#4 role modeling

In my mind, I'm about 26 in spite of the fact that that hasn't been true for a long time. But I'm living in a gap in my assumptions about my future, which includes not having any idea about what this stage of life would be like. When I was a kid, I felt I had a complete grasp on my immediate future up until age 20, and I had confidence that my old age would be resplendent in the silvery light of a life lived deliberately. The cognitive dissonance is weird: it makes me feel like a grown up. I'm still not used to being called "Mr. Brewer."

I guess becoming a grown up carries with it a burden of other people's expectations. I feel invisible, or at least not at the center of things, and so am always surprised when I find that others are watching. Teachers, who are sometimes grown ups, are constantly being watched. When students address me formally, the point is bluntly emphasized.

“Mr. Brewer,” they say, as I look over my shoulder to see if my Dad is standing there, “why do we hafta recycle?”
“Well, I’m trying to make a clean hand off,” I say, adopting my most grown up, philosophically epic tone of voice.
“And I want you to do the same when your time comes. In fact I want you to take it to the next level.”

Art is materially intensive, and often a bit wasteful, given the requirement of experimentation and exploration are basic features of its practice. Additionally, the traditional materials are expensive, and not often available in the public schools. In fact, we hear more about budget cuts (in some departments anyway) all the time. But artists shouldn’t be too disturbed. One indication of creativity is the artist’s ability to “do what one can with what one has.” For me, modeling resourcefulness is a natural carry over from my punk rock do-it-yourself ethic. If we can’t sustain a budget for paint, we can make art out of the recycle bins, and maybe even what’s in them! I can find a way to be creative with anything. Mind you, this is not new. In 1917, Marcel Duchamp taught us to see beauty in unexpected places, even in common manufactured goods.
“Today, we will be making _______ out of this old _______. This is one way your generation can improve on mine.” They’re probably going to get tired of hearing it, but it grounds our creative practice in real world necessity. And that plugs it into what they already know, meaning they’ll remember it at least until the middle of June.








For my purposes, reusing or repurposing is always better than recycling, because it requires imagination. Kind of like creative art.

#5 active in my community

For about ten years, I’ve been a part of a small, non-denominational church. The predominant values expressed by this particular group are inclusiveness and action. We are quite an informal group, and fairly diverse racially. Never one to sit around long, I responded to the request for help in the Sunday school about eight years ago. During this time, I’ve worked as a teacher with learners up to the age of twelve or so.
The current group ranges from 3rd through 6th grade, and can number up to sixteen or so. It’s split right down the middle in terms of gender and race. This experience has provided irreplaceably valuable experience working with kids both before and now during my pedagogical education.
I bring this up in order to acknowledge the fact that I have acquired some very useful practical skills as an education student; specifically, in terms of classroom management. For instance, this class contains two boys who have been diagnosed ADHD. One is African American, the other Caucasian. Both of them present classic symptoms with one crucial difference: one is very hyperactive, and the other is closer to lethargic. As I have come to know them over the years, they have both demonstrated definite intelligence, and an aptitude for the subject at hand. Before studying education, I had no idea how to reach these two. In fact, there weren’t very many kids in the class I could reach with the methods I was using. I often (read, every Sunday) ended up kicking one kid upstairs to sit with his parents, and spent an inordinate amount of time begging the other one to focus on what I was saying. If the quiet, shy girls sitting in the corner trying not to be noticed got anything out of these sessions, it was by the grace of God.
To use the jargon of educational psychology, I have employed two techniques over that last year with pretty consistent success: proximity, and differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors. DRI, as its known, occupies the hyperactive boy with an activity (in this case writing or drawing on the board, keeping a record of what’s said in class) that prevents him from interrupting, hitting and shouting so much. My proximity keeps the interest of the inattentive learner when I keep myself animated, and encroaching on his space in a friendly way. Though there is no formal assessment going on In my Sunday school class, I have managed to get them both consistently engaged, which didn’t even look possible before I started experimenting with the concepts learned in my classes.
I have also embraced the Ideas of Jerome Brunner and Howard Gardener concerning multiple intelligence and diversity. I have increased their activity level, strategized in order to facilitate discovery learning, and invited student input and thus empowerment. I’ve read the about and discussed educational theory in my college classes, and actively practiced it in the real world of Sunday school.

As an example, you can see a block tower which I built in the doorway of their classroom. I asked them all to go in and “be careful not to knock it down, or risk my wrath. “ By the time the last one got in, it was a pile of rubble on the floor, and they turned and looked at me, unsure of what would happen next.
“Sorry! We didn’t mean to!”
“Well, fix it! Put it back just the way it was, or I won’t forgive you!” I said, in a dramatic tone.
When they couldn’t do it, I pointed out the difference between the way I handled it, and the way Jesus handles forgiveness, by forgiving them outright, and in addition, helping them to rebuild. The light bulb went on. Learning by discovery and doing!
Becoming active in my church is only the beginning of my becoming more active in the wider community. I have loads of ideas I think will useful both in and out of the classroom. By my example and activation of my students we begin to make our community a place we want to be.