WK2 Reading: The Art of Possibility

“The Art of Possibility” reading certainly sheds light on independent thinking, which considers the commonly used phrase – think outside of the box. I can only imagine how augmented education would become if educators took on the philosophy of “it’s all invented” and truly understood the concept. The constructs of our minds rely greatly upon our previous experiences and learning, which I believe psychologically enslaves us to a world of measurement, as described in the reading.

In the reading, Mr. Zander demonstrated an interesting concept of giving each student an “A” for the course and subsequently inviting each of them to write in past-tense their explanation as to how they achieved that letter grade. This process appears as clear intent to allow the students to focus more on the accomplishments and process of attaining educational goals rather than thinking exclusively of the letter grade. I am a firm believer that the key to learning is through a students’ ability to methodically step through the educational process and focus on reaching optimal performance within the subject matter. Considering I work in music education, I find this idea a much easier concept to manage. Questions posed in the reading give a good reference as to how to begin to think differently when teaching. I have found that teachers are often caught in situations where they must meet content standards and feel constrained to delivering results in the manner school officials desire. I have been in this position many times in my professional career and it really limited me from inserting more innovative and creative ideas. In fact, I found myself losing that mentality of a task oriented way of working, and doing things more mechanically.

When considering education, we clearly see that grades are a key component that allows society to later recognize a students’ previous performance. Many of you may agree that it would be somewhat impossible to eliminate the letter/number grading system, but what if all educators learned the art of how to remove the focus from the letter grade and place it more on performance. The possibility is there. How many of us are willing to trade in the old way of thinking and make a conscious effort to initiate higher order thinking? We are teaching our students to adopt this thinking process, so it only makes sense that we as teachers challenge ourselves to do the same at an even higher level.