We’ve all heard about thinking outside the box. How about thinking outside the bucket? What about thinking outside…
Outside the discipline?
Outside the medium?
How about opening your mind beyond the box?
In couple of recent classes I asked my students to show me music. I did’t want an essay – did’t want to have words. I want them to experience music in another way, and then to be able to recognise and communicate this to others.
Why?
Because we are all unique. I will never really know you, I cannot be a spectator inside your experience, your mind. For me that means that as a teacher I will never really know my students or as a performer, my audience, but if I can learn to communicate and experience in different ways, then perhaps I will have more of a chance of connecting. –or at least of gaining and giving a window into that communication.
I suppose it stems from a constructivist approach to learning, that we do and the more different ways you do something, the more likely it is to stick and sink in:
Write it. Read it. Speak it. Hear it. Feel it. Touch it. Taste it
(ok that is going too far for most academic subjects. We would all prefer not to eat our words… unless written on rice paper and then that is a totally fun exercise).
The idea of doing those things gives a holistic experience and often opens our minds to seeing whatever ‘it’ is in a new light.Read More »Beyond the box
