I have decided to give myself short writing assignments that are not about the book I am currently writing. The goal is to keep my mind working on prose, but from different perspectives.
I have found quite a few blogs that offer prompts that will take my mind in a variety of directions. Here is the first one:
Refresh – the topic from Daily Prompt:
I am a humanities teacher for 6th – 8th graders. At my current school, I have the great luxury of designing and implementing my own curriculum. For the final nine weeks of school this year, I have created a unit on Global Music as Transformer for my 7th and 8th graders. Today, we were looking at how songs/styles/lyrics from other countries influence the US. I showed them a variety of videos and one was from Korea: Gangnam Style and one was from India (Flash mob dance) of Jai Ho. My first class of 7th graders simply could not see anything of redeeming value. The only words that came out of their mouth were negative: “He can’t dance.” “That is so obnoxious.” “Why would anyone want to do a flash mob?” ETC.
Frustrated with their lack of open-mindedness or for finding anything that was positive, I suggested that the first thoughts that came to mind, the negative ones that were coming out of their mouths, should be kept to themselves. That looking for the positive to comment on would make for a more accepting (empathetic?) conversation.
Don’t get me wrong, I think discussing the good, the bad and the ugly creates good conversation. But this was just young teenagers spouting anything that didn’t sit well with them. They weren’t being constructive in the least.
We went on to discuss styles and what is considered acceptable and “hot” in other societies. But they continued to be above it all, the artists or videos were simply silly and not worthy of them.
What was supposed to be a fun day of discussing different culture’s music and styles, turned out to be so frustrating for me as the teacher.
My second class, this time with 8th graders, were only slightly better.
Determined to change the gloomy feeling coming over me, and to shine a light on the positive, it finally dawned on me – I needed to help guide these 13-14 year olds on what I was interested in having them look for.
Duh, you may be saying. But I just had not anticipated the negativity, and it took me some time to get out of my own frustration and figure out how to help my students view the material, from a more accepting and analytical perspective, rather than simply dismissal.
So – I took a deep breath. Hit the “refresh” button in my mind, opened the door to the next class and re-phrased all my questions to elicit responses that encouraged viewing the music and videos with a more analytical eye about the culture itself.
Success. The conversations were much more enlightening – to all of us.
Now to remember how I made the shift, much sooner in the day! 🙂