Jazz and Blackboards

Oct292020

What is a Calling?

While I teach my students primarily online, I have some designated time with them in a seventy-five minute afternoon session, held once a week. While these sessions are designed to offer a space for continued study and socially distanced peer interaction, I also use this time as a means for getting to know my students on a level beyond academics. My afternoon sessions have become more of a reflection of self and purpose, both academically and personally.

In keeping with this theme, I am a fan of Oprah’s Super Soul Sundays because I can always find a short video clip of an interview seasoned with meaning and most fitting for personal reflection. This past week, my students and I watched Oprah’s interview with Steven Pressfield entitled “First Look: 4 Questions to Help you Find Your Calling.” Following our viewing session, some students were perplexed about the idea of a calling, while others were most confident about identifying the calling they finally had an opportunity to identify and share.

I asked students to select a question or two from below and share their response(s) on the classroom blackboard.

What is a calling?
Where does one’s calling exist?
Is a calling spiritual?
What is your calling?
What wonderings do you have after watching the short clip?

Following our blackboard reflection session, we spent about twenty-five to thirty minutes sharing perspectives and questions. I was pleased to discover the following:

While the majority of students believed they were too young to know their “calling,” both my boarding and day student group included at least two to three students who identified their calling.
About half of my students believed that a calling is not spiritual. Rather, these students believed a calling is the result of lived experiences.
While the majority agreed that a calling should bring joy to one’s life, students couldn’t define the true definition of joy, so they settled for aligning one’s calling with a feeling of sustained happiness.
One student asked if playing video games is his calling because he is happy and looses track of time when he plays.
Every student coalesced with the idea that finding one’s calling must be prioritized as the ultimate goal in life.

What is your calling? How and when did you discover this calling? What are your overall thoughts about the idea of “a calling”? Also, if additional understanding is required, another great example by author Wes Moore can be found here. I’m always looking forward to your your responses…

Oct222020

Mr. George Floyd and Rhetoric

While my students continue to struggle and persevere in various ways with our new educational approaches (i.e. online learning, schedule changes, day and boarding student separation and pacing guides), my goal is to help them relate to the world by first understanding who they are as authentic beings preparing to launch beyond the (perceived and very real) obstacles at hand. This is my core reasoning and rationale for continuing to work alongside them. As I struggle, persevere, evolve and inevitably allow myself to shift as a result and in spite of year ‘2020, I produce creative works and projects as a means and portal of continual discovery. I am grateful to have spectacular students who enjoy the learning process.

In this spirit, while focusing on a rhetorical device unit and how speakers, authors, filmmakers and overall artists use rhetorical strategies in order to reach their audiences, I asked my students to create their own creative project incorporating at least two to three of the plethora of devices we’ve studied. Students were provided with an array of creative options to choose from. And of course, they also had the option of proposing their own creative idea. I had fun sharing the creative options because I have many creative souls in my courses, from photographers to singers, from poets to documentarians.

The following is my rhetorical creative project model for my charges. I chose to construct lyrics–incorporating several rhetorical devices–and sing a song about George Floyd whose life ended while in police custody. My written analysis, following the video performance is an example of the compositional/analysis component of the performance.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In9mTMn0nms

Mr. George Floyd

“Mr. George Floyd” centers on memoriam of an individual whose life was taken violently and cruelly while in police custody. Mr. Floyd’s murder was filmed by a bystander who was unaware, at the time, that this footage would spark protest and demand for reform of methods used by law enforcement when apprehending individuals suspected of a violation of law. I intentionally included three rhetorical devices—epistrophe, loaded words (in analysis) and hyperbole–for a more structured composition; however, most importantly, I aimed to pay tribute to Mr. Floyd by methodically and melodically–through song– appealing to human emotion in order to raise awareness regarding injustices still prevalent in our world, today.

Rhetorical devices incorporated:

Epistrophe– “Mr. George Floyd”-Shared at the end of successive phrases for effect and as a reminder of the individual the piece is centered on; say his name…
Loaded words-Violently/cruelly/murder-included to speak truth to what I witnessed. Ironically, law enforcement is responsible for keeping order and “peace;” In reality, law enforcement’s conduct was a demonstration of the exact opposite.
Hyperbole and colloquial language—“this life just ain’t gon’ be the same”—life is not going to be the same following our witnessing of this murder. And it hasn’t been. I understand that Mr. Floyd’s murder in itself will not transform all that is necessary for justice to prevail. Nevertheless, for those who needed a wake-up call and heeded to it following Mr. Floyd’s death, life is not going to be the same. I must emphasize that I share this phrase in the most positively connotative manner. Use of colloquial language was inspired by listening to the mother of Mr. Floyd’s daughter. In a saddened state of pathos, the language of her testimony will continue to resonate……

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Share your thoughts regarding rhetoric or creating with students. As always, I’m looking forward to reading your perspective…

Oct152020

National Kindness Week

There comes a time in every life when change is necessary. Whether the change is a result of something that has happened existentially, or a change due to biological make-up, only you can determine how it will ultimately affect your life. The pandemic, social injustices and what I’ve seen of a percentage of American political leaders has affected me significantly. I never thought that I would see the day when content that I have read in history books are right here in the present, too real for anyone to deny. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere;” I gave myself more credit than I should have when I assumed that I understood the power of these words. Today, I understand the power, firsthand.

Although I understand–at some level– how difficult this pandemic has been on a worldly scale, I have yet to grasp the full scope of our brothers and sisters who have lost a loved one to this virus; I have yet to understand the magnitude of loss that some may feel having lost dream businesses, or not having enough to pay the rent/mortgage. I do not yet understand-nor do I wish to–the suffering and pain that the mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and children have endured and continue to endure having experienced the loss of a loved one due to police brutality.

I’m here on this torn leather office chair, after 10pm, on a school night, trying to grapple with understanding why human beings are in such a divided state in the United States of America. Why is the school system inequitable, why? Why do citizens distrust each other, why? And what systems are in place to keep us in this revolving conundrum of inequities, inequalities and racial tensions? If the system was set in place by the founders, why are we still upholding their system when the world has drastically changed? My cellular phone requires regular updates, my laptop requires regular updates, my pedagogical approach and lessons plans are not as effective if I do not remain centered on my class dynamic and focus on what approach and plan individual students require. Similarly, our country requires modifications/alterations/unification, and perhaps, updating.

I have no grand scale solutions regarding what can be done to solve the issues at hand; I utter these words with the deepest sorrow. Instead, I write this evening to offer advice that may begin to move us in a direction of community and learning how to care for one another in a way that is most intentional, considerate, compassionate and selfless. If you have the ability at this moment to capture what it must feel like for those who can afford to have an elaborate Christmas celebration, you are capable of imagining my proposal. The country is in need of a kindness addition to our calendars; I propose National Kindness Week! A week of spreading kindness to loved ones and strangers. Mark Twain said, “Kindness is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” Considering this, I’m hopeful that kindness can also be a key to help break the barriers of some suffering and move us in a direction of human beings becoming more compassionate with each other. The following is an outline:

Kindness Week Focus

–Monday: Gift to family

–Tuesday: Gift to colleagues

–Wednesday: Gift to an essential worker

–Thursday: The just ’cause gift (to anyone you choose)

–Friday: Gift to self (very important)

Gift Ideas:

A letter of gratitude.
One of your favorite fruits (I like to share mangoes).
Write a list of 7 things you admire about the individual. write each on a separate sheets of paper and place the papers in a brown paper bag with seven Hershey’s Kisses ( or another treat of choice). When you give the individual the bag, tell them they will have a message and a kiss for seven days; enjoy!
Go on a 25-30 minute walk with a person and share how they’ve inspired you (for at least five minutes of the walk).
Pick a flower (season permitting) for an individual and share why they deserve it. Please be as specific as you can be (i.e. here’s a flower for being such an uplifting person. The day you said….made a huge impact on me and I want to encourage you to continue being who you are).
Share a small gift from your cultural background. For example, one of my students shared an origami crane with me and shared the meaning behind it (do you know if you make 1000, you can be granted a wish?).
If you’re a poet, musician, or blessed with any type of creative talent, share your gifts. A friend of mine once played a tune on the piano to serenade a special someone who felt ill. They will never forget this creative act of kindness.

I am well aware that the ails we struggle with are not going to cease with this National Kindness Week proposal. If this was the case, one Christmas would have solved all of our issues. Rather, NKW is a renewal, a modification/alteration, a step closer to unification and overall great excuse to be kind with intension, especially during a time when the need for kindness is dyer. And of course, please wear a mask and be mindful of distance as you share your love.

What steps do you believe we can take to move in a direction of unification? I’m looking forward to reading your ideas…

Month: October 2020