Fear, love and coming alive

New for 2014: Follow the continuing Teaching Like an Artist series on TeachingLikeanArtist.com.

I used to hate speaking in front of the class.  I remember being so nervous once when I had to recite a poem in high school that I could hardly talk.

And one time my Spanish teacher asked me to read something, but I read it too quietly.  He asked a girl on the other side of the room if she heard me and she didn't.  He had me stand in front of the class and read it again.

I could have died from embarrassment. I tried to speak louder, but I didn't even realize I was so quiet.  I don't think I even knew how to be louder.

He asked her again if she heard me.  She couldn't, so I had to read it again.  Finally I think she just lied about hearing me so I could sit down. I'm sure the teacher was trying to teach an important lesson, but his technique had the opposite effect on me. Instead of learning to speak louder, I just learned it's best not to try.

That memory came back to me when I watched the clip below from Dead Poets Society.  I had looked the scene up for what I planned to write about here, then I remembered that experience.

The awkward moment (and how I felt about speaking in school afterward) sums up a fear I had to get past if I ever wanted to be a good teacher. One thing I've learned since is we all have to fight that battle with fear, even if it manifests itself in other ways.

I've been doing a lot more music in school lately and I'm amazed at the fear and resistance I've encountered in the students and teachers I've worked with.

At one point I was trying to stretch this student while we were making a short music video.  She considered herself a singer, so I wanted her to improvise a melody for some lyrics.  She said she couldn't.  Looking at only the words she said in frustration, "I can't just sing it."

I pressed play in GarageBand to start the beat.  "Do it.  Just sing something."

She was a little inhibited because a few other students were in the room, but we were pressed for time.  She gave it a shot.  I was impressed with what came out.

I found out later the lyrics weren't exactly original. They had copied them, more or less, from a website they found. As far as I know, though, the melody came from her heart.

I was proud of her for just singing.  She let it flow out at the risk of sounding terrible or maybe being too much like Happy Birthday or something.

But I can think of four other people, two of them adults, who told me in recent weeks how they wanted to sing, but how fear holds them back.  In the big scheme of things, most of their opportunities were small.  It's not that they were saying no career in music.

But what struck me was they had a chance to move closer to a dream. They could do something new and to possibly experience a beautiful moment.

But it was diverted because of fear.

How much do we do that everyday?  How much do we choose a sense of safety over a chance to come alive?  Seth Godin talks a lot about how we give up opportunities just to avoid fear itself, maybe not even the thing we're actually afraid of.  We just avoid fear.

In protecting ourselves from fear and what we fear, we actually squelch life itself.

I think the solution is to find something we want to live for so much that we overcome the fear.  There's a verse in the Bible that says perfect love casts out fear.

I can't yet find all the words I want to say about this.  I have to live it better first myself.  I can't get this to flow to a nice conclusion, so for now here's to being a little more passionate.

Here's to:

• throwing some thoughts out that I feel strongly about before I can think it all through.
• putting more of my songs online even if I'm not a great singer and musician.
• thinking about it instead of just saying, "I can't," when asked to speak to any group of people.
• saying what needs to be said even when no one else wants to go there.
• standing on desks more than I used to when teaching.

The Big Question - Starting a conversation about change in any organization

Start to change the culture by asking the right question.

When I ask this question shown in the video, it never fails to generate some thoughtful discussion.  In any organization this question gets to the heart of the matter. It leads to other driving questions and can help leaders think of ways to initiate positive change.

 I will be glad to hear any comments that will help me improve the presentation of these ideas.

Forget career planning - Do something big now

Update 5/22/2013: Here's a motivational song and lyric video for the classroom I created based on the idea in this blog post. It comes after a year of putting these thoughts into practice.

I was very excited this week to talk to our middle school Digital Media class. I don't regularly teach in that classroom, but I am considered to be a teacher in my district.  That means I end up as sort of a guest speaker in various classrooms K - 12 and I especially love it when I get to address this particular group.

I tell them why I think Digital Media is the best class we offer.

This year as I prepared my talk I realized how insane it is to talk to these kids, ages 11-14 about the career they'll have someday. When I taught high school math I would always talk about the world of work as a motivation for learning, but I’m done with that approach.  It wasn’t terribly effective five years ago when I taught math and it feels even less so now, especially as I see more apathy in grades 4 - 8.

Now I try to motivate them with what gets me excited.  I am pumped (honestly, I lost sleep over this) when I can tell them about the powerful tools that allow them to connect like never before so they can realize their dreams.

Never in the history of the world have we had tools that made it so easy to start on those dreams right away. It makes no sense to me to try to motivate students with the promise of a good job in 8 to 10 years when a tidal wave of fascinating entertainment will hit them seconds after we let them turn their phones back on.

So I gave my talk and I saw that glimmer of hope in some of their eyes. I told them about the books, movies, songs, games and other great gifts that I know are in their minds waiting to get free to the world. I believe it completely and I look forward to encouraging them more as I continue to work with their teacher.

I summed all this (and more) up this way in my presentation:

It has never been easier to start something big RIGHT NOW.  

And it has never been easier to just play.  

Choose wisely.

On the way to work that morning I saw the sunrise (we haven’t seen a lot of the sun recently here in Michigan) and I grabbed a picture.  I combined the two here:

But after the talk I got thinking, what exactly can they start?  Our culture bombards our kids with so much to do that some don't know how to begin anything original.  I made a list of goals they can start on not in weeks, months or years, but right now. I will use and develop the list as I continue working with learners of all ages.

First, the basic rules:

• Start a blog.
• Copy nothing.  You must make all elements from scratch.
• If you succeed in a goal, blog about it and include pictures. 
• If you fail, blog about it and include pictures. 

Some goals you can starting working toward right now:

• Make something digital that your parents will be so proud of they’ll share it on Facebook.
• Make a video and get X views in week on YouTube video.  Keep increasing X each time.
• Whatever your teacher assigns, ask if you can do a different project.  If the teacher says no, do it anyway (along with the real assignment!).  Show the teacher your work.
• Make a digital lesson for a younger sibling or family member.  Pick a topic he or she will study in the future so they will already know it when they get to it.
• What type of entertainment do you usually turn to in your freetime?  Instead of sucking up someone else’s idea, start making your own. 
• Make a gift for someone's birthday or a holiday on CafePress or some other site where you can create and order products. 
• Pick your favorite charity or cause. Make something online and sell it.  Donate whatever you make to your charity or cause.  

I'm confident that seriously working toward any of these goals will help our students acquire at least as many career skills as our other efforts have.

What are some other great goals students can start on right away?

How to Inspire Creativity and Teach Content - Music video projects in under 3 hours

I've been doing more music in school the past two months and I'm finding it very encouraging. Obviously many students have a passion for it. Several of them are talented in that area and technology is making it easier than ever to create music even without a lot of skill.

For almost a year I have been testing and tweaking a process of creating simple songs and music videos based on classroom content. (Here's the post where I compiled all my music resources.)  The videos below highlight my latest attempt to present the basic idea.

I created a song and recorded it in UJam in about an hour. I finished a couple short videos in one to two more hours of total work time.  That time wasn't all in one setting, but I'm confident that with some focus and solid deadlines a group of students could make an original song and video in around three class periods.

This first video explains the process and contains all examples. Here's the breakdown of the video:

• Quick tips 0:38
• Writing the lyrics  0:54
• Recording the melody using GarageBand   1:21
• **Using UJam to make the music 2:33 - UJam is amazing!  Definitely watch this part if nothing else.  
• Recording the video with Video Star  4:53
• Editing the video in VideoStudio  5:54
• The example videos I created are at the end of the video, but also you can find them separately below.

Music Creation for the Classroom - Some compiled resources

So much of my blog has been about creativity games, but I realized this week music has shown up now and then.  It has always been a huge part of my personal life and recently I have seen how it can motivate students in school.

When it comes to infusing passion into a lesson, not much can compare to the effect music has on many students.  Some of those who are hardest to reach are also deeply interested in music or musically inclined.

Technology has made it easier that ever for anyone to create something along the lines of a song or music video.

Here are a few thoughts and resources that I have posted previously.

The basics:

• This post sums up a method I use to create original songs and videos in about three hours at the most.
• The main idea behind these projects is to encourage learners to make something that involves passion and creative expression, publish it and learn from it so they can do better next time.  
• It's easy to spend a fortune on good equipment, but in all my efforts with recording I keep it simple.  Even a mediocre musician like me can get a lot of mileage out of free online resources, Audacity for recording and Gsnap for pitch correction.  You'll probably need a mic and headphones too, depending on how you plan to perform and record.
• GarageBand for the iPad is amazing.  For several months I thought of it as just a tool for sketching song ideas.  Lately I have been using it to record short songs like some of those shown below.  I use the iRig Mic Cast microphone and iRig guitar interface with it for recording.

From other posts:

• An overall plan for creating music in the classroom - This was written in the summer when I had some untested ideas.  It still serves as the outline for the projects I have done with students.
• My latest music video with students - Two middle school students wrote this song.  I helped them record it and I edited the video using mostly video and pictures taken under their direction.
• My example of a math music video - When I told students about my ideas, some were afraid to sing or perform on video.  I made this video as an example to encourage them to take the step.
• Scientific Method Rap - This is one example from my first effort to assign a music video project.  The post is the best example here of what worked from start to finish in the classroom.  I did about eight hours of work on this after the students finished, just to see what was possible and how much work it would take.  
• Another rap - This example also came out of the class project above, but without my additional editing.  
• Kevin Honeycutt - Since I first came across Kevin's conference session in 2011 he has been an inspiration to me.  I love how he inspires students to be creative and get their ideas out there.
• Music Video for Tech PD - This is a song we had some fun with for a PD session.  I was encouraging teachers to put some passion in their work and to do something new.  This song was a result.  It also serves as an example of what can be done using just the iPad for recording.