This TED talk showed up in my in box.  Its arrival was serendipitous, one of those moments we all love when things come together. Last week, I wrote about role of engaging students in learning. In part two, my plan was to discuss many of the points Ken Robinson address in this lecture. His metaphor of Death Valley near the end is lovely. So, rather than read what I had to say, please listen to Ken Robinson. I agree with his ideas. The major benefit is that he is funny and entertaining.

Other education talks by Ken Robinson:

Schools Kill Creativity

Changing Education Paradigms

Bring on the Learning Revolution!

I can safely say none of my students wanted to become a bad teacher, but many of them had not thought about how they would become a good or even great instructor. Throughout these courses, I invited students to consider their options and set goals.

One concept I pushed from day one is that students learn when they are engaged and good teachers engage students.

Although I said “students learn when they are engaged,” most of my students heard “students learn when they have fun.” That might be partly true, but a teacher isn’t an entertainer and sometimes students are asked to do work, which frankly, is not fun.

If a teacher loves the subject and shows enthusiasm, the students will catch the passion and become engaged. Once they are engaged, they discover that studying and leaning can be satisfying and rewarding.

When I’m teaching, I like to say things and then contradict myself. If students are sleeping the vocal contesting of alert students usually wakes them up.

So, after my mini lecture on engaging students, I tell this story:

During my short stint of teaching high school, one semester to see if I liked it (I didn’t), I was required to teach The Sun also Rises by Earnest Hemingway. I’d give these future teachers a brief explanation of several activities I used to engage the students, and then I dropped the bomb with this: a couple months after school ended, two of the high school students took me out for lunch. They were both college bound and wanted to say their farewells. We had a nice lunch, and they chatted about Hemingway, the research they had done about him, and how much they loved The Sun Also Rises.

I smiled at them. “Now that I’m not your teacher, I’ll tell you I don’t care for Hemingway.”

They were crestfallen, shocked, and very vocal in wanting to know why. Because I had taught them to love him, how could I not love him?

I often didn’t get to finish this story because one or more my college students would point out that I wasn’t passionate about Hemingway, and yet, the high school students were.

Bingo.  They woke up. They were engaged and apparently listening.

Perhaps we need to define passion. What exactly is this passion I was talking about? Does it mean I loved every author, every book, everything about literature? I have a passion for literature, and good writing, and good stories and complex texts that invite us to think and feel. But, I don’t like every author or every text. I do admire Hemingway’s writing style, his prose, his ability to tell a complex story simply and economically—something a few current authors might learn by studying his novels. Also, I wished I could write as sparse and as pithy as he did. He’s an icon in modern literature and a course wouldn’t be complete without reading him.

So, once again, “The key to education is engaging students.” And yes, they might have fun along the way, but if you get their attention and spark their interest, they’ll learn. It doesn’t matter if it’s literature, composition, math, science, art, drama, history, or anything.

Are you asking yourself, “So what?”

Good question.

To Be Continued . . .

Don’t you hate that?

It’s simple, and it’s straightforward. If you want to improve your writing, or keep your writing skills honed, then read anything and everything. Read the good, the bad, the ugly. You can learn from bad writing as well as good. Babies learn spoken language by listening to conversations and spoken language, and we cheer them on as they begin to speak; their mistakes are so cute. Children who aren’t talked to or aren’t exposed to verbal language to not learn to speak.

Writers learn to write by reading and internalizing the written word. It’s similar to learning a new language.

My freshman composition students often asked what they could do to improve their writing. My answer was always, “Read and write everyday.” After grading a class’s first essay assignment, I knew which students read and which didn’t. I could predict their reading habits with high accuracy. The best writers were readers; the poor writers were not readers.

I’ve met a lot of people who want to write novels, but their prose needs lots of work. When I begin asking questions, I easily solve their mystery, the reason their writing is awkward and sometimes unreadable. They don’t read; they watch movies.

Have you ever been stuck on Madder-Meinhof Phenomenon merry-go-round? You notice a Mini Copper for the first time, and then you start seeing them everywhere. Psychologists call this perceptual vigilance.

Whatever you call it, I experienced it this morning. I saw a headline that included the words body image, and then, I read and saw body image everywhere. I skimmed through one article after another. It was like that old commercial, “You can’t just eat one potato chip.”

One of the dumbest comments I read said something like: your body issue problems are in your mind; you are in control of your self-image. In other words, if you believe something, then for you, it is true, or if you accept and like yourself the way you are, then what others think doesn’t matter—this isn’t new advice.

I call this concept magical thinking. It’s great if it works, but how many people can think issues away? What other people think does matter. Right?

When I was in eighth grade, I rushed into my math class just as the bell was ringing and slid into my seat.

The boy sitting across from me stared at me with his eighth grade, belligerent brown eyes. He squinted and said, “You have the fattest lips in the world.”

He could have punched me in the mouth, knocking out teeth, and not have caused me as much pain. I looked down, avoided eye contact, and never looked at him again. He probably went the rest of his life without realizing or caring he’d hurt me to the core.

From then onward, when I looked in the mirror, I saw enormous lips, sticking out, looking huge, mocking, and growing larger by the moment.

If this had happened today, I would have been elated. Having big Angelina Jolie lips would be trendy and sexy. Alas, in my eighth grade world, having fat lips wasn’t a compliment.

I’ve never been an “in style” person. When I was thin, thin wasn’t fashionable. After I had my first child, I was plumper, but thin was in. When I had long hair, short was the trend. When I wore black as my basic color, brown was the new black. Styles come and go, and I manage to always be on the wrong side of the fads.

That fateful day, having decided this middle school killjoy was right, I developed a little trick to hide my fat lips. I’d stretch my lips over my teeth, which made my lips thinner. Aside from the fact that I looked ridiculous, there were several drawbacks to this strategy. One stood out above the others: when I spoke, I sounded as if I were chewing on a mouthful of cotton balls—I’d become a thirteen-year-old godfather.

Did this discourage me? No. I simply didn’t talk much, which caused some to think I was a snob. I figured it was better to have attractive lips than to be articulate or popular. I could live with a speech impediment or being thought of as uppity—not that anyone but my grandmother used that word. When I was with my closest friends and family, I relaxed and let my fat lips babble.

I practiced this lip stretching strategy for over a year.

Yep. You didn’t misread. A year. A miserable school year in which most of my school day was focused on stretching my lips over my teeth. There were times when I’d forget, relax my lips, and catch myself. On rare occasions, when my guard was down, I might have learned something.

Friends would ask, “Are you all right?”

After awhile, my lips got tired; my mouth grew numb; I felt as if I were stretching everything out of shape. I’m surprised the skin around my mouth didn’t start sagging like a slobbering Saint Bernard.

In desperation to give my mouth relief, I’d smiled really big, stretching out my lips, looking, I imagine, like a demented psychopath. Of course, smiling continuously was as uncomfortable as stretching my lips over my teeth.

Then, in a random, ordinary moment, I decided hiding my fat lips was silly. If people didn’t like my lips, then they’d just have to deal with it. I didn’t have an epiphany. I didn’t decide to accept myself. I didn’t think positive thoughts. I just changed my mind. And, thankfully, my face didn’t suffer any permanent damage.

Yeah, I know. It sounds a lot like magical thinking, but it took over a year and countless incidents of making myself ridiculous to find the magic.

Plus, I saw fat lips everywhere, especially in the mirror.