Sine Wave.

As I was dissecting, "Not Ready to Make Nice" for Week 2 of the music module, I discovered that the song, as in the case of most pop hits, has a certain distinct "wave" to its' "sonorous image."
The Dixie Chicks' piece begins with minimal instrumentation and dynamic, and we feel it smoothly growing- in energy, texture, and tone color. A certain height is achieved, it invites our greatest free imagination as listeners, and then we are released from its' catch, brought back down to the baseline or below it, in order to reflect on our emotions and truths.
I aspire to use the same "sonorous" energy, carried in a sine wave, as a way to inform my instruction in the classroom. For me, the idea is to begin a lesson with a catchy hook that encompasses review and a connection to the new, as we gather participants that hold "attention" and "expectancy."
We begin our journey up the curve, moving towards new energy and relevant ideas. I use smooth transitions, like the logical addition of the upbeat on a snare drum. I allow time, and I design optimally challenging work with full examples and supports for the children. Harmony enters just as a teacher would design independent, parallel tasks within a lesson. We are locking in. I'm relaxed, smiling, full of wit and light (L. Bernstein.) Tiny grace notes ride atop a conducted time signature and make for a lively piece, a "capriccio." Tasks that hold meaning and novelty enter as points on the curve.
The peak of our curve is full exploration. Freedom in our imaginations; cooperative, productive efforts and shared authority in our classroom relationships! Choice and time are given- a fair wavelength is set. We then travel down the other side of our sine wave; it holds private evaluation for understanding, recognition, reflection and thoughts on improvement. Mistakes are okay. A glimpse of tomorrow, a preview for everyone- more points on the curve. A tempo. Down at our baseline, we are filled inside and out as "gifted listeners." We've lent ourselves to the enjoyment and understanding of the "music" we've made.
Like Copland recognizing the truth in abstract art, when the beautiful sine wave takes shape in my classroom, it's "somewhat of a minor miracle, and each time it happens I remain slightly incredulous." Gasp!

The Hook.

If "the hook" is the musical phrase that grabs you from the outset, can we find "hooks" that inform instruction in our classrooms? Perhaps catch a student with an opening statement or question that ignites a flame, the same way a listener of music is caught and feels the hook in a musical piece? A way to present a task or new idea so that a student is looking "around the corner" for what is coming next?

I began a 1st grade word study unit (on the "ack" phonogram) by sitting on our carpet circle with the children, smiling, crouching smaller and whispering, "Good morning, word detectives! Today we are going to look for clues..." They looked up. No one could stand to miss what was to come next. It was a catchy phrase and it stood out. I saw the energy grow as they wondered what was next, and how they'd take on the work of detectives.

But perhaps it was the whisper, or the close circle? Non-verbal cues. Maybe like a great hook, we don't need lyrics.

To take the analogical connection even further, what if "the hook" is the probing (or detective work!) that a great teacher or parent can do with a child, to find what it is within that child, that you can support or accommodate, in trying to find the hook for say early literacy? The hooking process is a fluid one, requiring detailed and nuanced changes to even possibly ever consider breaking through. We chip away at it, we change the environment and the hook is contextual, but it can be found through great teaching!

Eisner's "forms."

(Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

This photograph halts me. I can't go anywhere, but further inside the piece. I'm transformed, and forever more, my life has changed. I'm in Central Park. It's 12/11/80. It's hard to believe that the shot wasn't staged, but if it were, it would be half as "forming." Do you feel the particular "quality of life generated by this form" when you encounter it?

I didn't get to mention "tension" in photography in my Eisner FB post. Tension here can be found in multiple "forms," but let's just look at one; capturing raw human emotion. Each of the players in the image, add to a collective, a sum, that informs me. I don't really have words for the young man's face, nor the facial expression on the older woman, and what about the half face in pain, with her angular bone structure, set between the two main subjects and placed in the top third of the image? They are teaching me about their experience, giving me a quality of life, a meaning, a coherence, a competence, only possible through the use of "form."

Is there an "imaginative bridge" for me here? Well, I would like to work with the form of "tension" in my classroom management. I wonder if my use of "silence" adds tension, as I wait for students to settle? Do my non-verbal cues add tension? Should I strum a dissonant chord every so often? Will a form of tension halt the kids, the way it stopped me in my tracks? Will it collect the kids, the way I was collected and informed?

Architect's Toolbox: Light.

In the introduction to Home By Design, Sarah Susanka discusses the "reflecting surfaces" principle whereby architects employ the technique of placing a window adjacent to a perpendicular wall, in order to light up an entire space. What if we look at "perpendiculars" within our classroom content? Would bringing in more "intersections" help illuminate concepts for our youth? A music teacher might teach her students to sing in "rounds" where parts intersect, yet fully layer and enhance a piece. A more advanced musician would be taught fugues, where voices intersect and weave through one another, sometimes at a full perpendiculars. These perpendiculars "flood" the music with richness, the way an architectural space would be "flooded" with light, each transforming the experience into a "work of art."

Architect's Toolbox: Space.

"It's not so much the height that makes it interesting as the variation in height and the scale of each space in relation to other spaces and to its inhabitants," (Susanka, A New Design Language.) As ceiling height variety and differentiation of spaces add spatial interest to the "art of dwelling," the range of student "ceiling heights" in their varied perspectives, cultures and learning styles make for inspirational and engaging classrooms within the "art of teaching." If we celebrate variety in "heights," we may begin to better understand the connections between us - between all our individual "spaces."

Looking into a larger space.

Residential architect, Sarah Susanka, had very poignant ideas about how we physiologically feel in different spaces. One that jumped out at me as an endpoint for an "imaginative bridge" came from the following quote: "Cozy corners-- often unplanned, leftover spaces-- are our favorite spots. It's enjoyable to be able to look into a larger space, but many people prefer the view form the periphery- from a comfortable alcove, for example."

Spaces that feel the best to people are small "nooks" where we can "find our footing," and feel settled or stable. This becomes a starting point that has some familiarity, intimacy or "coziness" to it, before we look in at the larger space, or the bigger, more challenging "expression."

My analogical connection to the classroom lies in "education for understanding." When we talk about "education for understanding," we talk about a deep understanding of a concept. To begin to study a concept, one cannot take on the large picture right out of the gates. It's too overwhelming. So, a better approach might be to take on a "peripheral" perspective, to grab an interesting slice of that complex idea, and go deep- viewing it from a point of view that holds some separation, shelter, FEELS comfortable, becomes "shaped" and "tailored" with interest and relevance to a student, yet offers the view into the "main room." For example, the study of "what is beautiful?" is a big, big idea, a "massive activity place," so Howard Gardner asks us to look at it from a peripheral place, a comfortable and manageable "interior view" via "The Marriage of Figaro" which becomes our "cardboard box" through which to discuss "the connecting view" to Beauty (H. Gardner, The Disciplined Mind.) The "art of dwelling" and the "art of teaching" have many different alcoves that inform the quality of the levels of feeling and understanding of the big principles.

Perussion.

I love the title of the Paul Hirsch article - "Percussive Editing." In the interview, Hirsch explains his background as a high school percussionist, and goes on to relate percussion to his job as a film editor. "The way percussion is related to editing is that it's all about time, dealing with different portions of time, dividing time into very small bits, or different bits, that relate to each other in different ways," (p. 194). Can't we build an "imaginative bridge" here, reflecting on the musical and cinematic rhythms of our classroom instruction and tasks? Take an hour, the day, perhaps the week, the month, the semester or the school year? How do these bits of time relate? How does today's instruction tie into tomorrow's lesson? Is the form, or structure of a lesson plan, well-established? Is there a steady meter or pace to the delivery, the tasks and the experience? Our time spent in the classroom should have a percussive curve to it much like that of music and film. A curve with a steady pace at times, then drama or accents, tempo changes, crescendos, then decrescendos, balance, dynamic, and resolve. It's not unlike the "meter" of a compelling film.

Film. Music. Classroom.