Lil+Lorrin

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If the button at the top takes too long to buffer, try listening by hitting the link below it. Lil media type="custom" key="8852822" Michelle's Senior Recital

PHILOSOPHY (abridged) __ My pet peeve is watching other teachers introduce a subject in such a way as to ensure the child will hate it. I heard a sixth grade teacher warn his students, "Algebra is very hard. In seventh grade you might have two hours of homework every night, and if you don't work hard you'll fail and have to go to summer school." I witnessed over many weeks a cello teacher making a seven-year-old play scales with no opportunity to play a song until his scales were perfect. The child could not stand it, rightly, and switched to clarinet. Last season the Pittsburgh Opera did an outreach to underprivileged schools with Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. There is no better way to make sure the children never willingly attend another opera than to cause them to sit through four hours of weak jokes in Italian recitative. Carmen, with far more action and less tiresome wittiness, not to mention its familiar tunes from The Bad News Bears, would have been a much better choice.

 I went into teaching because when I love something I want other people to love it, too. . . . I try to use material that relates to the child's interests. For example, I like to teach subject and predicate to third graders using Captain Underpants. If I want to explain prepositional phrases, "Spongebob works at the Krusty Krab," is more engaging than, "Sally sits in her seat." I like to reinforce fractions using cookie recipes: "If we want to double the recipe, how much flour do we need?" I once guided a French student as he surfed the Internet for French game sites. In this medium he displayed no resistance to using context to help him translate.

 Boredom is not allowed. No child or adult should be inflicted with it. I feel if a student is bored, it is the teacher's fault. . ..

 High expectations are a form of respect. I do not talk to the Pre-K children in a singsong voice. I use professional jargon with the music students from the start. I make references to real literature when it fits, from Mark Twain to Shakespeare. . ..

 My primary role is not to be a conveyor of facts, but to be a coach. Everybody wants to be good at something. I meet every new child expecting he will have a unique talent. My job is to help him find his talent, to coax his talent with challenges, and to supply him with resources so that he can pull himself into expertise. I feel confident I can help any student work toward any goal even if I have no expertise in the subject myself. If a child wants to know more about electronics, for example, of which I know nothing, I can still guide him through the research process, which might start with a trip to the library and proceed to a question like, "Whom do we know who can help us find out more?"

 Ultimately I want my students to be independent lifelong learners. While it is important, of course, to teach core content, teaching good process is even more important. A learner who has strategies for approaching problems and confidence to challenge what "experts" tell him will succeed in life no matter which direction he chooses, academic or not.