Psychology: July 2004 Archive Page

Teaching the Gifted Student (PILOT Reflections)

I was a little surprised to find "gifted students" on the list of subjects to discuss in an accessibility and inclusion workshop.

On the one hand, gifted students are a joy. They do the readings. They participate in class. They ask thoughtful questions.

On the other hand, gifted students can be a burden. They can monopolize class discussions. They might expect that simply being bright ought to be enough to earn them an A. They might send you multiple e-mails arguing over the half point they missed on a quiz. They demand that you justify the A- they got on a reflection paper, and insist that you list all the things they did "wrong". They never had to work this hard in high school, so you're obviously out to get them. Heaven help you if you should have to give them a B!

Gifted students aren't necessarily more mature than their peers. Sometimes high-achieving students hold scholarships that require them to keep extremely high GPAs, so it's not fair to dismiss hyper-awareness of grades as if it were motivated by pride and pettiness. It's very likely that they really do have a lot of additional pressure, beyond a desire for perfectionism or a competitive streak, to maintain the high grades they see as a sign of success.

One of the first classes I took in my Ph.D program was on the history of the English language. I knew I was learning a lot, so I was shocked when I found myself getting grades like 83 and 85. I made an appointment with the professor, and while I hope I didn't come off as belligerent or rude, I was eager to know what I was doing wrong. Little did I know that in the marking scheme at the University of Toronto, a grade from 80-89 is considered an "A", and 90-100 is an A+.

I sure felt like a grade-grubbing dweeb.

In school, I know I hated being put into groups with deadbeats who didn't carry their weight. Gifted students need additional challenges, but I think they rightly object to doing additional work simply because they are gifted. In a composition or literature class, I don't think I need to provide extra assignments to challenge gifted students. Writing is never finished the way a mathematical equation is solved or a list of anatomical terms is memorized.

While grade compression has diluted the meaning of an "A" from "top-notch, outstanding work" to "You didn't make any significant mistakes", for short assignments and exercise, I will single out the exceptional work of gifted students, to let them know I am paying attention. I grade most exercises on a four-point scale, and tell students that a 4 counts as an A, but I return their grades on slips of paper that include numbers from zero to five. It is possible to get a grade higher than a 4, but I give out 4.5s and 4s only very rarely. A few students will end up with quiz averages higher than a 4.0, but if they do, they've worked for it, and their other work is probably top-notch, too.

In the spring semester I changed the way I enforced late penalties for papers. If a student hands me a completed, properly-formatted and stapled paper at the beginning of the class period, I add a "decorum bonus" of 1/3 of a letter grade. If the paper is crumpled, unstapled, or unpaginated; if the student bursts into class 10 minutes late, with the pages still warm from the printer; if I find the paper slipped under my door a few hours after class, then the student loses the 1/3 decorum bonus.

It's kind of like doubling the price of your wall-to-wall carpet one week so that you can advertise a 50% price cut the next week, but this method permits me to grade a little more realistically. A student who is used to a 4.0 average might make some mistakes in an otherwise good paper. I can give it an A-, knowing that the true perfectionist will have turned it on time and in the proper format, and thus the grade will be bumped to an A. I don't appear to be an overly harsh grader, and the student who feels the world owes him or her a 4.0 doesn't burst into tears, yet the A- reinforces the message that the student could be doing better work.

After I've marked the first few freshman composition papers, it's usually pretty clear who the gifted writers are. Last year, when my Seminar in Thinking and Writing class had settled into a pattern that involved the five or six most active students doing all the talking while the rest listened, I told the core group of active participants that they had already distinguished themselves as active students who would probably get great class participation grades, and pointed out that if they keep raising their hands or talking among themselves, the whole class will stagnate.

I tell students who have already distinguished themselves as active participants that I will henceforth evaluate them on their ability to get the other students in the class to participate. That strategy has worked to a point, but whenever the gifted student gets excited about something, the old pattern returns. When my dean visited my classroom last term, she approvingly noted the teacher-student dynamic, but indicated that she would like to see more peer-to-peer interaction. My colleague Terry Brino-Dean asks students to fill out a self-assessment form every few weeks, which gets the students to focus on their efforts to foster classroom discussion.

My "Writing for the Internet" course has to accommodate students who are experienced bloggers and HTML authors, as well as students who can barely e-mail. While a student who is experienced with HTML is not necessarily gifted, and while a student who is not comfortable with technology may still be gifted, the diversity of opinion makes me realize I'll have to add more self-paced modules.

My last batch of student evaluations included complaints from students who thought the course moved too fast, as well as students who thought the course moved too slowly. I've asked a student who has already taken the course to serve as a mentor, which should help me give more specialized attention during labs.

In addition, I can ask the students who already know the material to help me teach it to those who don't. They'll have to cultivate a significant sense of ownership over the material if they are responsible for their peers's learning. (Of course, I'll help the student prepare, and I'll be ready to step in if the student stumbles.)

Teaching Students with Psychiatric Disabilities (PILOT Reflections)

When I was a grad student teaching a freshman writing class, a student wearing a leather jacket and miniskirt put her fishnet-stocking-clad leg up on the table and blew spit bubbles through her front teeth, popping them with her finger while talking to me about her assignment.

Maybe that was some sort of sorority initiation, but I still have nightmares about it. Another time, again while I was a grad student, on the final day of a class that I found very enjoyable, just when a small group of about four or five students were lining up to say good-bye to me, a student who had missed six of the last seven classes started screaming in my face because I wouldn't accept a paper that was four weeks late.

Student (holding hand knee-high): "I have a son!"

Jerz (cautiously): "Congratulations?"

Student: "It doesn't matter whether I have a son or not!"

Due to advances in medicine and a shift in attitudes towards institutionalization, more people with psychiatric disorders are attending college. I have had students walk out of the room when it was their turn to give an oral presentation and attack me verbally during class for my alleged slowness in solving the individual student's advising problem (something that had no relation to what the other 24 people in the room needed to hear).

Sometimes a student will gripe, or slam a fist on the desk, or stop out of the room. While it's never pleasant to be on the receiving end of such misbehavior, most students in the class can recognize when their peers step out of line. All I have to do is remind myself that this is crunch week, and I'm much less likely to take such crabbiness personally.

I don't mean to suggest that all students are psychotic and all instructors are helpless victims. Instructors do sometimes use their position of power in unethical or at least morally questionable ways. But in this post I'm reflecting on my own experience with students who seem mentally unbalanced.

I twice taught a student with a severe speech disfluency (the latest, or perhaps simply more accurate, term for what I would have otherwise called a "speech impediment), once in a lit class and once in an advanced tech writing class. The student was mostly fine speaking one-on-one, and often spoke up in class. I once asked her (in private) if she found herself stuck in a stutter, and I thought I knew what word she was trying to say, should I say it for her? She said no, just let her work her way through it. In the lit class, she was supposed to give a five-minute oral presentation. She asked whether she could use a computer to present something instead. I said yes. I imagined she would have handouts with activities for small groups, tied together with a slide show presenting the major themes, and then at the end of her oral presentation sum up what happened. Instead, she clicked through a small number of slides, then sat down.

It was really my fault. I completely misunderstood the nature of her speech disfluency.

Although she wasn't actually talking during her presentation, she was still nervous, and thus she couldn't manage a computer-based classroom activity, which is even more psychologically demanding than reading from a script. The next time she had to give an oral presentation, we spent more time planning an acceptable alternative.

When a student asks me to make an accommodation, I don't mind being a little flexible. I see nothing wrong with permitting an alternative format or giving extra assistance, as long as the student gives me reasonable lead time. But when it comes to excusing students from the consequences of late papers and bombed assignments, I have to be on guard. I don't want to reward a bright smooth-talker who has coasted on a talent for charming him or herself out of hard work. At the same time, I don't want to put up a barrier to block a student who finds it difficult to ask for help.

If the student claims to be in a crisis, I always respond as if I believe the student 100%, even if I secretly have doubts. I let the student know that whatever caused them to miss the deadline on that paper that was worth 20% of their final grade has got to be serious. Their first priority is to take care of that problem. Since I'm eager to accommodate students with legitimate excuses, the grade they get in my class should be the least of their worries.

A student who is really in a crisis will usually be relieved when I tell them that, once the current crisis is over, they can contact the dean or a university counselor, who can contact me so that the three of us can figure out what steps to take.

If the student continues to press me for specifics ("Can I reschedule the oral presentation I missed two weeks ago?"), then I'm generally less convinced the student is really in a crisis. A student who knows he or she has no good reason for requesting help will probably give up at this point. But a student with very low self-esteem, who blames him or herself unnecessarily, might also give up.

I do remind students that the university wants to keep taking their tuition money, so it's in our best interest to offer all sorts of services to keep students in school. If staying healthy means dropping a class or taking an incomplete, then so be it. If the student says he or she would rather not get anyone from the university involved, I point out that their problem (whatever it is) has already affected their grade in my class, and they're asking me to be involved by adjusting their workload somehow. When a problem starts affecting your education, that's a pretty good indicator that you're not handling it on your own.

When the student expresses reluctance to get the university involved, I point out that by missing work and coming to me to ask for an exception, they have already asked the university to become involved.

Since I'm not a trained therapist or counselor, and can't diagnose or treat their problems, I want assurance that the student is talking to somebody with the necessary knowledge.

It occurs to me that I don't want the dean to perceive me as passing the buck to her in order to avoid making a judgment call. Perhaps I should leave the dean out of it until I really need her input. I should ask the student to consult with an academic services counselor before approaching the dean.

Promoting Instruction and Learning Opportunities with Technology (PILOT) project (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

I’m taking training in acessibility via Seton Hill’s Promoting Instruction and Learning Opportunities with Technology (PILOT) project. I’ll be blogging some of my thoughts on the "inclusion" unit of this online course.

• Revising Seminar in Thinking and Writing (with an eye on inclusion)
• Universal Design in Education
• Including the Hearing Impaired Student
• Seeking a Map of the United States for the Visually Disabled: A Remediation Thought Exercise
• Mobility as a Learning Needs Issue
• Health Issues: Students Missing Class, or Restricted from Writing or Sitting
• Varying Instructional Methods
• Dyslexia in "Seminar in Thinking and Writing"
• Teaching the Student with Psychatric Disability
• Accessibility and Gifted Students
• Traditional Methods are Tools, Too

Suzuki Sampler: Cello | Piano | Violin | GuitarSuzuki Sampler: Guitar (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

It's 20 minutes after we're supposed to have started, and there's no instructor here. When you consider how rapidly a Suzuki lesson goes, I figured that didn't bode well for today.

My son Peter and the other student in the class, Georgie, immediately start playing with each other while they wait.

Complicating matters is the fact that I have to leave early, so my wife has to bring our 2-year old along.

The instructor arrives. If she gives her name, I don't catch it. She begins with the standard "get to know the instrument" demonstration.

The guitar is your friend. Will never fight with you or break up with you. When you're happy, he's with you. When you're sad, he's with you. But you have to be delicate.

Hmm… I'm not sure that my six-year-old son would understand the concept of "breaking up," but otherwise the introduction is fine. The instructor shows the guitar's head and neck, and asks the boys to show their own heads and necks. That's working out well enough.

Since the boys have seen two other string instruments this week, Peter glances at the handout and shrugs. "You know what, I don't even need to look at this to know what it is."

But there are parts of a guitar that don't correspond to other instruments. For instance, I didn't know there was such a thing as a "tapping plate".

Georgie recognizes the bridge, and sings a bit of the cello teacher's "this is the bridge" melody. He starts tapping the guitar, which upsets Peter, but the instructor says that's fine.

Now that Peter knows the instructor won't get mad if he touches the guitar, he's like a moth to a flame. The instructor keeps shifting it over a few inches, just out of his reach, and Peter keeps scooting after it.

When I leave, Peter and Georgie are learning the letters that go along with the fingers on their right hand -- p, i m, a, e. I wonder what the letters stand for, and why there isn't a mnemonic for it.

I give the camera to Leigh and head off to my meeting across town.

* * *

When I get home a couple hours later, Leigh is on the couch, reading books to Carolyn, and Peter is nowhere in sight. He's in bed already.

Uh-oh.

Leigh tells me that the lesson was a disaster.

Peter was sticking out his tongue at everybody, shouting "blaah!" and "I don't care!". When Georgie decided that he would be a dog for the rest of the night, Peter chased him around and tried to knock down his imaginary doghouse.

According to Leigh, this is the worst she's ever seen Peter act in public. (He can be stubborn and sullen, but I've really only seen him throw one honest-to-goodness temper-tantrum, and he was probably only two then. Now, he prefers to stew over a particular injustice, rather than lash out in general lamentations concerning the injustice of the universe, which is more Carolyn's style.)

The previous lessons (in cello, piano, and violin) always seemed to teeter on the verge of chaos, but somehow managed to remain coherent. I think that after 20 minutes of playing with each other, George and Peter were too interested in each other to focus when the guitar finally arrived.

According to Georgie's mom, Carolyn, whose presence we worried would be disruptive, was the only one good enough to deserve to play the instrument.

Suzuki Sampler: Cello | Piano | Violin | GuitarSuzuki Sampler: Violin (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Monday was cello, Tuesday was piano, today is violin.

Miss Ramona starts with the usual chit-chat that one can count on going over well with young kids.. how old are you? She asks them how old they think she is.

Peter thinks. "You're probably twenty-five years old." (He’s way under. She doesn't correct him.)

Miss Ramona has the kids pick a sticker and put it on the carpet, then sit on it. Peter is reluctant to sit on whatever Lion King character he’s chosen, but he does so anyway.

She asks them to sit “like an Indian.” Years of politically correct conditioning in academia cause me to cringe each time I hear that, though that’s probably an over-reaction.

She leaves them sitting on the ground for a while, while she sets up. (She had been teaching a private lesson until right before we entered.)

Peter squirms too much. George leans over and snaps, in a tone that exactly mimics the command I have been hissing at Peter all week: "Listening body!" (A positive alternative to "Don't slouch and roll around like that, pay attention instead!")

When the students ask a lot of questions or plead to hold their instruments right away, Miss Ramona doesn’t let them babble on off topic – she cuts them off with a pleasant but final "Nope."

Once she is set up, selecting little violins that are the right size for her pupils, she gives a little lecture about following directions -- and threatens to take away the violin if the students don't do what she wants, when she wants it.

This isn't playtime.

She's perfectly pleasant, sitting on the floor with the kids, and nicknaming Georgie “baby doll,” but she's also very professional and efficient.

While the little tiny violins are still in their cases, on the floor next to each student, Miss Ramona first plays Twinkle, Twinkle. She explains it’s the first song you learn on any instrument in the Suzuki method, and I understand that it’s also always the last song that one plays at a Suzuki concert, so that everyone – even the newest students – can play along.

I’m getting very familiar with that song.

Miss Ramona plays it again, and asks them to sing along this time. She claps for them when they’re done.

10 minutes into the class, they are doing fairly well.

She introduces the string family, taking the word “family” literally. The violin is the baby, the viola is the big brother. Cello is mommy, bass is dad.

"Who's the sister?" asks Peter.

"There is no sister, it's a boy family," says the daughter of the cello instructor (who has been hanging around with nothing better to do while her mother teachers in another room).

Miss Ramona demonstrates the instrument’s pitch range, she plays it at different speeds, she shows how to bow, pluck, and bounce the strings with the wood of the bow (a "special effect"), She also demonstrates the mute.

At the 15 minute mark, they open up the tiny violin case – but they take out only the bow. The violin doesn’t come out for another 5 minutes.

As they go through the anatomy of the instrument, Peter recalls a bit from Monday’s cello lesson, though he calls the scroll a "screw", and the pegs "pins," the fingerboard "finger rest." He does remember "bridge".

The students pluck the E string. The A string lives next door, and on to D and G.

At one point, Peter raises his hand and solemnly informs the instructor that a whitesmith works with steel, and a blacksmith works with iron.

She smiles. “Ooo-kay.”

When she demonstrates what happens to the sound of a string when you play it while also turning the tuner, the tuner makes a horrid clicking sound.

"Stop that," says Peter, worried. "I don't want to see you doing that.”

He’s convinced that she’s breaking the violin, because we have a little plastic toy guitar at home, and when you turn the little cheesey plastic toy tuner, the little cheesy plastic toy strings pop out, and Daddy has to fix it.

“Stop that!” says Peter. “Or else."

The instructor stops, her curiosity roused. "Or else… what?"

Pause.

Peter folds his arms. "I'm not doing that," he says, meaning he’s not going to turn the tuner.

Miss Ramona goes back into her spiel about how the vibration and tension of the string affects the sound.

Peter sighs. "We've heard that over and over."

Miss Ramona taps the violin, and invites the students to tap theirs and listen to the sound.

Peter won't tap the violin -- he doesn't want it to break.

Miss Ramona tries to get Peter to loosen up a bit. "You probably couldn't hit it hard enough with your hand to break it," she says.

Peter eyes his violin.

I blurt out, “Peter, don’t try.”

I needn’t have been worried. Obviously the instructor's reference to the violin as the baby of the string family has made an impression -- Peter wants to cradle his. "Has anyone made up a song called 'Rock a Bye Violin'?"

The cellist’s daughter seems to have officially crashed our lesson. With a new student in the room, the dynamic changes; George and Peter have just barely gotten used to the idea of taking turns, but with a third person, there’s a bit more squirming and poking going on.

The cellist’s daughter has taken cello for five years (she looks about seven or eight) and has to unlearn a few cello things in order to do violin things. Her hand shoots up with an answer for every question. She knows all about what rosin is for and how to put on your bow, but when asked where rosin comes from, she pipes up: “Maple.” She doesn’t know how or why, she just knows rosin has something to do with the word "maple". While the girl is very sweet, the competitive Dad in me is pleased to see that something has stumped her.

Peter gasps – he notices the instructor has been touching the bow with her finger. “Don't touch the horsehair!” he blurts, genuinely concerned.

"She knows what she's doing," says the cellist’s daughter.

Peter (holding the rosin up to her): "Sap!"

I snicker into my hand. That was a good one, Peter, though I’m sure it was completely unintentional.

At the 36 minute mark, the kids are doing very well, though they’re still eager to start bowing.

Peter suggests that the rosin and pitchpipe can be the violin’s cousin.

Peter hears someone scraping away at a cello. He reaches out towards it, looking for all the world like the Frankenstein monster from "Young Frankenstein," clawing away at the air which bears the music which calms the savage breast. "I think the cellos are going on!" he shrieks.

Our instructor introduces four rhythms that are important for playing violin:

Mississippi hot dog.
ice cream (shh) cone.
Ham-burger cheese-burger
Michael Michael motorcycle

At the 45 minute, we take a little break. When we come back, we practice stretching and reaching with the “bow hand” and the “violin hand”.

Learning to hold the bow: make a bunny with your hand. Pinky and index finger up, other two touching thumb. Now the students show their parents.

Holding the bows more or less properly, it’s time for “Bow Olympics.”

Make windshield wipers – back and forth, back and forth.

So far, so good.

Now, make a rocketship.

Whoops – immediately, both boys start making engine noises and running all around the room, making their bows chase each other and shoot laser missiles.

The idea is to get them to hold their bow straight up and down, so perhaps “tree” or “flagpole” would be a better image to put in their heads.

It takes some time to calm them down for the next step…

What’s your favorite food? Macaroni and cheese, of course.

The students use their bow to help them stir a big imaginary pot of macaroni and cheese.

After some singing practice, it’s time for posture. One at a time, they stand before the teacher, first holding just the violin, then both violin and bow. This takes much more doing than playing the cello.

Finally, after more than an hour, they’re ready to play “Mississipi hot dog” on one string.

Time to put the violins back in their case for some more listening. Peter pleads to play again. He makes his hands into spaceships and makes them swoop, dive and shoot at each other – a nervous habit that flares up for weeks at a time whenever he watches one of the Star Wars movies.

The cello teacher arrives to pick up her daughter. She and the violin teacher talk shop a bit. The violin teacher turns to Peter and asks which he likes better, violin or cello?

Peter looks from one to the other.

“Piano,” he says. Then, after a tiny pause, “And violin and cello.”

For his prize at the end of the day, Peter receives a sparkly butterfly sticker.

He brings it right to me. “You wear it,” he says. “I'm just too generous.”

The lesson is over.

Peter pines after the closed violin case.

"I want to play!"

Suzuki Sampler: Cello | Piano | Violin | GuitarSuzuki Sampler: Piano (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

The piano lesson was a little more stressful than yesterday's cello lesson, in part because we have a few toy and electric piano keyboards around the house. While playing with the cello, and even smelling it, was a new and exotic sensation, the action of sitting down and hitting a key is familiar to him (via his exposure to computer games).

Nevertheless, I am enjoying my own exposure to the Suzuki method.

First, Miss Charlene asks the students to say the musical alphabet - A B C D E F G. She claps her hands with each letter, and invites the boys to do the same. She then invites the younger boy (who is very squirmy today) to make up a different gesture. He flaps his arms. Miss Charlene and Peter imitate him, shouting out letters. While the other instructor always started with Peter and then let the younger boy copy Peter, this instructor seems to spread it around fairly evenly.

Next, the children are invited to sit at the piano and push a few keys. Then the instructor starts at the lowest white key and plays each one, counting as she goes.

By the time she gets to forty, both boys are squirming, but she soldiers on... after reaching the top, she works her way back down on the black keys.

So far, so good.


Now it's time to do some simple stepping up and down, focusing on getting the students to use five fingers of one hand.

The familiar melody "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is divided up to four sections:

* Bread: "Twinkie, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are."
* Peanut butter: "Up above the world so high"
* Jelly (softer): "Like a diamond in the sky"
* Other piece of bread: "Twinkie, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are."

The transitions from the piano (on one side of the room) to the table (on the other side) aren't going very well. Peter and George feel comfortable enough with each other to poke each other and play. The colored stickers they're supposed to put on a picture of a clown each time they learn a lesson are just too tempting to fiddle with during the next tabletop lesson.

When the instructor holds up a little rubber treble clef, Peter brightens -- he recognizes it from Jump Start Music (computer game), and correctly identifies it as a G clef.

The game that comes next is a hit. One student goes out into the hall, while another hides the treble clef somewhere in the room. When the first player comes back in, looking for the treble clef, a third student plays louder on the piano when the first student gets closer to the clef.

I notice that the instructor asks each of the boys if they would like to be the player, but neither volunteers. They choose to do the hiding or seeking, so the instructor does the playing -- and introduces the next melody in the process.

Just as parents were drafted into playing the cello last time, parents are drafted into playing "hunt the treble clef" this time.

Peter is able to find C with no trouble, playing it up and down the keyboard. He finds F pretty easily too. Now the instructor holds up a raisin, and announces that she will say either C or F, and Peter has to play the right note before the raisin drops to the ground.

I am pleased at how well is doing.

Then when it's little George's turn, I notice the trick -- she waits until he has decided which key to go for, and then she drops the raisin. It doesn't really make any sound when it hits the ground, so when she says George wins, he just beams happily.

As I noted, transitions aren't going very well. Yesterday, each boy had his own cello, but today they have to share the piano. There's a lot of sliding around on the bench, poking each other playfully when they share the bench, and flopping and slouching in their chairs while they wait for their next turn at the piano.

Just when both boys are near the breaking point, the instructor calls a bathroom break. When the students return, each gets a baggie full of crackers, on which they munch in relative contentedness, while the instructor reads to them a book about the orchestra.

She also has big flash cards designed to teach rhythm, and introduces a rest.

At one point, sitting on his chair while George takes a turn, Peter looks around forlornly.

"I wish the cellos were here," he says.

(Update: Corrected Miss Charlene's name.)

Suzuki Sampler: Cello | Piano | Violin | GuitarSuzuki Sampler: Cello (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

In the first few moments of his first Suzuki music lesson, my six-year-old son is sitting on the floor with Miss Rann, who is introducing him to the parts of a cello.

The instructor sings a very simple melody: "This is the bridge," and the students are supposed to sing back, "This is the bridge."

"This is the fingerboard," she sings, to a different tune.

"This is the fingerboard," the students repeat.

Maybe the bits of music she is singing are from a famous composition she's trying to drill into their minds. I never learned to play an instrument, and my knowledge of music is very limited, so I have no idea. Maybe she's just improvising.

For about ten years I was a church cantor, but I never had any formal training (other than an hour or so before Mass, and the occasional extra practices for more complex Christmas and Easter programs). The most I can say for myself is that I was probably a little better than having no song-leader at all, though I did enjoy it because many people in the congregation already knew the songs, they just needed to be reminded when to start.

Later, when she points to the bridge again, the instructor uses the same tune, singing, "What is this piece?"

She asks Peter to sing a question to the other boy, and vice versa. They're practicing pitch without realizing it, just like The Karate Kid, who polished Mr. Miyagi's old cars with a circular motion, not realizing he was practicing the motion you use to deflect an opponent's blow. Okay, I think I get it now.

I'm very impressed with Miss Rann's ability to keep his attention. Peter and the other boy are the only students in our group, so I'm sure that helps. Still, I'm amazed.

Now they are practicing posture -- how to sit down and get ready to play cello. One -- stand with feet together. Two -- move left foot left. Three -- sit on edge of chair, holding imaginary cello in left hand. Four -- tuck in and start playing.

One -- feet together.
Two -- feet apart.
Three -- sit down.
Two. (Whoops! She faked them out! After some fiddling, the kids stand up, feet apart.)

One. Two. Three. Four.

Peter does pretty well, aside from tending to fart on "Three", though it's the adults in the room who exchange glances and try not to laugh.


"Boy, you look good playing a cello," says the teacher. "You look like a born cellist!"

Peter puffs up at the flattery.

"Now I want to see how strong you are -- how long can you hold a cello, while you listen to me play?"

Peter looks very serious. "Excuse me, you'd better use the bow."

She does. He seems to enjoy the music the teacher makes. He closes his eyes, listening.

A little later, he chirps, "Look, I can hold the cello with my eyes closed!"

The teacher asks the kids to sing along with her as she plays each of the cello's four strings, A D G C. The lyrics:

"Axe, Dig into the Ground, all the way to China."

"Do you know why we have to sing?" she asks.

"Because you do," says Peter.

Well, yes, but she also wants the students to get into the habit of hearing the notes in their head, or they won't play them right.

Peter plucks the strings in the right order -- he is accompanying the instrutor as she sings! I'm amazed.

I watch more closely, and of course the instructor can see his fingers (which I can't, not from my position behind him), so she times her singing to his uncertain plucking.

Still, the illusion works -- and he laughs with pleasure.

I can't help but think of Harold Hill's 'Think System'. I wonder if The Music Man was written as a response to the Suzuki method?

When it's the other boy's turn to play, and Peter has to wait, he presses his nose against his (borrowed) cello, announcing, "Well, if I can't play it, I'll smell it."

A little later, the students pluck G over and over, one two one two, plucking while the instructor bows a more complex harmony around it.

I have to bite my tongue to keep from barking out orders, realizing Peter has to learn to listen to his instructor, and that if he's not ready to do that, he's not ready to play an instrument.

So far, they've only plucked. Peter has asked eight or ten times to use the bow.

While the other little boy takes a bathroom break, the teacher shows Peter how to put rosin (resin from a tree? Miss Rann has an accent that I can't place, so I'm not getting all her words, and she's not talking to me anyway) on Peter's bow, and lets him tug on it.

The other boy comes back; the instructor asks Peter to explain what rosin is and where it comes from.

I realize that, as much as possible, she's first instructing Peter, then asking him to repeat the lesson for the younger boy. The little boy gets to watch the new step twice before he's expected to perform it, and Peter gets the lesson reinforced when he teaches it.

"I'm tired," says the other boy.

Peter pretends his hands are spaceships and makes them shoot at each other -- something he does almost constantly, whenever his mind wanders.

Now it's time to teach a conductor's gestures. She lets the boys play whatever they want, but getting them to play soft and loud together, and -- very important -- to stop on her cue.

It's been just about 20 minutes. Now it's time for a walking break -- she takes the kids out into the hall. Away from the instruments.

Away from the parents.

They must have been playing follow-the-leader and Simon Says out there, because when they come back into the room, Peter is eager to get back to his instrument, yet they first have to play "Cello Maze".

Follow the teacher as she weaves through the chairs, around the cellos placed carefully on the floor. The object is not to kick the chairs or the instruments.

"I'm sure that piano is easier," says Peter at one point.

Now it's time for the "Cello Song," which is designed to remind the students to hold the cello with their knees and chest, not their hands:

I love my cello very much
I play it every day
I love to watch my spinning strings
When my hands fly away.

I can't help but think of the Battlestar Galactica episode where Starbuck taught some kids a battle plan in rhyme.

Next, it's time to turn the cello over and tap out a beat on the back. The teacher taps it out, then puts her hand on her head -- the sign that the student should repeat it. Peter has played rhythm games like this before in computer games, so he does very well. The other little boy strokes his cello, which squeaks under his palms. Instead of telling the boy, "No, don't make it squeak, you should tap it instead," the instructor compliments him on learning a new sound to make. Everyone tries to make their cello squeak for a while.

Whoops -- the middle part of the class flew by without any time for me to take notes. But I quickly noted that she's alternating "playing the instrument" with some other more physical activity.

The instructor demonstrates how the cello can make the sounds of a cow, a mouse, and a woodpecker. We sing and play "Old MacCello Had a Farm."

I have to help Peter; she's going a little fast, and Peter is getting frustrated his sounds don't sound like hers. He doesn't care that much about the cow, he wants to keep doing the mouse.

Just in time, the teacher gives them a break from the instruments.

What I don't expect is that I and the other parent get drafted to play the one two one two G drone in something the instructor calls "Muset" -- I didn't expect to be asked to play anything, but it was easy, and doing it really felt great.

Ten more minutes left.

She's teaching students how to bow (not the horsehair thing, I mean bend at the waist to accept applause). Everyone watches the instructor, until she makes big wide eyes -- that's the signal to bow.

Seven minutes left.

"What did you learn today?

"What a mouse sounds like!"

"Show me what a mouse sounds like!"

>squeak squeak< with the bow.

She explains the technical term for whatever it is they are doing. I don't catch it.

"What else did you learn?"

"How to bow!"

"Show me how to bow."

Peter makes big wide eyes, and flops over at the waist. The teacher follows her cue, and bows with him.

At the end, it's time for stickers.

For the rest of the week, Peter will spend one lesson each on violin, piano, voice, and something else (I forget). Depending on how that goes, we'll ask him if he wants to take another week on one particular instrument.

Then we'll see.

Earlier today, we dropped our daughter off at college. Like her brother before her, she went and grew up on us.... And as usual, whenever a buzzer sounds, the competitor within wants a score. How'd I do? whispers the bottom-line lobe of my brain.... [S]omehow, my kids' leave-taking has cracked open my shell. Suddenly, I can see some areas of Daddy weakness. --Hugh O'Neill --Put up the Hoop Sooner: 10 lessons of parenting from one wise guy who's done doing the dad thing (MSN)

The time is waning that my son will want nothing more than to play Battleship and The Magnificent Race with me all afternoon. Some day I'll make a silly joke, and my daughter won't giggle with glee, she will roll her eyes and say, "Dad, you're embarassing me."

Thanks to Torill's praise of my ongoing reviews of Into the Blogosphere, and the other bits of encouragement I've recieved here and there, I've been feeling a bit guilty that I haven't posted another review in a few days. This article cured me from feeling that guilt. There's plenty of time to read academic articles. I'll work my way through that collection. Just not today.

...being a virtual community is important for sustainability. It is worth noting that at the end of the blog author Julie'sendeavors to cook her way through the cookbook, she stopped her blog posting. Although several participants tried to create an online group for fans of the the Julie/Julia Project to interact, it failed. The Julie/Julia Project was not self-sustaining. It depended heavily on Julie to succeed.

These findings have implications for our understanding of the importance of sense of community in determining whether or not a virtual group can be correctly called a virtual community. --Anita Blanchard
--Blogs as Virtual Communities: Identifying a Sense of Community (Into the Blogosphere)

A good case study of a single blog, but I wonder about the value of the survey results. Is this dataset the baseline, or an exception? We can't tell from a single measurement, since there's no context in which to place it.

If survey respondents are 25% more likely to agree that blog X makes them feel like part of a community than they are to make the same statement about blog Y, then such a survey is useful. But the simple statement that X% of respondents said that blog X made them feel like part of a community is only worth so much. There may be other factors as well -- perhaps people who are interested in a cooking blog, or people who find out about a blog via a TV news report, have different definitions of "community" than the readers of other blogs. It's probably safe to assume that a blog with a mostly male readership might require a lower level of activity before its members would say they are part of a "community" -- or, maybe the activity would simply be of a different nature.

The Julie/Julia blog had a particular narrow focus. While it also met other needs that emerged along the way, once the main objective was fulfilled, the blog stopped. A blog that exists for a specific purpose -- to document one woman's progress through a particular book -- shouldn't be judged by the same criteria used to judge open-ended blogs that don't have mission statements that include a final destination. A made-for-TV movie "stops", but a soap opera does not (unless the show is cancelled, of course). They are different genres.

While I'm quibbling about the lack of context, I liked the methodology of this article, though the intense focus on one blog means we don't (yet) know what will happen if a similar survey is done across a wider range of blogs (k-blogs, edublogs, fiction blogs, group blogs, etc).

And while this particular blog didn't make use of blogrolls, there are tools, such as Technorati and other content aggregators, that can serve much the same function (that is, bring together strangers who have both blogged about a similar topic).

This area still appears to be pretty wide open, though there are several other articles in this collection that touch on similar areas.