Music Quickens Time by Daniel Barenboim

"How do we live with discipline and passion? How do we make the connection between our brains and our hearts?" Barenboim asks towards the beginning of this collection of essays, interviews, and appreciations. Barenboim argues throughout the book, against the commonsense idea that gaining life experience can make you a better musician, that music has much to teach us about life. For example, we learn about relationship of parts to the whole, about how music integrates many voices in producing a whole, and how music can contain the tragic and the comic always. Barenboim distinguishes between "strategic" and "tactical" thinking about music... the strategic has teh end in mind, is relating the current moment of music to the whole; the tactical is about performing the moment. This, too, is about negotiating through life's contract. He defines thinking as a marriage between intellect, emotion, and intuition. (Intuition is what you get, I think he means, after studying something for a long time... it's like improvization.) Barenboim claims that we (and musicians in general) have become overly specialized. Conductors know only their own repertoire... the know Schubert's symphonies, but not his piano sonatas intimately. The book is an appreciation, too of several musicians, including Boulez. Barenboim cites Arnold Schoeberg, "The middle way is the only way that does not lead to Rome," in calling for "courage" in performance. "Each performer must find within himself the will required for this process, perhaps apdopting the line of most resistance outside the world of sound as well." Finally, I really like how this is phrased: "The unwillingness to ask these questions is symptomatic of thoughtless faithfulness to the letter and an inevitable unfaithfulness to the spirit."

Academic Responsibilities

Stanley Fish, in his NYTs blog, says that recent commentary about whether Barack Obama should include Larry Summers, lately fired as Harvard's president for controversial remarks about women scientists among other things, in his cabinet is wrong-headed. Most commentaries, he says, deal quickly with the question of WHY he was fired, claiming that it was because he was trying to shake things up.

Fish claims that a university professor should be one who is trying to wake people out of complacency, but not university presidents. That's the real issue about whether he should be in the cabinet: does he have people skills? Fish writes, "It is not a question of intelligence and competence -– everyone agrees that Summers is very smart and very accomplished as an economist; it is a question of tact, patience, poise, self-restraint, deference, courtesy and other interpersonal virtues." The more general point is that teachers have a whole different set of ethical and professional responsibilities than principals (or professors and university presidents). An academic is not an academic. Nor is it true that presidents just have MORE responsibilities -- they are qualitatively different.

Public Intellectuals from a new Zip Code

I've been thinking about why kids at school seem to be so blatantly bored with literature. As a department chair, I watch as teachers fret about the students who don't seem to care... and about students who pronounce their not caring more and more vocally. One response is to create bigger and bigger projects that go along with the reading. Another response is to spell out (usually in 12 point font on power point slides) what's most important about last night's novel reading. Yet another response is to blame the X (kids, TV, cell phones, parents, mercury in innoculations....) I don't think that any of these responses will get to the heart of the boredom.

Instead, I think that English departments need to change: our goal should be to help kids become better consumers of text. And by text I only barely mean "novels and short stories," I really mean documentaries and informational web sites and online newspapers and blogs, etc.

I love novels myself. And I think that reading, say, The Scarlet Letter, is a pleasantly rewarding intellectual and artistic puzzle that helps me think about big ideas like idenity and social norming. But I don't think that literature has any monopoly on helping kids become better readers, thinkers, or citizens. It's ONE WAY, and a way that is probably going out of style faster than you can say "D'oh!".

Today I ran across an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (not usually associated with flouting tradition!) which helps me make my claim in a sideways sort of way. The author, Daniel Drezner, in the article "Public Intellectual 2.0," found here, writes that public intellectuals have not died, but have migrated to the blogosphere. Drozner writes:

"To be sure, some important differences exist between the current generation of public intellectuals and the Partisan Review generation extolled by so many. In the current era, many more public intellectuals possess social-science rather than humanities backgrounds. In Richard Posner's infamous list of top public intellectuals, there are twice as many social scientists as humanities professors. In a recent ranking published by Foreign Policy magazine, economists and political scientists outnumber artists and novelists by a ratio of four to one. Economics has supplanted literary criticism as the "universal methodology" of most public intellectuals."

Drezner says, "That fact in particular might explain the strong belief in literary circles that the public intellectual is dead or dying." But for me, it also might explain why kids see, but English teachers don't, that our primary focus on literary criticism is outdated and, um, boring. English departments, even in high school, existed in their heyday after the New Critics (and New York Intellectuals) reign in the 50s and 60s.

Meanwhile, back in high school, teachers still hold novels up as holy relics. The answer, to many teachers, is to force kids to look more closely at the holy relics, and try to encourage kids to see how the old messages might still fit today. My response is that we should help kids see the holy is not just in relics!

What's the reading level of a text? That's a trick question!

Again, from Chris Tovani, 2008

Reading Levels Change

Based on three factors:

Background knowledge - The more background knowledge a reader has about the topic, text structure, and author, the more difficult text he can read

Interest and Motivation - If a reader has interest in the topic or is motivated to read, he will work harder to comprehend.

Purpose - When a reader knows why he is reading something and knows what he needs to get from a text, he can better sift and sort informaion to determine what is important

So, what does this mean for teachers? Shower readers with background knowledge, tap into interests, and create a purpose for every reading assignment.

Thinking Strategies Used by Proficient Readers

This is also from the Chris Tovani program. It's based on research synthesis of P. David Pearson and Janice A. Dole.

"A strategy is an intentional plan that is flexible and can be adapted to meet the demands of the situation.

Proficient Readers:

• Activate background knowledge and make connections between new and known information.
• Quesion the text in order to clarify ambiguity and deepen understanding.
• Draw inferences using background knowledge and clues from the text.
• Determine importance in order to distinguish details from main ideas.
• Monitor comprehension in order to make sure meaning is being constructed.
• Reread and employ fix-up strategies to repair confusion.
• Use sensory images to enhance comprehension and visualize the reading.
• Synthesize and extend thinking.

Interrogating Texts: 6 Reading Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard

Harvard College Library (the Lamont Library) has posted this handout about how to develop the habit of critial reading because, "Critical reading -- active engagement and interaction with texts -- is essential to your academic success at Harvard, and to your academic growth." Success in high schools that are trying to send kids to college, too!

What are the 6 reading habits?

Previewing
Annotating
Outline, summarize, analyze
Look for repetitions and patterns
Contextualize
Compare and Contrast

Each heading is followed by a succint description and several bullet points of examples.

When I annotate, what do I write?

This comes from a "Day of Reading" Seminar with Chris Tovani.

What I annoate, what do I write?

Sometimes I:

Record a REACTION

Ask a QUESTION

Give an OPINION

Make a CONNECTION

Respond to how I would RELATE if I were in that situation.