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Performance Art
August 5, 2009 by Jeff, under New world, The Practicing Church, leadership development | | 2 Comments
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?
Bottom Pyramid Teachings for Us
July 29, 2009 by Jeff, under New world | | 3 Comments
When the poor are converted into consumers, they get more than access to products and services. They acquire the dignity of attention [my emphasis] and choices from the private sector that were previously reserved for the middle-class and rich. – C.K. Prahalad
Loaded Question
One of the most interesting questions I get asked is “What is the future of the church?” This is a loaded question, especially when asked (more…)
Power(ful) Questions
July 15, 2009 by Jeff, under New world, The Practicing Church, leadership development | | 13 Comments
Those who have power never think about it and those who don’t have it think about it all the time. – Thomas Friedman
A friend and I have been pondering this double question and I’m putting it out to you –
What is power? and How do you recognize it?
Fire away.
Better Teacher
July 8, 2009 by Jeff, under The Practicing Church | | 1 Comment
I believe that love is a better teacher than a sense of duty, at least for me. – Albert Einstein
Often, when discussing the practicing church, the issue of “works” comes up. Many times, the past few months, people worry (more…)
Listening Hard Enough
July 1, 2009 by Jeff, under The Practicing Church | | 1 Comment
I’ve learned that people usually tell you the truth if you listen hard enough. If you don’t, you’ll hear what they think you want to hear.
- Jacqueline Novogratz, author of The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World
My friend Al Doyle recommended this book to me. Al doesn’t usually recommend books so I got this one as soon as possible but when I read it I thought (more…)
Listening others into speak
June 24, 2009 by Jeff, under The Practicing Church | | 7 Comments
I now understand what Nelle Morton meant when she said that one of the great tasks in our time is to “hear people to speech.” Behind their fearful silence, our students want to find their voices, speak their voices, have their voices heard. A good teacher is one who can listen to those voices even before they are spoken—so that someday they can speak with truth and confidence.
~ Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach
I’ve been a teacher for 20 years (I’m counting 4 years of coaching basketball while in college) and I can’t think of anything that is more essential for good teaching than the ability to “listen to those [student] voices even before they are spoken”. This, to me, is what Jesus did (and does). He (more…)
