Performance Art

August 5, 2009, posted by Jeff, under New world, The Practicing Church, leadership development | | 2 Comments

performance-art

Mathematics is a performance, a living act, a way of interpreting the world. Imagine music lessons in which students worked through hundreds of hours of sheet music, adjusting the notes on the page, receiving checks and crosses from the teachers, but never playing the music. Students would not continue the subject because they would never experience what music is. Yet this is the situation that continues, seemingly unabated, in mathematics classes. – Jo Boaler, author of What’s Math Got To Do With It?

Being a math teacher and working with a musician in this blog, I resonate with the quote above. All of us have learned to drive by driving, not by reading about it or observing others doing it. I think Jesus told us to know and do or do and know if you please. The good news was performance art for him, not as a person on a stage as much as a way of living. What if we dispensed with the checks and crosses and just let people play the music? What could happen then?

2 Responses to “Performance Art”

  1. Benjamin Ady says:
    August 5, 2009 at 11:57 pm

    Jeff,

    can you elaborate a bit on what you/Jo are talking about with regards to mathematics? I think I have a hint of an idea, but I’m not totally following. I’m trying to imagine a way of learning about/dealing with mathematics which is analogous to the thing Jo describes about music.

    Thank you.

    Benjamin

    Reply
    • Jeff says:
      August 6, 2009 at 8:40 am

      Sure Ben,
      This is a quote directly from Jo Boaler’s book (I think you’ll see the connection) My take follows the quote.

      The type of traditional teaching that concerns me greatly and that I have identified from decades of research as highly ineffective is a version that encourages passive learning. In many mathematics classrooms across America the same ritual unfolds: teachers stand at the front of class demonstrating methods for twenty or thirty minutes of class time each day while students copy the methods down in their books, then students work through sets of near-identical questions, practicing the methods. Students in such classrooms quickly learn that thought is not required in math class and that the way to be successful is to watch the teachers carefully and copy what they do. In interviews with hundreds of students from such classes I have asked them what it takes to be successful in math class, and they almost always give the same exact answer: pay careful attention. As one of the girls I interviewed told me: “In math you have to remember, in othe subjects you can think about it.”
      - Boaler, J. What’s Math Got To Do With It?, p. 40

      Obviously, I believe Jesus wants us to think, not “just remember”. If we’re thinking we’ll do things based upon (or springing from that thinking). Personally, I liked the term “performance art” in that it gets at the kernel of what drew me to math (and Jesus) way back when. I think one of the ways that discipleship with Jesus has changed for me is to recognize that this “thinking leading to doing” piece is at Jesus’ core. As a teacher, parent, whatever, performance art gets at the essence of being and doing (as opposed to just remembering which doesn’t inherently require me to get off my comfortable couch). Hope that helps.

      Peace,
      Jeff

      Reply

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