A great poem by Miguel Hernandez

What does the wind of bitterness want
that it comes down the gully
and forces the windows
while I dress you in my arms?

To overthrow us, pull us down.

Overthrown, pulled down,
both our bloods receding.
What more does the wind want
more bitterly each moment?

To part us.

A day in the life of a poet like Tagore?
03/25/06
(edited Saturday, Mar 25, 2006 08:54)
purify your heart and find out
what the truth is and/or the truth is not
purify your heart and you shall see
God in fire ether earth wind(air) and sea
purify your heart and we can be
one as the two faces of the multiple High
purify your heart in the motives and intentions of all your dreams
purify your heart
so that all you are and say and do is more than what it seems
till you know you are your silence and not just your deeds
and your reacting and your refraining from evil purify
be good, dear heart
purify your single singular heart
and find it linked to the sacred(ness of the) heart and all the other hearts
in the expanding universal heartland(s) of the pure.

Anu's session

Teaching a chapter on stress that was both content-rich and content-heavy Anu found out that the last lesson which she made an interesting one based on brain based strategies to motivate learning was perhaps the most successful of the lot. She showed us a video of the class in which she had made use of Nina John as a subject expert.
Her consequhent reflection led to this unexpected key question - unexpected but relevant for many of us teachers who deal with lots of content and concepts in a year's syllabus - :
How - through what methods (tools) -can direct teaching be made interesting?
Direct teaching, she explained - and we concurred - was the only way to teach large chunks of theory whichroug was needed as background for the discipline - those dry but necessary sections.
For someone like me who had majored in direct teaching the question came as a pleasant surprise - because it made me rethink how it could be made interesting.

Intriguingly, of the six sessions we have held so far only two dealt directly with assessment of student work. Two dealt with motivating students to work/learn better and the other two dealt with questions connected more with improving our teaching practice as professionals.
The range is what makes this exercise worthwhile.

My suggestions for improving direct teaching included bringing in the lement of performance - body langugage, jokes, gestures, eye contact, use of movement and space by the teacher in the class, preparing rigorously beforehand for the lecture, timing things perfectly , including the pauses and the time and places for discussion in the course of this kind of "delivery".
Other suggestion I made were that tech tools like video files, audio files and powerpoint presentations be made use of in direct teaching classes to enhance content rather than as media for building the student's potential to learn. Thus interviews with famous personalities - subject experts - , case studies etc could be projected making the classroom a serious space and the things shown and heard would be a documentary nature .
The idea that Anu took to most was that of personalizing the content, because however dry the topic is, if the students find a genuine link in it to their own lives, it will enthuse them.

Bala facilitated the session ably.

During the collaborative strategy building session we formulated a strategy that helped all of us
in its definitiveness.
Bala's role in insisting that the collaborative strategy sessions should really move towards a single combined strategy is worth noting as a concrete and positive move.
So is his role in making for us a document in which we can easily write down our session notes. If fine tuned this wil be of lasting importance to future CASW Sessions.
The debriefing did not contain anything much of note except the suggestion that contextualizing
the key question sometimes get confusing becasue the presenter is busy not only speaking but also handing out notes etc.
The necessity to be punctual was also stressed.
Anu was quite happy with her take-away.
All of us heaved a big sigh of relief, having completed the first round.

"School's out for ever" - Alice Cooper

Do you remember what you felt like on the last day of school after the last school -exam you'd ever write?

The Quiet Auditorium and Beyond
Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:01:06 -0800

i was found standing
in a wide but closed space
on a sleepy noonday

a tall death's head glided
skeletally past me
to a long and spectral bench

tall, swaying trees came in
hemmed in by small seats
their branches, silent; moving

the hourglass turned thrice
i was found sitting
sleeping(!), sometimes writing

pacing is distracting
pacing shows distraction
eyes feasting on fair calves

ankles, thighs and muscles
shapes, twisting and turning
chairs and skirts, leaves rustling

three aeons went by
(for them but thirty seconds?)
of minds and sinews working

the clock struck five quietly
they rushed by, in gladness
22 soft-eyed gazelles

no longer penned in by/with questions
in "convent-ual" fences
free to roam the city

as if t'were green savannahs
to their hearts' feline dis-content(s)
in the heartless neon-lit streets

no more of school-exams
no more they, school children
no more they, girls; thinking

w/trapped in women's bodies
running out , gracefully
liberated, pretty gazelles

finally 'wisdom's' children
their sparkling faces declared
at one with their lissome limbs

and i was found walking
out of the gates of division
into the place, (of) my poem

setting it free, long-legged gazelle
into the azure - "nu/ew blue" - skies
of your desirous readings.

Gnome - 2

There is no need to feign
Poetry is worth nothing
But, then again
Nothing is worth Poetry.

Writing

"Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to its vomit" - Samuel Beckett in his monograph on Marcel Proust

What is friendship , according to Proust? Two people at the same level of confusion.....

How are these things connected to writing?

A writer needs to free himself from all preconceivedness to become a potent silence.

A change of mind & the importance of the prefix RE

I am unable to post a picture of Patrick White. I think I'll drop it. I want to return to my thread on evolving a satisfactory philosophy of education that will fit and extend my present needs as a facilitator.
I would like to be a bit subject or discipline- specific this time. However, the thoughts here are, as always, in media res; and should not be taken as a final position on anything I am pondering about.
In every subject at present a knowledge of English is needed.
So students should know English well.
What is the process by which a(ny) language can be learned 'well'?
Hearing and listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Thinking in the target language
These are commonly known denominators.
But in the 20th century , after modernism and post-modernism the prefix "re-" has become important.
The process of learning is not only about the impact of the first time
but about words like
re-petition
re-membering
re-inforcing
re-ifications

In literature especially, which if a man becomes an adept at, he naturally becomes good at language too - a cycle begins to form which I now feel is extremely valid
It goes like this.

Reading - RE - reading - Note-taking - RE - reading - Note-making - P(l)anning for writing -Writing - RE- reading - RE - writing (some people plan what they want to write so well they don't need to rewrite - they edit in their head- but these are exceptions)
In the circle also comes things like hearing and then hearing again, (the second is what I call ac tual listening) , viewing and RE-viewing (actual looking/seeing), thinking and then RE-thinking, doing and RE-doing, making and RE- making, creating and RE-creating.....
In short, I speak of the importance of the prefix RE and of RE-working everything to come closer to perfection....

This needs to be explicated using examples but it is potent enough as a seed for now. Ideally everything would need to be done thrice.

One of the twentieth century greats - Derrida

This picture was called " the blind deconstructing the blind."
Derrida is on the left. You can see that his hair has been deconstructed, perhaps by the wind.

Michaelangelo once said:

"i am still learning"

5th CASW session - Viji's.

Despite the absence of Anu and Hema , the former due to invigilation duty at Sophia's and the latter due to illness ; we held the fifth CASW session of the +2 teacher's group. Mohua joined in,
which was good.
Viji's key questions were
1.For projects based on research and collection of data how can the teacher ensure authenticity of data and no manipulation of the same by the student?
2. What measures can be taken by the teacher to ensure that students maintain integrity and truthfulness in producing genuine work based on research?
The questions , I felt , went into areas of research methodology, documentation, planning, assessment, life skills and ethics - a wide spectrum indeed!
The point she stressed most was that there should have been "systematic record of data, good arrangement of data, independant market survey, creative representation" in accordance with the proposed guidelines for marking with grades for 10th ISC internal assessment in economic applications projects.
She showed samples of project work where the students had not kept the criteria but it couldn't exactly be pinned down, so because of the superior packaging of the projects, they had , in a sense, got away with it....
This is what I wrote down in my indidvidual writing session:
To ensure they have done research give them specific locations. Scout those areas early or go with them. Check facts out if not with them. Collection of data must be backed by proof, not just charts.
Stick to assessment criteria and refuse to give marks/grades if what was asked for was not done.
Ensuring integrity by modelling research.
Don't let them consider the project completed until you are satisified.
The participant discussion was rich in specifying how ideas like the general ones above could actually be put into practice. I am putting them here in short hand:
Locate much of field study in school.
Bring back proof of interviews held.
Bring back bills and receipts.
Bring in research experts - to talk of how to do research and how exciting it is.
Bring back photographs and videos of the trips -
In case of dereliction of duty on the part of the student regarding quality of work done report the matter to the higher authorities
Map the work, break it down into manageable units, plan, collect data, analyze and write/present project. This makes close monitoring possible to avoid dilution.
Talk to the students of the need for ethics in research work. teach them skills of data collection, recording findings, documenting the process.
In the presenter reflection period Viji said that grouping wouldn't work and modelling was difficult. She also said that withholdoing marks and grades wasn't a feasible solution.
Collaborative strategy building :
1. Teach the students differnt styles of research;
library research, field study, market survey etc.
Also, how to record and write the results.
2.Provide structured parameters: selected locations, people, objects for study , time, sources.
3.Call in motivators and inspirers and be inspiring ....
4. Monitor the process and its documentation - evaluate and record. Surprise inspections can also be done occasionally.
The teacher has to talk throughout to students of work ethics.
If there is a clear case of plagiarism, copying, flagrant violation of copyright, patents or wholescale lifting of material from the internet etc. or stealing of intellectual property breaking those rights connected to it, the matter has to be taken to higher authorities.
Debriefing made us aware that the collaborative strategy session needed to be fine-tuned.
The facilitator's role was clearly delineated and his participant staus was seen to be less because of having to do two things at the same time.
Time has to be handled more carefully.
The points the presenter disagreed with were thought best avoided and not discussed in the collaborative strategy building session.

Next sessions:
Wednesday 22nd: Anupama's first session and/or Koshy's review. 2.30-5.00
April 1 - The other five review sessions. 8.45 - 3.15

Voss isst du?

		03/06/06 (edited Monday, Mar 06, 2006 19:04)
		Something’s stirring like a butterfly's wings It's clear that, again, someone's going batty Somewhere there's mud It feels so gritty under one's boots the sound drives you crazy In the damp rain falling hard taking shelter in a cowshed smelling of stale hay and piss so no one can think It's so nutty I feel like i’m almost about to scream There he says he knelt the gay writer with a name like W/white! Pa-trick luna-tic and he said he came to believe in the almighty - I’ve heard taller stories but i take it easy - and he wept like a baby cursin’ the damn rain (must have been night?!) beating on his wet face like thunder - Is that where he caught the chill that led to the Nobel? - I don't have an ace like that hid up my shirtsleeve I must have cheated at the game of life, gambling Voss, isst du, poker-face? The countdown for the usual cast off begins all over this year I wait in the days of Lent in a deserted vestry standing by the river in spate Can you hear the words of my roaring it asks I listen Hear It's the same old sound the crucified one crying out in human(e) agony

P.S. The experiments in language are intentional. A photograph of Patrick White shall duly be posted.

The promised picture of T.S. Eliot painted by none other than Wyndham Lewis