teacher is the same as pleasing ourselves.
It isn't. That's why so many straight "A" students are unfulfilled by their
accomplishment. They feel a void. They've become so adept at pleasing other
people that they forget they have a self that needs being pleased.
My adult students are educationally successful. Most have doctorates or law
degrees. Some appear regularly on TV. All are successful as we define that
concept. They have played the education game well enough to win some of the top
prizes. They are all taking lessons because they want to; nobody is making
them do it. They pay for it themselves. Yet they all seem to want to please
me. Well ... I'm not a Ph.D. and I was not a particularly successful student.
So why are all these brilliant people interested in pleasing me?
I must confess, it's been a gradually unfolding shock to me to realize how
crucial it is for them to make me happy. Fortunately or unfortunately, I
thought I was supposed to make them happy so they'd keep on hiring me and I'd have
a job. I seemed to have missed the point entirely. I hadn't realized how
much power I had; how much power they gave me. If making the teacher happy is
what it's all about, and I'm the teacher--it's my power trip.
For whatever reasons make me the person I am, I don't feel the need for this
power trip. Certainly part of the reason has to do with the teachers I had,
at least in music. I teach because I want to be part of the mix of the world
of music and the world of my individual student's mind. It is a fascinating
place to be. I don't feel the need to control or force the outcome. I do want
my students to be pleased with their work in music.
You would not believe how difficult it is to get adult students to be
pleased with their work. It wasn't until I started listening to them talk to
themselves that I really began to realize how much their past education had taken
from them. When they make mistakes they say things like: "That was stupid,"
"What are you thinking of?" or "Oh, my God." The condescension in their voices
is impressive. They are not talking to themselves with their own voices; they
are talking to themselves with the voices of past teachers and parents.
Ponder the enormity of this. They have become their own attackers. When did they
abandon themselves and join the accusers? Who is left to defend them?
One of my adult students was playing for me and playing well, with feeling.
I was enjoying her playing. All of a sudden she yelled, "No, no that's not
right!" I was startled. I hadn't even heard the mistake. Less than a minute
later the same thing happened. Again I was startled but also annoyed. I was
enjoying her playing and concentrating on it-when this scream interrupted. When
it happened a third time I was angry. I stopped her and said, "You keep
getting me involved in your playing and then scare me with your screaming. What are
you doing?" "Sorry, sorry, sorry," she said, "I'll stop. I didn't realize I
was bothering you."
She apologized for bothering me. Adults apologize to teachers a lot. What I
realized, and what we talked about, was that what I felt must have been how
she felt when she was playing for her teacher as a child. She'd be intently
involved in her music-making when the teacher would yell and scare her. In the
present case, I was the teacher. I could get annoyed and tell her to quit.
But when it happened to her, she was the child and the student. If she'd
reacted to her teacher as I reacted to her, she would have been called rude and
impudent and this particular teacher would have hit her. I've seen this woman
make a mistake and cover her head to ward off the impending blow.
How can a person be totally involved in their learning if they are waiting
for someone to yell at them or hit them? A part of them must always be
watching and waiting for the interruption or attack. I don't yell at my students,
young or old.
The final irony of this sad tale is that the woman was her teacher's best
student. She was working on Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata at the age of 12. Her
teacher had never had such a gifted student. Why did she feel the need to
treat her student this way? People do not understand that being a teacher's
best student can bring with it a number of disadvantages. Educational problems
are always assumed to be the domain of lesser students, but there is a whole
raft of problems the really good students experience. Teachers push them too
fast and too far, beyond what they can really experience. Teachers become
possessive of the student and the student's accomplishment. Teachers
over-identify with their best students, especially if the former don't have a fulfilling
life of their own. Actually, this subject is a whole other talk.
The woman I'm talking about is not an educational failure. She has her Ph.D.
and was president of a small Midwestern college for several years before
taking lessons with me. She has achieved much in educational circles including
power over teachers. Clearly this accomplishment has done nothing to erase the
impact of her childhood piano teacher. The power of this early experience is
tenacious. It will take time and work to move beyond the experience.
Another example of the tenaciousness of this kind of abuse was told by
another adult student of mine at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Adult
Music Student Forum. Tom read the following: "The man you see before you now is
approaching his sixties. And yet, he can remember with stark clarity the
severe brutalization that he endured for nearly a full year when he was a mere
slip of a lad in his second year of elementary school. This torture he suffered
at the hands of none other than his piano teacher, one Sister Mary
Florentine.
"Sister Mary Florentine's most notable trait as a music teacher was a truly
remarkable intolerance for wrong notes. To say she was a stickler for
perfection just doesn't fully capture it. During lessons she would usually stand
behind and a little to the right of the student, gently cradling her weapon of
choice. That, of course, was the standard issue twelve-inch wooden ruler with
the embedded brass straightedge. She would position herself
strategically-just beyond the student's range of peripheral vision and just within striking
distance of the keyboard.
"Imagine yourself in this tableau-a young innocent boy, hands poised just
above the keyboard with its hundreds of nicks and notches reflecting decades of
wrong notes, each quickly followed by errant ruler strikes or ricochets.
Imagine the strikes that found their intended targets. Imagine yourself playing
The Blue Danube Waltz in that situation.
"Now fast forward about forty years. My family and career were by now well
established. My life was on course and cruising along. Yet there remained a
vague gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach--something missing or
unresolved. It eventually evolved into a desire to take piano lessons.
"My memory of the experience with Sister Mary Florentine formed the basis of
my expectations regarding lessons with Matt. For example, I naturally
expected some form of torture to be an integral part of each lesson...
"But even from the first lesson it was clear that Matt was no Sister Mary
Florentine. For example, during lessons he seated himself practically all the
way across the room, way beyond striking range. Some of Matt's idiosyncrasies
were a little confusing at first. Consider his seating arrangements-highly
varied and always interesting. When he conducted lessons while seated on a
medicine ball, I found myself occasionally wondering how he could throw the
medicine ball at me while he was seated on it. I feared there might be some trick.
My frame of reference did not permit me to imagine that he might simply be
trying to ease his back pain.
"I cannot say that any of his approaches was particularly effective for me,
but all of them together seemed to have considerable benefit. After two or
three years, I found myself actually focusing on the music. With Matt's
continued teaching ... I found myself playing at least elementary pieces with actual
enjoyment."
For Tom as the second-grader, getting right notes was not for the joy of the
sound, not for the joy of physical mastery, not for the joy of learning.
Getting right notes was to keep from being hurt. What he learned was not about
music but about self-preservation. What he learned was that some teachers are
mean and will hurt you. Here success is not about feeling good about
yourself; it's about being hit less.
Tom and I have been friends for at least ten years. I taught his daughter
piano for some time. I had known her from birth. We would all go Christmas
caroling every year together with other neighbors, then go back to their home for
Irish coffee. He knew the kind of person I am.
But this knowledge became irrelevant when Tom started taking lessons. What
Tom knew of me could not erase the terror of his earlier experience. The
history that was relevant was the horror of his earlier piano lessons. When I was
teaching Tom, I lost my identity to Sister Mary Florentine. It took Tom two
or three years to actually focus on the music. It took that much time to undo
the meanness of his earlier teacher.
The tragedy is that people who are abused come to identify with the abuser
and feel they should be abused; they deserve it. Compassion is hard to accept.
That's one of the reasons my adult students talk to themselves as they do.
You may now better understand why I say what I try to do for my young students
is to do no harm.
The yelling, hitting, and condescending nuances are all humiliating and
embarrassing. This humiliation seems to be a common part of everybody's
education. Everybody I've talked to about what I planned to say today has his or her
own set of examples. They usually haven't thought to ponder them, but rather,
regarded them as an assumption of the whole process. Everybody has
experienced this embarrassment. By high school the kids started doing the same thing to
each other. One outcome of this is anger-fear and anger. I want to return to
this in a minute but first there seems to be a special humiliation we
experienced as students.
That humiliation came from thinking we were right when we were wrong. The
teacher pulled the rug out from under us by telling us (and everybody else)
that we were wrong, that we didn't have a clue, missed the whole point, were
stupid or whatever. The implied corollary was "pride goeth before a fall." I
cannot get my adult students to say they played well. They think I'm going to
say their playing was awful. They think I'm trying to set them up for this
embarrassment. They think that because it's happened to them before.
Recently, I had a student confess to thinking she played a piece well for
me. There was something negative I wanted to point out so I knew I was in
trouble. I tried to head it off but I failed. I said five things that were
truthful and positive about her performance. I said one thing needed work. She never
heard the five good things, only the one bad.
Everything I feared came pouring out. I'd set her up; I'd embarrassed her; I
was just trying to show her how little she knew compared to me ... all of
it. What she said was that I was like all her other teachers, and having a
Ph.D., she'd had a lot of teachers. She was really angry with me and embarrassed
by her anger. But she was angry and we talked about it and the discussions
went on for probably three lessons. Neither one of us capitulated but each
clarified what we'd said and felt. Her anger freed something in her and her
playing became significantly better in the week that followed. I've had this
experience before. Release of anger at the teacher seems to free students to
invest themselves more fully. I don't fully understand this. Perhaps the
truthfulness of the anger and the teacher's acceptance of that anger allow the student
a deeper level of commitment.
My favorite story about anger at teachers is my own experience:
I took my one and only viola lesson a couple years ago with Rodger
Ellsworth, the son of the man who ran Ellsworth Studio over on Willow Lane. The
difference was the teacher was my friend. Rodger dropped in one evening after a
performance at the Kennedy Center asking if I wanted a viola lesson. I said, "Of
course not." In principle it was a fine idea but I had a thousand reasons
for not wanting to do it. Rodger persisted, saying it would be a good way to
know what my adult students felt like and other such reasonable nonsense. I
relented and took my first lesson. The result was not as I expected at all.
Tensely, I put the viola under my chin and the bow in hand. I started to
listen to his many instructions, some of which seemed contradictory to me. What
I didn't expect was I got really furious. I told him he didn't know how to
teach; that I was going to take this viola and smash it over his head and other
such violence. I was livid. Being the friend he was, Rodger was able to
accept all this, calmly.
When I finished my outburst and settled down I found I was drawing the bow
over the strings with an ease and firmness I had not imagined possible.
My outburst of anger apparently released my frustration at being in an
awkward situation, feeling out of control, and feeling inferior. Having discharged
that tension I was free to engage in the learning activity fully, without
distraction. Rodger was a friend. I knew I could be angry with him. Had I been
working with a regular teacher, there would have been no such outburst. I
would have been the usual polite student. I would have been stuck with my anger
and I would not have learned nearly as fast or as much. This is the position
of most students.
I encourage my young students to vent their anger at music, practicing, and
me. I let them know I am strong enough to take it and won't get mad at them
for telling me. When it happens, and it's not often, I don't take their anger
personally. I don't feel they're being rude or impudent. I know that to
really love something you have to have the freedom to sometimes hate it.
Another of my favorite stories is about Clare. This is an example of what I
learned about teaching children from teaching adults. I was ready and I
finally handled one of these situations right.
I was working with Clare, and it happened to be her 7th birthday. She was in
her second year of piano. Clare is fun, smart, honest, and polite. She
played her piece for me with the right hand playing one note higher than written.
Instead of "B" she started on "C," etc. Though it didn't sound quite right,
it didn't sound too bad either. Clare thought it sounded fine. I asked her to
play the right hand one note lower, i.e. the correct way, and she thought
that sounded weird. She played it again the wrong way and found it better. In
other words, she played wrong all week. Thinking she was right, she was pleased
with herself and her work.
I told Clare I hated to tell her but she played all the right-hand notes one
note too high. Clare was silent but her big brown eyes filled with tears. I
apologized and told her I felt it was important to be honest with her.
I asked her if she felt dumb and stupid and she said, "Sort of."
"Does it make you mad?"
"Sort of."
"Do you feel it in your body anywhere?"
"I don't know."
"Well, do you feel it in your chest or stomach?"
"Both."
"It hurts doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
Recently I asked Clare if I could tell this story in a talk I was giving.
She said sure but she didn't remember the incident. To Clare, it was not a
memorable event. That's exactly the way it should have been. Had I unleashed any
of those lines teachers are famous for like "How could you have made that
same stupid mistake all week long? Do you ever look at the notes?," I think
she'd have remembered. She was already embarrassed by her mistake and her
assumption of correctness. What I did was to "hold her hand" while she got in touch
with how really rotten it did feel, right into her chest and stomach. With
both of us accepting all these feelings she could then let go of them and we
could move on.
What I've learned from my adult students is how much our education hurts,
how much we all suffered to get where we are, and how much teachers'
remembrance of their own history makes them repeat it rather than correct it. What I've
learned is how rare is the consideration of students' feelings, not
withstanding some wonderful exceptions.
Most of all, I've learned the value of compassion in education, allowing the
students the space to learn and know all the diverse emotions involved in
learning. It's not dramatic; it's just kind. It doesn't call attention to
itself; it does no harm.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Copyright ©1999 by Matthew Harre
I teach in a privileged environment. I meet one to one with my students. I
have no institution looking over my shoulder. I give no grades. I work with a
constantly fluid situation that requires immediate assessment. As a result I
can't plan too far ahead and have great flexibility. I have the opportunity
to get to know my students better than most teachers do.
What I've learned from my adult students is that the bruises they suffered
in their education as children and young adults interferes with their learning
to play the piano much more than any problems of an aging mind or body. What
I have learned to do for my students who are children is to try to do no
harm.
I don't mean that sweet goodie-goodie stuff, that everything's "all right"
when it's not. I hate that. It's dishonest and without integrity. It's wrong.
I'm talking about making corrections with compassion. Letting students know
it's difficult being corrected, especially when they think they're right.
Letting them know that I know being wrong can be embarrassing and humiliating.
Letting them know it's all right to be angry and hurt. Even letting them know
I won't be angry with them for being angry with me.
I enjoy my adult students very much. I'm struck by their cautiousness,
carefulness, desire to be perfect, and their utter lack of charity towards
themselves. Where's the insatiable curiosity of infancy? Where's the eagerness for
adventure? Where's the willingness to try new things? Where's the little kid
who's willing to fall down over and over again in his desire to learn to walk?
For virtually all my adult students, and myself, this has been somehow
knocked out of us.
How did we arrive at this state? I believe we got bruised in many small and
big ways at all levels of our education. People who teach can be insensitive,
inconsiderate and, sometimes, even sadistic. Parents are our teachers, too,
and sometimes they can be the biggest problem.
If you'll permit me a few moments of gross over-simplifying, I'd like to
make some observations about our learning. Infants are insatiable in their
curiosity about the world. They do all kinds of things to find out what's what.
Unfortunately, some are dangerous-like chewing on the electrical cord; some are
inconvenient--like flushing their shoes down the toilet to see what happens;
and some of their experiments just don't fit the timing or moods of the
powers that be. All these limitations reign in this unbridled curiosity. I
consider these bruises. They're little hurts that stopped us and began a long
process that took our learning agenda out of our own hands. These limits on our
curiosity may have been necessary from the adult perspective but not, certainly,
from our perspective as a child.
It's not too long before we become curious about words and ideas. With this
curiosity comes the necessity of learning to read. What if you're interested
in ideas but not interested in reading, or have difficulty reading? You're in
trouble in our society.
When people go to school or take lessons they lose control of the agenda of
their curiosity. Teachers take over the subject and timing of learning. The
individual's curiosity no longer leads. In some places it counts for nothing.
No matter who we are, how good or bad a student we are, the natural instincts
of our own curiosity suffered many bruises.
In a real sense, the pleasures and rewards of satisfying our curiosity were
taken away from us. School is not about rewarding our own curiosity, it's
about learning what others want us to learn; it's about pleasing teachers. If we
were successful in school the one thing we had to learn was to make teachers
happy enough to give us good grades. We may or may not have learned things
interesting to us, but that wasn't the point. Successful students must please
enough teachers to get enough good grades to continue in the process.
Then, having already lost the agenda and rewards of our own curiosity, we
come to believe that pleasing the teacher is the same as pleasing ourselves. We
substitute learning how we want with learning the way that will make the
teacher happy. We think pleasing the teacher is the same as pleasing ourselves.
It isn't. That's why so many straight "A" students are unfulfilled by their
accomplishment. They feel a void. They've become so adept at pleasing other
people that they forget they have a self that needs being pleased.
My adult students are educationally successful. Most have doctorates or law
degrees. Some appear regularly on TV. All are successful as we define that
concept. They have played the education game well enough to win some of the top
prizes. They are all taking lessons because they want to; nobody is making
them do it. They pay for it themselves. Yet they all seem to want to please
me. Well ... I'm not a Ph.D. and I was not a particularly successful student.
So why are all these brilliant people interested in pleasing me?
I must confess, it's been a gradually unfolding shock to me to realize how
crucial it is for them to make me happy. Fortunately or unfortunately, I
thought I was supposed to make them happy so they'd keep on hiring me and I'd have
a job. I seemed to have missed the point entirely. I hadn't realized how
much power I had; how much power they gave me. If making the teacher happy is
what it's all about, and I'm the teacher--it's my power trip.
For whatever reasons make me the person I am, I don't feel the need for this
power trip. Certainly part of the reason has to do with the teachers I had,
at least in music. I teach because I want to be part of the mix of the world
of music and the world of my individual student's mind. It is a fascinating
place to be. I don't feel the need to control or force the outcome. I do want
my students to be pleased with their work in music.
You would not believe how difficult it is to get adult students to be
pleased with their work. It wasn't until I started listening to them talk to
themselves that I really began to realize how much their past education had taken
from them. When they make mistakes they say things like: "That was stupid,"
"What are you thinking of?" or "Oh, my God." The condescension in their voices
is impressive. They are not talking to themselves with their own voices; they
are talking to themselves with the voices of past teachers and parents.
Ponder the enormity of this. They have become their own attackers. When did they
abandon themselves and join the accusers? Who is left to defend them?
One of my adult students was playing for me and playing well, with feeling.
I was enjoying her playing. All of a sudden she yelled, "No, no that's not
right!" I was startled. I hadn't even heard the mistake. Less than a minute
later the same thing happened. Again I was startled but also annoyed. I was
enjoying her playing and concentrating on it-when this scream interrupted. When
it happened a third time I was angry. I stopped her and said, "You keep
getting me involved in your playing and then scare me with your screaming. What are
you doing?" "Sorry, sorry, sorry," she said, "I'll stop. I didn't realize I
was bothering you."
She apologized for bothering me. Adults apologize to teachers a lot. What I
realized, and what we talked about, was that what I felt must have been how
she felt when she was playing for her teacher as a child. She'd be intently
involved in her music-making when the teacher would yell and scare her. In the
present case, I was the teacher. I could get annoyed and tell her to quit.
But when it happened to her, she was the child and the student. If she'd
reacted to her teacher as I reacted to her, she would have been called rude and
impudent and this particular teacher would have hit her. I've seen this woman
make a mistake and cover her head to ward off the impending blow.
How can a person be totally involved in their learning if they are waiting
for someone to yell at them or hit them? A part of them must always be
watching and waiting for the interruption or attack. I don't yell at my students,
young or old.
The final irony of this sad tale is that the woman was her teacher's best
student. She was working on Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata at the age of 12. Her
teacher had never had such a gifted student. Why did she feel the need to
treat her student this way? People do not understand that being a teacher's
best student can bring with it a number of disadvantages. Educational problems
are always assumed to be the domain of lesser students, but there is a whole
raft of problems the really good students experience. Teachers push them too
fast and too far, beyond what they can really experience. Teachers become
possessive of the student and the student's accomplishment. Teachers
over-identify with their best students, especially if the former don't have a fulfilling
life of their own. Actually, this subject is a whole other talk.
The woman I'm talking about is not an educational failure. She has her Ph.D.
and was president of a small Midwestern college for several years before
taking lessons with me. She has achieved much in educational circles including
power over teachers. Clearly this accomplishment has done nothing to erase the
impact of her childhood piano teacher. The power of this early experience is
tenacious. It will take time and work to move beyond the experience.
Another example of the tenaciousness of this kind of abuse was told by
another adult student of mine at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Adult
Music Student Forum. Tom read the following: "The man you see before you now is
approaching his sixties. And yet, he can remember with stark clarity the
severe brutalization that he endured for nearly a full year when he was a mere
slip of a lad in his second year of elementary school. This torture he suffered
at the hands of none other than his piano teacher, one Sister Mary
Florentine.
"Sister Mary Florentine's most notable trait as a music teacher was a truly
remarkable intolerance for wrong notes. To say she was a stickler for
perfection just doesn't fully capture it. During lessons she would usually stand
behind and a little to the right of the student, gently cradling her weapon of
choice. That, of course, was the standard issue twelve-inch wooden ruler with
the embedded brass straightedge. She would position herself
strategically-just beyond the student's range of peripheral vision and just within striking
distance of the keyboard.
"Imagine yourself in this tableau-a young innocent boy, hands poised just
above the keyboard with its hundreds of nicks and notches reflecting decades of
wrong notes, each quickly followed by errant ruler strikes or ricochets.
Imagine the strikes that found their intended targets. Imagine yourself playing
The Blue Danube Waltz in that situation.
"Now fast forward about forty years. My family and career were by now well
established. My life was on course and cruising along. Yet there remained a
vague gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach--something missing or
unresolved. It eventually evolved into a desire to take piano lessons.
"My memory of the experience with Sister Mary Florentine formed the basis of
my expectations regarding lessons with Matt. For example, I naturally
expected some form of torture to be an integral part of each lesson...
"But even from the first lesson it was clear that Matt was no Sister Mary
Florentine. For example, during lessons he seated himself practically all the
way across the room, way beyond striking range. Some of Matt's idiosyncrasies
were a little confusing at first. Consider his seating arrangements-highly
varied and always interesting. When he conducted lessons while seated on a
medicine ball, I found myself occasionally wondering how he could throw the
medicine ball at me while he was seated on it. I feared there might be some trick.
My frame of reference did not permit me to imagine that he might simply be
trying to ease his back pain.
"I cannot say that any of his approaches was particularly effective for me,
but all of them together seemed to have considerable benefit. After two or
three years, I found myself actually focusing on the music. With Matt's
continued teaching ... I found myself playing at least elementary pieces with actual
enjoyment."
For Tom as the second-grader, getting right notes was not for the joy of the
sound, not for the joy of physical mastery, not for the joy of learning.
Getting right notes was to keep from being hurt. What he learned was not about
music but about self-preservation. What he learned was that some teachers are
mean and will hurt you. Here success is not about feeling good about
yourself; it's about being hit less.
Tom and I have been friends for at least ten years. I taught his daughter
piano for some time. I had known her from birth. We would all go Christmas
caroling every year together with other neighbors, then go back to their home for
Irish coffee. He knew the kind of person I am.
But this knowledge became irrelevant when Tom started taking lessons. What
Tom knew of me could not erase the terror of his earlier experience. The
history that was relevant was the horror of his earlier piano lessons. When I was
teaching Tom, I lost my identity to Sister Mary Florentine. It took Tom two
or three years to actually focus on the music. It took that much time to undo
the meanness of his earlier teacher.
The tragedy is that people who are abused come to identify with the abuser
and feel they should be abused; they deserve it. Compassion is hard to accept.
That's one of the reasons my adult students talk to themselves as they do.
You may now better understand why I say what I try to do for my young students
is to do no harm.
The yelling, hitting, and condescending nuances are all humiliating and
embarrassing. This humiliation seems to be a common part of everybody's
education. Everybody I've talked to about what I planned to say today has his or her
own set of examples. They usually haven't thought to ponder them, but rather,
regarded them as an assumption of the whole process. Everybody has
experienced this embarrassment. By high school the kids started doing the same thing to
each other. One outcome of this is anger-fear and anger. I want to return to
this in a minute but first there seems to be a special humiliation we
experienced as students.
That humiliation came from thinking we were right when we were wrong. The
teacher pulled the rug out from under us by telling us (and everybody else)
that we were wrong, that we didn't have a clue, missed the whole point, were
stupid or whatever. The implied corollary was "pride goeth before a fall." I
cannot get my adult students to say they played well. They think I'm going to
say their playing was awful. They think I'm trying to set them up for this
embarrassment. They think that because it's happened to them before.
Recently, I had a student confess to thinking she played a piece well for
me. There was something negative I wanted to point out so I knew I was in
trouble. I tried to head it off but I failed. I said five things that were
truthful and positive about her performance. I said one thing needed work. She never
heard the five good things, only the one bad.
Everything I feared came pouring out. I'd set her up; I'd embarrassed her; I
was just trying to show her how little she knew compared to me ... all of
it. What she said was that I was like all her other teachers, and having a
Ph.D., she'd had a lot of teachers. She was really angry with me and embarrassed
by her anger. But she was angry and we talked about it and the discussions
went on for probably three lessons. Neither one of us capitulated but each
clarified what we'd said and felt. Her anger freed something in her and her
playing became significantly better in the week that followed. I've had this
experience before. Release of anger at the teacher seems to free students to
invest themselves more fully. I don't fully understand this. Perhaps the
truthfulness of the anger and the teacher's acceptance of that anger allow the student
a deeper level of commitment.
My favorite story about anger at teachers is my own experience:
I took my one and only viola lesson a couple years ago with Rodger
Ellsworth, the son of the man who ran Ellsworth Studio over on Willow Lane. The
difference was the teacher was my friend. Rodger dropped in one evening after a
performance at the Kennedy Center asking if I wanted a viola lesson. I said, "Of
course not." In principle it was a fine idea but I had a thousand reasons
for not wanting to do it. Rodger persisted, saying it would be a good way to
know what my adult students felt like and other such reasonable nonsense. I
relented and took my first lesson. The result was not as I expected at all.
Tensely, I put the viola under my chin and the bow in hand. I started to
listen to his many instructions, some of which seemed contradictory to me. What
I didn't expect was I got really furious. I told him he didn't know how to
teach; that I was going to take this viola and smash it over his head and other
such violence. I was livid. Being the friend he was, Rodger was able to
accept all this, calmly.
When I finished my outburst and settled down I found I was drawing the bow
over the strings with an ease and firmness I had not imagined possible.
My outburst of anger apparently released my frustration at being in an
awkward situation, feeling out of control, and feeling inferior. Having discharged
that tension I was free to engage in the learning activity fully, without
distraction. Rodger was a friend. I knew I could be angry with him. Had I been
working with a regular teacher, there would have been no such outburst. I
would have been the usual polite student. I would have been stuck with my anger
and I would not have learned nearly as fast or as much. This is the position
of most students.
I encourage my young students to vent their anger at music, practicing, and
me. I let them know I am strong enough to take it and won't get mad at them
for telling me. When it happens, and it's not often, I don't take their anger
personally. I don't feel they're being rude or impudent. I know that to
really love something you have to have the freedom to sometimes hate it.
Another of my favorite stories is about Clare. This is an example of what I
learned about teaching children from teaching adults. I was ready and I
finally handled one of these situations right.
I was working with Clare, and it happened to be her 7th birthday. She was in
her second year of piano. Clare is fun, smart, honest, and polite. She
played her piece for me with the right hand playing one note higher than written.
Instead of "B" she started on "C," etc. Though it didn't sound quite right,
it didn't sound too bad either. Clare thought it sounded fine. I asked her to
play the right hand one note lower, i.e. the correct way, and she thought
that sounded weird. She played it again the wrong way and found it better. In
other words, she played wrong all week. Thinking she was right, she was pleased
with herself and her work.
I told Clare I hated to tell her but she played all the right-hand notes one
note too high. Clare was silent but her big brown eyes filled with tears. I
apologized and told her I felt it was important to be honest with her.
I asked her if she felt dumb and stupid and she said, "Sort of."
"Does it make you mad?"
"Sort of."
"Do you feel it in your body anywhere?"
"I don't know."
"Well, do you feel it in your chest or stomach?"
"Both."
"It hurts doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
Recently I asked Clare if I could tell this story in a talk I was giving.
She said sure but she didn't remember the incident. To Clare, it was not a
memorable event. That's exactly the way it should have been. Had I unleashed any
of those lines teachers are famous for like "How could you have made that
same stupid mistake all week long? Do you ever look at the notes?," I think
she'd have remembered. She was already embarrassed by her mistake and her
assumption of correctness. What I did was to "hold her hand" while she got in touch
with how really rotten it did feel, right into her chest and stomach. With
both of us accepting all these feelings she could then let go of them and we
could move on.
What I've learned from my adult students is how much our education hurts,
how much we all suffered to get where we are, and how much teachers'
remembrance of their own history makes them repeat it rather than correct it. What I've
learned is how rare is the consideration of students' feelings, not
withstanding some wonderful exceptions.
Most of all, I've learned the value of compassion in education, allowing the
students the space to learn and know all the diverse emotions involved in
learning. It's not dramatic; it's just kind. It doesn't call attention to
itself; it does no harm.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Ulrike Haupt
Hi friends and Kelly
Thank you for sending this wonderful article by Matthew Harre to the list.
As I was reading it I once more understood why my youngest cannot fit into
any school environment at all. His early years were spent in an environment
of 'unschooling' and never being told how to learn and what to learn and
when to learn what and how good or bad he was doing with anything he was
doing. So when he had his pre-school 'Kindergarten' experience it caught
him sideways that 'being good' meant doing what felt bad. And his short
school history just added to that.
This morning he asked me what is a rebel and what is a terrorist and what
would be the difference. I 'feel' that there is a great difference, but I
don't think I could really explain this to his satisfaction. Could you help
me, please.
Blessed be
Ulrike
Thank you for sending this wonderful article by Matthew Harre to the list.
As I was reading it I once more understood why my youngest cannot fit into
any school environment at all. His early years were spent in an environment
of 'unschooling' and never being told how to learn and what to learn and
when to learn what and how good or bad he was doing with anything he was
doing. So when he had his pre-school 'Kindergarten' experience it caught
him sideways that 'being good' meant doing what felt bad. And his short
school history just added to that.
This morning he asked me what is a rebel and what is a terrorist and what
would be the difference. I 'feel' that there is a great difference, but I
don't think I could really explain this to his satisfaction. Could you help
me, please.
Blessed be
Ulrike
----- Original Message -----
From: <kbcdlovejo@...>
To: <gillian@...>; <[email protected]>;
<[email protected]>; <[email protected]>;
<[email protected]>;
<[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 5:34 AM
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Matthew Harre: What I learned...
What I Learned About Teaching Children From Teaching Adults
Copyright ©1999 by Matthew Harre
I teach in a privileged environment. I meet one to one with my students. I
have no institution looking over my shoulder. I give no grades. I work with
a
constantly fluid situation that requires immediate assessment. As a result
I
can't plan too far ahead and have great flexibility. I have the opportunity
to get to know my students better than most teachers do.
What I've learned from my adult students is that the bruises they suffered
in their education as children and young adults interferes with their
learning
to play the piano much more than any problems of an aging mind or body.
What
I have learned to do for my students who are children is to try to do no
harm.
I don't mean that sweet goodie-goodie stuff, that everything's "all right"
when it's not. I hate that. It's dishonest and without integrity. It's
wrong.
I'm talking about making corrections with compassion. Letting students know
it's difficult being corrected, especially when they think they're right.
Letting them know that I know being wrong can be embarrassing and
humiliating.
Letting them know it's all right to be angry and hurt. Even letting them
know
I won't be angry with them for being angry with me.
I enjoy my adult students very much. I'm struck by their cautiousness,
carefulness, desire to be perfect, and their utter lack of charity towards
themselves. Where's the insatiable curiosity of infancy? Where's the
eagerness for
adventure? Where's the willingness to try new things? Where's the little
kid
who's willing to fall down over and over again in his desire to learn to
walk?
For virtually all my adult students, and myself, this has been somehow
knocked out of us.
How did we arrive at this state? I believe we got bruised in many small and
big ways at all levels of our education. People who teach can be
insensitive,
inconsiderate and, sometimes, even sadistic. Parents are our teachers, too,
and sometimes they can be the biggest problem.
If you'll permit me a few moments of gross over-simplifying, I'd like to
make some observations about our learning. Infants are insatiable in their
curiosity about the world. They do all kinds of things to find out what's
what.
Unfortunately, some are dangerous-like chewing on the electrical cord; some
are
inconvenient--like flushing their shoes down the toilet to see what
happens;
and some of their experiments just don't fit the timing or moods of the
powers that be. All these limitations reign in this unbridled curiosity. I
consider these bruises. They're little hurts that stopped us and began a
long
process that took our learning agenda out of our own hands. These limits on
our
curiosity may have been necessary from the adult perspective but not,
certainly,
from our perspective as a child.
It's not too long before we become curious about words and ideas. With this
curiosity comes the necessity of learning to read. What if you're
interested
in ideas but not interested in reading, or have difficulty reading? You're
in
trouble in our society.
When people go to school or take lessons they lose control of the agenda of
their curiosity. Teachers take over the subject and timing of learning. The
individual's curiosity no longer leads. In some places it counts for
nothing.
No matter who we are, how good or bad a student we are, the natural
instincts
of our own curiosity suffered many bruises.
In a real sense, the pleasures and rewards of satisfying our curiosity were
taken away from us. School is not about rewarding our own curiosity, it's
about learning what others want us to learn; it's about pleasing teachers.
If we
were successful in school the one thing we had to learn was to make
teachers
happy enough to give us good grades. We may or may not have learned things
interesting to us, but that wasn't the point. Successful students must
please
enough teachers to get enough good grades to continue in the process.
Then, having already lost the agenda and rewards of our own curiosity, we
come to believe that pleasing the teacher is the same as pleasing
ourselves. We
substitute learning how we want with learning the way that will make the
teacher happy. We think pleasing the teacher is the same as pleasing
ourselves.
It isn't. That's why so many straight "A" students are unfulfilled by their
accomplishment. They feel a void. They've become so adept at pleasing other
people that they forget they have a self that needs being pleased.
My adult students are educationally successful. Most have doctorates or law
degrees. Some appear regularly on TV. All are successful as we define that
concept. They have played the education game well enough to win some of the
top
prizes. They are all taking lessons because they want to; nobody is making
them do it. They pay for it themselves. Yet they all seem to want to please
me. Well ... I'm not a Ph.D. and I was not a particularly successful
student.
So why are all these brilliant people interested in pleasing me?
I must confess, it's been a gradually unfolding shock to me to realize how
crucial it is for them to make me happy. Fortunately or unfortunately, I
thought I was supposed to make them happy so they'd keep on hiring me and
I'd have
a job. I seemed to have missed the point entirely. I hadn't realized how
much power I had; how much power they gave me. If making the teacher happy
is
what it's all about, and I'm the teacher--it's my power trip.
For whatever reasons make me the person I am, I don't feel the need for
this
power trip. Certainly part of the reason has to do with the teachers I had,
at least in music. I teach because I want to be part of the mix of the
world
of music and the world of my individual student's mind. It is a fascinating
place to be. I don't feel the need to control or force the outcome. I do
want
my students to be pleased with their work in music.
You would not believe how difficult it is to get adult students to be
pleased with their work. It wasn't until I started listening to them talk
to
themselves that I really began to realize how much their past education had
taken
from them. When they make mistakes they say things like: "That was stupid,"
"What are you thinking of?" or "Oh, my God." The condescension in their
voices
is impressive. They are not talking to themselves with their own voices;
they
are talking to themselves with the voices of past teachers and parents.
Ponder the enormity of this. They have become their own attackers. When did
they
abandon themselves and join the accusers? Who is left to defend them?
One of my adult students was playing for me and playing well, with feeling.
I was enjoying her playing. All of a sudden she yelled, "No, no that's not
right!" I was startled. I hadn't even heard the mistake. Less than a minute
later the same thing happened. Again I was startled but also annoyed. I was
enjoying her playing and concentrating on it-when this scream interrupted.
When
it happened a third time I was angry. I stopped her and said, "You keep
getting me involved in your playing and then scare me with your screaming.
What are
you doing?" "Sorry, sorry, sorry," she said, "I'll stop. I didn't realize I
was bothering you."
She apologized for bothering me. Adults apologize to teachers a lot. What I
realized, and what we talked about, was that what I felt must have been how
she felt when she was playing for her teacher as a child. She'd be intently
involved in her music-making when the teacher would yell and scare her. In
the
present case, I was the teacher. I could get annoyed and tell her to quit.
But when it happened to her, she was the child and the student. If she'd
reacted to her teacher as I reacted to her, she would have been called rude
and
impudent and this particular teacher would have hit her. I've seen this
woman
make a mistake and cover her head to ward off the impending blow.
How can a person be totally involved in their learning if they are waiting
for someone to yell at them or hit them? A part of them must always be
watching and waiting for the interruption or attack. I don't yell at my
students,
young or old.
The final irony of this sad tale is that the woman was her teacher's best
student. She was working on Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata at the age of 12.
Her
teacher had never had such a gifted student. Why did she feel the need to
treat her student this way? People do not understand that being a teacher's
best student can bring with it a number of disadvantages. Educational
problems
are always assumed to be the domain of lesser students, but there is a
whole
raft of problems the really good students experience. Teachers push them
too
fast and too far, beyond what they can really experience. Teachers become
possessive of the student and the student's accomplishment. Teachers
over-identify with their best students, especially if the former don't have
a fulfilling
life of their own. Actually, this subject is a whole other talk.
The woman I'm talking about is not an educational failure. She has her
Ph.D.
and was president of a small Midwestern college for several years before
taking lessons with me. She has achieved much in educational circles
including
power over teachers. Clearly this accomplishment has done nothing to erase
the
impact of her childhood piano teacher. The power of this early experience
is
tenacious. It will take time and work to move beyond the experience.
Another example of the tenaciousness of this kind of abuse was told by
another adult student of mine at the 10th anniversary celebration of the
Adult
Music Student Forum. Tom read the following: "The man you see before you
now is
approaching his sixties. And yet, he can remember with stark clarity the
severe brutalization that he endured for nearly a full year when he was a
mere
slip of a lad in his second year of elementary school. This torture he
suffered
at the hands of none other than his piano teacher, one Sister Mary
Florentine.
"Sister Mary Florentine's most notable trait as a music teacher was a truly
remarkable intolerance for wrong notes. To say she was a stickler for
perfection just doesn't fully capture it. During lessons she would usually
stand
behind and a little to the right of the student, gently cradling her weapon
of
choice. That, of course, was the standard issue twelve-inch wooden ruler
with
the embedded brass straightedge. She would position herself
strategically-just beyond the student's range of peripheral vision and just
within striking
distance of the keyboard.
"Imagine yourself in this tableau-a young innocent boy, hands poised just
above the keyboard with its hundreds of nicks and notches reflecting
decades of
wrong notes, each quickly followed by errant ruler strikes or ricochets.
Imagine the strikes that found their intended targets. Imagine yourself
playing
The Blue Danube Waltz in that situation.
"Now fast forward about forty years. My family and career were by now well
established. My life was on course and cruising along. Yet there remained a
vague gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach--something missing or
unresolved. It eventually evolved into a desire to take piano lessons.
"My memory of the experience with Sister Mary Florentine formed the basis
of
my expectations regarding lessons with Matt. For example, I naturally
expected some form of torture to be an integral part of each lesson...
"But even from the first lesson it was clear that Matt was no Sister Mary
Florentine. For example, during lessons he seated himself practically all
the
way across the room, way beyond striking range. Some of Matt's
idiosyncrasies
were a little confusing at first. Consider his seating arrangements-highly
varied and always interesting. When he conducted lessons while seated on a
medicine ball, I found myself occasionally wondering how he could throw the
medicine ball at me while he was seated on it. I feared there might be some
trick.
My frame of reference did not permit me to imagine that he might simply be
trying to ease his back pain.
"I cannot say that any of his approaches was particularly effective for me,
but all of them together seemed to have considerable benefit. After two or
three years, I found myself actually focusing on the music. With Matt's
continued teaching ... I found myself playing at least elementary pieces
with actual
enjoyment."
For Tom as the second-grader, getting right notes was not for the joy of
the
sound, not for the joy of physical mastery, not for the joy of learning.
Getting right notes was to keep from being hurt. What he learned was not
about
music but about self-preservation. What he learned was that some teachers
are
mean and will hurt you. Here success is not about feeling good about
yourself; it's about being hit less.
Tom and I have been friends for at least ten years. I taught his daughter
piano for some time. I had known her from birth. We would all go Christmas
caroling every year together with other neighbors, then go back to their
home for
Irish coffee. He knew the kind of person I am.
But this knowledge became irrelevant when Tom started taking lessons. What
Tom knew of me could not erase the terror of his earlier experience. The
history that was relevant was the horror of his earlier piano lessons. When
I was
teaching Tom, I lost my identity to Sister Mary Florentine. It took Tom two
or three years to actually focus on the music. It took that much time to
undo
the meanness of his earlier teacher.
The tragedy is that people who are abused come to identify with the abuser
and feel they should be abused; they deserve it. Compassion is hard to
accept.
That's one of the reasons my adult students talk to themselves as they do.
You may now better understand why I say what I try to do for my young
students
is to do no harm.
The yelling, hitting, and condescending nuances are all humiliating and
embarrassing. This humiliation seems to be a common part of everybody's
education. Everybody I've talked to about what I planned to say today has
his or her
own set of examples. They usually haven't thought to ponder them, but
rather,
regarded them as an assumption of the whole process. Everybody has
experienced this embarrassment. By high school the kids started doing the
same thing to
each other. One outcome of this is anger-fear and anger. I want to return
to
this in a minute but first there seems to be a special humiliation we
experienced as students.
That humiliation came from thinking we were right when we were wrong. The
teacher pulled the rug out from under us by telling us (and everybody else)
that we were wrong, that we didn't have a clue, missed the whole point,
were
stupid or whatever. The implied corollary was "pride goeth before a fall."
I
cannot get my adult students to say they played well. They think I'm going
to
say their playing was awful. They think I'm trying to set them up for this
embarrassment. They think that because it's happened to them before.
Recently, I had a student confess to thinking she played a piece well for
me. There was something negative I wanted to point out so I knew I was in
trouble. I tried to head it off but I failed. I said five things that were
truthful and positive about her performance. I said one thing needed work.
She never
heard the five good things, only the one bad.
Everything I feared came pouring out. I'd set her up; I'd embarrassed her;
I
was just trying to show her how little she knew compared to me ... all of
it. What she said was that I was like all her other teachers, and having a
Ph.D., she'd had a lot of teachers. She was really angry with me and
embarrassed
by her anger. But she was angry and we talked about it and the discussions
went on for probably three lessons. Neither one of us capitulated but each
clarified what we'd said and felt. Her anger freed something in her and her
playing became significantly better in the week that followed. I've had this
experience before. Release of anger at the teacher seems to free students to
invest themselves more fully. I don't fully understand this. Perhaps the
truthfulness of the anger and the teacher's acceptance of that anger allow
the student
a deeper level of commitment.
My favorite story about anger at teachers is my own experience:
I took my one and only viola lesson a couple years ago with Rodger
Ellsworth, the son of the man who ran Ellsworth Studio over on Willow Lane.
The
difference was the teacher was my friend. Rodger dropped in one evening
after a
performance at the Kennedy Center asking if I wanted a viola lesson. I
said, "Of
course not." In principle it was a fine idea but I had a thousand reasons
for not wanting to do it. Rodger persisted, saying it would be a good way
to
know what my adult students felt like and other such reasonable nonsense. I
relented and took my first lesson. The result was not as I expected at all.
Tensely, I put the viola under my chin and the bow in hand. I started to
listen to his many instructions, some of which seemed contradictory to me.
What
I didn't expect was I got really furious. I told him he didn't know how to
teach; that I was going to take this viola and smash it over his head and
other
such violence. I was livid. Being the friend he was, Rodger was able to
accept all this, calmly.
When I finished my outburst and settled down I found I was drawing the bow
over the strings with an ease and firmness I had not imagined possible.
My outburst of anger apparently released my frustration at being in an
awkward situation, feeling out of control, and feeling inferior. Having
discharged
that tension I was free to engage in the learning activity fully, without
distraction. Rodger was a friend. I knew I could be angry with him. Had I
been
working with a regular teacher, there would have been no such outburst. I
would have been the usual polite student. I would have been stuck with my
anger
and I would not have learned nearly as fast or as much. This is the position
of most students.
I encourage my young students to vent their anger at music, practicing, and
me. I let them know I am strong enough to take it and won't get mad at them
for telling me. When it happens, and it's not often, I don't take their
anger
personally. I don't feel they're being rude or impudent. I know that to
really love something you have to have the freedom to sometimes hate it.
Another of my favorite stories is about Clare. This is an example of what I
learned about teaching children from teaching adults. I was ready and I
finally handled one of these situations right.
I was working with Clare, and it happened to be her 7th birthday. She was
in
her second year of piano. Clare is fun, smart, honest, and polite. She
played her piece for me with the right hand playing one note higher than
written.
Instead of "B" she started on "C," etc. Though it didn't sound quite right,
it didn't sound too bad either. Clare thought it sounded fine. I asked her
to
play the right hand one note lower, i.e. the correct way, and she thought
that sounded weird. She played it again the wrong way and found it better.
In
other words, she played wrong all week. Thinking she was right, she was
pleased
with herself and her work.
I told Clare I hated to tell her but she played all the right-hand notes
one
note too high. Clare was silent but her big brown eyes filled with tears. I
apologized and told her I felt it was important to be honest with her.
I asked her if she felt dumb and stupid and she said, "Sort of."
"Does it make you mad?"
"Sort of."
"Do you feel it in your body anywhere?"
"I don't know."
"Well, do you feel it in your chest or stomach?"
"Both."
"It hurts doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
Recently I asked Clare if I could tell this story in a talk I was giving.
She said sure but she didn't remember the incident. To Clare, it was not a
memorable event. That's exactly the way it should have been. Had I
unleashed any
of those lines teachers are famous for like "How could you have made that
same stupid mistake all week long? Do you ever look at the notes?," I think
she'd have remembered. She was already embarrassed by her mistake and her
assumption of correctness. What I did was to "hold her hand" while she got
in touch
with how really rotten it did feel, right into her chest and stomach. With
both of us accepting all these feelings she could then let go of them and we
could move on.
What I've learned from my adult students is how much our education hurts,
how much we all suffered to get where we are, and how much teachers'
remembrance of their own history makes them repeat it rather than correct
it. What I've
learned is how rare is the consideration of students' feelings, not
withstanding some wonderful exceptions.
Most of all, I've learned the value of compassion in education, allowing
the
students the space to learn and know all the diverse emotions involved in
learning. It's not dramatic; it's just kind. It doesn't call attention to
itself; it does no harm.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Yahoo! Groups Links
Lanie Carlson-Lim
Ulrike,
I guess my definitions would be a rebel is someone who stands up for what they believe, no matter what popular opinion is...they follow their path regardless...they may fight for their beliefs if necessary...I would say violence is not always used, but can be to defend ones position when attacked...there are many I would consider "rebels" who were peaceful
A terrorist would be someone who uses terror and violence to get what they want or have their beliefs dominate...terror is the tool for getting their way...violence is used as power, not as a defense
these are just my personal definitions, not from a dictionary
Lanie
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I guess my definitions would be a rebel is someone who stands up for what they believe, no matter what popular opinion is...they follow their path regardless...they may fight for their beliefs if necessary...I would say violence is not always used, but can be to defend ones position when attacked...there are many I would consider "rebels" who were peaceful
A terrorist would be someone who uses terror and violence to get what they want or have their beliefs dominate...terror is the tool for getting their way...violence is used as power, not as a defense
these are just my personal definitions, not from a dictionary
Lanie
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Jon and Rue Kream
>>Adults apologize to teachers a lot.**I did a one on one class in jewelry making at the local pottery studio a
while ago. The woman was obviously very interested in making jewelry. She
came with all sorts of beads and tools even though they were provided as
part of the class. Jon, Rowan, and Dagny were at the next table working on
pottery, and my kids were blown away by this woman. She spent the entire
two hours saying things like, "I'm sorry." "This must be driving you crazy."
'You're so patient." She seemed to think she should be able to do what I
was doing right away - almost without my having to show her at all. I
talked about how long it took me, and the mistakes I made (and still make
sometimes), but it didn't seem to make any difference.
At the end of it Dagny said she didn't think the woman had learned anything.
She was too worried about my reaction to what she was doing to take in any
of what I showed her. ~Rue
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Valerie
We substitute learning how we want with learning the way that will
make the teacher happy. We think pleasing the teacher is the same as
pleasing ourselves. It isn't. That's why so many straight "A"
students are unfulfilled by their accomplishment. They feel a void.
They've become so adept at pleasing other people that they forget
they have a self that needs being pleased. My adult students are
educationally successful. Most have doctorates or law degrees. Some
appear regularly on TV. All are successful as we define that
concept. They have played the education game well enough to win
some of the top prizes. They are all taking lessons because they
want to; nobody is making them do it. They pay for it themselves.
Yet they all seem to want to please me.
***** I finally got around to reading this article and it really hit
a chord with me about Laurie's college education. She did NOT care
about pleasing the professors. In fact, she debated with them
regularly. She had no problem telling them when she thought they
were wrong. She did it politely, but she had no motivation to sit
there and reverently take the professor god's word as gospel. She
didn't care if they liked her; she spoke her mind. Because of her
outspoken radical self, she did become really good friends with the
professors that I thought were stronger people than some of the
others. They wanted to be challenged and enjoyed having Laurie in
their classes. She kept it interesting and kept them on her toes.
Several times Laurie was asked to teach their classes when they had
car trouble or laryngitis. The weaker professors were intimidated
and angered by her comments. <g> But, I digress.
Laurie does please the professors, but only because they are pleased
to have a student who actually loves learning. She has essays on her
computer that she wrote about class topics just for her own sake. No
one, but me, has ever seen them. She'll take what she learns in
class and run with it.
Thank you, Kelly, (I think) for posting this. It really hits home
with why Laurie loves college so much; she's doing it for herself
and not to please anyone else.
love, Valerie
www.ubpub.com
make the teacher happy. We think pleasing the teacher is the same as
pleasing ourselves. It isn't. That's why so many straight "A"
students are unfulfilled by their accomplishment. They feel a void.
They've become so adept at pleasing other people that they forget
they have a self that needs being pleased. My adult students are
educationally successful. Most have doctorates or law degrees. Some
appear regularly on TV. All are successful as we define that
concept. They have played the education game well enough to win
some of the top prizes. They are all taking lessons because they
want to; nobody is making them do it. They pay for it themselves.
Yet they all seem to want to please me.
***** I finally got around to reading this article and it really hit
a chord with me about Laurie's college education. She did NOT care
about pleasing the professors. In fact, she debated with them
regularly. She had no problem telling them when she thought they
were wrong. She did it politely, but she had no motivation to sit
there and reverently take the professor god's word as gospel. She
didn't care if they liked her; she spoke her mind. Because of her
outspoken radical self, she did become really good friends with the
professors that I thought were stronger people than some of the
others. They wanted to be challenged and enjoyed having Laurie in
their classes. She kept it interesting and kept them on her toes.
Several times Laurie was asked to teach their classes when they had
car trouble or laryngitis. The weaker professors were intimidated
and angered by her comments. <g> But, I digress.
Laurie does please the professors, but only because they are pleased
to have a student who actually loves learning. She has essays on her
computer that she wrote about class topics just for her own sake. No
one, but me, has ever seen them. She'll take what she learns in
class and run with it.
Thank you, Kelly, (I think) for posting this. It really hits home
with why Laurie loves college so much; she's doing it for herself
and not to please anyone else.
love, Valerie
www.ubpub.com
[email protected]
In a message dated 8/18/2004 11:31:13 AM Central Daylight Time,
valerie@... writes:
im not sure ,if my inlaws are intimidated my me,,or just figure im the
resident,B----h,...but.,yesterday,,my ,hubby ,who has bipolar ,,helped empty out his
76 yr.old moms garage ,,he and his brother,,that lives there,,,,i came by
,with our two younger kids,,after the unschool group get together that is every
wednesday,,.maybe 2 blocks away from her house..
anyway,,,nothing was said ,,,untill,,,,,i left to go home and take care of
two new born kittens,,and dad,kids,and inlaws went to CI_CI's for dinner,,
his brother asks my soon to be 15 yr.old ,,son,what 1/8th of a ton was ,,heck
i dont even know right off the top of my head,,nor,,,do i care,,neither did
my husband,anyway,,,his brother also goes and tells my son that tthere were
some teenagers in the game room,,for him to go talk to them,..,my son told him he
didnt need his help,,,he has'nt,ever been hugely extrovert..but he does
manage
fine with kids his age,,so,,im not worried about it.....
neither his brother,,or mom,, will not start anything with or around
me,only around..the kids,and, hubby,,and last nite he was tired,,and the mental
crap doesnt help him any,,,he's better,but it still is exausting sometimes,,soo
question is.........
what would be a good way to handle this???
personally,,i think,,it shows they have issues ,,,i just dont want to have to
deal with their crap,,,nor them harrass the kids,,,geezzs it has gotten to a
point my older two kids wont stay at their grandmothers house,,,if they had to
because of how she downs everything,,,,,,,i dont feel the kids should be
harrassed because thier grandmother and uncle dont have enough guts as to come to
be with it
any ideas.....
thanks>>June
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valerie@... writes:
> Thank you, Kelly, (I think) for posting this. It really hits homevalerie,,id like to get your opinion/insight.....
> with why Laurie loves college so much; she's doing it for herself
> and not to please anyone else.
>
> love, Valerie
> www.ubpub.com
>
>
>
im not sure ,if my inlaws are intimidated my me,,or just figure im the
resident,B----h,...but.,yesterday,,my ,hubby ,who has bipolar ,,helped empty out his
76 yr.old moms garage ,,he and his brother,,that lives there,,,,i came by
,with our two younger kids,,after the unschool group get together that is every
wednesday,,.maybe 2 blocks away from her house..
anyway,,,nothing was said ,,,untill,,,,,i left to go home and take care of
two new born kittens,,and dad,kids,and inlaws went to CI_CI's for dinner,,
his brother asks my soon to be 15 yr.old ,,son,what 1/8th of a ton was ,,heck
i dont even know right off the top of my head,,nor,,,do i care,,neither did
my husband,anyway,,,his brother also goes and tells my son that tthere were
some teenagers in the game room,,for him to go talk to them,..,my son told him he
didnt need his help,,,he has'nt,ever been hugely extrovert..but he does
manage
fine with kids his age,,so,,im not worried about it.....
neither his brother,,or mom,, will not start anything with or around
me,only around..the kids,and, hubby,,and last nite he was tired,,and the mental
crap doesnt help him any,,,he's better,but it still is exausting sometimes,,soo
question is.........
what would be a good way to handle this???
personally,,i think,,it shows they have issues ,,,i just dont want to have to
deal with their crap,,,nor them harrass the kids,,,geezzs it has gotten to a
point my older two kids wont stay at their grandmothers house,,,if they had to
because of how she downs everything,,,,,,,i dont feel the kids should be
harrassed because thier grandmother and uncle dont have enough guts as to come to
be with it
any ideas.....
thanks>>June
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Valerie
> question is.........what would be a good way to handle this???to have to deal with their crap,,,nor them harrass the kids,,,geezzs
> personally,,i think,,it shows they have issues ,,,i just dont want
it has gotten to a point my older two kids wont stay at their
grandmothers house,,,if they had to because of how she downs
everything,,,,,,,i dont feel the kids should be harrassed because
thier grandmother and uncle dont have enough guts as to come to
> be with itHi June. Hopefully I'll meet you in Pensacola in November? :-)
> any ideas.....
> thanks>>June
Ah, the grandparents and other relatives. They always know what's
best for our kids, don't they?
Laurie's grandparents and other relatives questioned her too, but
they loved doing it in front of me to make a point (that Laurie was
not learning what THEY thought she should). A school teacher aunt
once asked young Laurie a schoolish question and Laurie told her
that she wasn't interested in that right now. It took my aunt by
surprise. She expected Laurie to stammer and stutter and say that
she didn't know. She expected Laurie to be intimidated. The
word "intimidated" wasn't in Laurie's dictionary. <g>
One thing I notice is that the older generation questions ALL
children about what they know, not just the unschoolers. When they
question them, they seem to purposefully avoid questions about what
the children are interested in. They want to broaden their horizons
maybe? Dad used to question Laurie about science and cosmology. He'd
question me about quantum physics - that didn't take long.
My parents have ostracized all of their grandchildren, not just
Laurie. They disapprove of anything done differently from the way
they do/did it. Laurie graduating summa cum laude means nothing to
them; the fact that her eyebrow was pierced in her graduation
picture meant that pic went straight to the bottom drawer and won't
ever be displayed with the other family pics.
When relatives started testing Laurie, I watched her to see if she
wanted to deal with it. She knew that if she gave me "the look," I
would step in and tell the tester (if it was a stranger) that what
Laurie knows is Laurie's business and no one elses. If it was a
relative that I like and see regularly, I would start a conversation
around the question. For instance, "How much is 1/8 ton?" I'd
say, "Wow, do people really weigh things like that? I'd think if you
got down to 1/8 of a ton, you'd use pounds, unless you're an
elephant." My interruption would take them offguard, but if they
said they were directing the question to Laurie, I'd say, "I'm sure
you could find the answer online if you don't know it." (a PERFECT
line for nosy testers, no matter what the topic is). I'd keep on
them until my point was made.
If it was a relative that I REALLY liked, then I would explain to
them the concept of unschooling, not testing, natural learning, etc
until they were ready to run screaming from the room. Those same
relatives haven't acknowledged my book. lol
Your son handled it well, by telling his uncle that he didn't need
his help. Maybe you could talk to the uncle and grandparents and
explain to them that you will not allow them to test your son. Tell
them that it upsets your husband and that he doesn't need that kind
of stress. If they choose to ignore you, then it's up to you and
your children as to whether or not they visit there again. Laurie
doesn't go to my parents anymore, and my visits are short and
infrequent. I don't need the stress either.
You can't change the testers, but you can tell them how you feel and
not allow them to test your kids. You might be afraid of causing
tension, but the tension is already there. They're causing it and
they should have to deal with it. Your children are doing nothing
wrong and the testers are making them (or attempting to make them)
feel stupid.
I've had peers tell me that I need to put aside my disappointment
with the attitude of my parents; stop being angry with them for
their beliefs because they are old, etc. Well, I'm not angry with
them; it was only hurting me. I'm disappointed in them, but I keep
it to myself around them. I bite my tongue ALOT around them. They
know nothing about me or Laurie and that's how they like it. We
visit and discuss whatever they want to discuss (and it's NEVER
about unschooling, my book or anything real). Tempers stay low and I
leave asap. I hug them, tell them I love them and do my head-shaking
after I'm out of sight. It's easier to do now that Laurie is an
adult and they can see she's doing quite well in life.
It's okay for you to stand up for your kids against their relatives.
It's okay for you to protect them from nosy testers. Practice what
you'll say to them and try to remain calm while saying it. The
calmer you can stay, the more light-hearted you can be and the more
confidence you can exude in a mature voice...the more seriously you
will be taken. If your children can respond to their questions with
a sense of humor and say "I'm sure you can find that online if you
don't know the answer," it'll be easier for the kids. If the
children get angry with the questions, then the testers will win.
The main reason they're testing is to prove that unschooling
doesn't "work." Your son getting angry would prove that to THEM. For
some reason adults enjoy making teens angry. Sadistic (*@&#$)*&#%(
Give your kids some ammo. Tell them not to let the testers
intimidate them. When Laurie was in her late teens and my parents
would test her, she'd just laugh and walk away shaking her head.
They eventually quit asking. Now when they ask her something, she
responds with such a large vocabulary that my mom just looks
confused. She can't understand what Laurie's saying. I promise, I
don't laugh aloud. <g> I once saw my Dad consult his dictionary
after he talked to Laurie. I have a feeling he was trying to prove
her wrong, but she wasn't. (more silent giggles from me) God, I'm a
snobby sort at times.
I hope I helped. I fear I rambled.
love, Valerie
www.ubpub.com
Michelle
Is there something going on this November in Pensacola that I dont know about? I can not make it to the Live and Learn, but Pensacola is close to me.
Michelle in Florida
Valerie <valerie@...> wrote:
Hi June. Hopefully I'll meet you in Pensacola in November? :-)
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Michelle in Florida
Valerie <valerie@...> wrote:
Hi June. Hopefully I'll meet you in Pensacola in November? :-)
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Valerie
Yes. I'll be there speaking to the Pensacola Unschoolers on Nov 8th.
Ren will have more details than I do. I'll just show up and ramble.
<g>
love, Valerie
www.ubpub.com
--- In [email protected], Michelle
<mamatoethan1@y...> wrote:
is close to me.
Ren will have more details than I do. I'll just show up and ramble.
<g>
love, Valerie
www.ubpub.com
--- In [email protected], Michelle
<mamatoethan1@y...> wrote:
> Is there something going on this November in Pensacola that I dontknow about? I can not make it to the Live and Learn, but Pensacola
is close to me.
>
> Michelle in Florida
>
> Valerie <valerie@u...> wrote:
>
> Hi June. Hopefully I'll meet you in Pensacola in November? :-)
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected]
In a message dated 8/19/2004 5:33:42 PM Central Daylight Time,
valerie@... writes:
know..ive met other of my inlaws,,,but these two are a couple of works of art!!
neither are ''bad'',,,just thinning onthe nerves,,
neither want to confront me ,,and honestly i'm glad,,,i dont need the
crap,,,i have wonderful kids,,,and as they grow up,,,and out of some of the screwie
advice i took over the years,,i find moreand more how awesome they are,,,my 2nd
oldest got a tatoo,a week before he turned 18,,,he thought it was cool i
signed for himto do it,,paid for it a watched,,it,,,,he told his uncle and all he
said was dont tell grandma..!!..lol,,,
since going through alot of tramatic things ,,mostly the sudden death of my
mom and sis,,,ive most likely been dinner conversation morethan once,,6 ear
piercings and micro-short,blonde hair,,,,,
oh,,and one thing they wont even touch,,,my sister was very supportive when
she was alive,,that gives me huge encouragement even though she's not here in
body..and looking back i was so preoccupied at that time,,hubby just
diagnosed,,mom passing away,,working full time ,,,i stayed soo tired,,i dont feel like
i gave it a good try,,but i also was tryingto have ''school at
home'',,,''ren'' and i both know a woman,,very sweet ,,but she seriously does the whole
school thing at home,,,,wild,,,not for me ,,,,
anyway,,,i plan on being there in november..
thankis hun,,,makes me feel better,just knowing im not the only one with
inlaw,issues...
thanks again....>>love,,June
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valerie@... writes:
>thanks and no,,,you wasnt really rambling,,it just confirmed what i already
> I hope I helped. I fear I rambled.
>
> love, Valerie
> www.ubpub.com
>
>
know..ive met other of my inlaws,,,but these two are a couple of works of art!!
neither are ''bad'',,,just thinning onthe nerves,,
neither want to confront me ,,and honestly i'm glad,,,i dont need the
crap,,,i have wonderful kids,,,and as they grow up,,,and out of some of the screwie
advice i took over the years,,i find moreand more how awesome they are,,,my 2nd
oldest got a tatoo,a week before he turned 18,,,he thought it was cool i
signed for himto do it,,paid for it a watched,,it,,,,he told his uncle and all he
said was dont tell grandma..!!..lol,,,
since going through alot of tramatic things ,,mostly the sudden death of my
mom and sis,,,ive most likely been dinner conversation morethan once,,6 ear
piercings and micro-short,blonde hair,,,,,
oh,,and one thing they wont even touch,,,my sister was very supportive when
she was alive,,that gives me huge encouragement even though she's not here in
body..and looking back i was so preoccupied at that time,,hubby just
diagnosed,,mom passing away,,working full time ,,,i stayed soo tired,,i dont feel like
i gave it a good try,,but i also was tryingto have ''school at
home'',,,''ren'' and i both know a woman,,very sweet ,,but she seriously does the whole
school thing at home,,,,wild,,,not for me ,,,,
anyway,,,i plan on being there in november..
thankis hun,,,makes me feel better,just knowing im not the only one with
inlaw,issues...
thanks again....>>love,,June
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