If you held a gun to my head and forced me to choose, I would say that I do not believe in astrology.
Of course, I would, in the same situation, say that I do not believe in a lot of things. I am of two minds on many things. Am I a fence straddler? No. I just prefer to not close doors. Possibilities are way more fun than then... definitities. (Shakespeare made up a lot of words. Why can't I?)
Back to astrology, and to the title of this entry. I am a Gemini. A born dualist. One of my favorite high school teachers once made the observation that I am like Kurt Vonnegut; I "like to put sour coatings on sugar pills." I like to see two (or more) sides to everything. The cubists really work for me. So... (digress much?) I've been digging some YouTube videos of one of my favorite bands, Cracker. They have a song called "Yalla Yalla" that is written (in songwriter David Lowery's own words) as an, "exploration and a celebration of a certain kind of bravado and swagger one finds in the speech of soldiers. I find it nicely matches the kind of swagger often exhibited by rock, blues and hip hop singers" (read the blurb below the video).
As YouTube is set up to function like Google, Amazon, etc, etc, etc, it steers you to videos based on videos you have already watched ("It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen..."). In my case, it lead me to a song by Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros called... "Yalla Yalla". Strummer's song (and--for those of you just joining this broadcast--they are two unique songs) is a bit on the electronica/pop-groove side, while the Cracker song is full-tilt Rawk 'n Roll.
"Ok, Whitey, what the flip does this have to do with education?"
Well... the very unique yallas got me thinking... Back in the day (and, in some classes, that was/is... um... today, and tomorrow, and the next day...), education was about The Right Answer, also known as the "Guess what I'm thinking!" game. Both of these songs take the Arabic yalla and run with it in very different directions. (And I'm not that ignorant... there are gazillions of songs in Arabic that use the word... I'm talking about two particular English language reinterpretations...)
What if the next time you teach something, you leave your mind wide open to the possibility (yay!) that one of your students is going to come up with an answer that bears no resemblance to what you were expecting (even if--progressive teacher that you are--you were ready for a few "right" answers). An answer that is the Martian version of the answers given by every other student in the room. On first glance, it might even seem like a goof answer, or an "oops... this kid needs way more 'wait time' before answering coherently" answer, or a "note to self: seat this little guy further away from the dry erase board... the fumes are getting to him" answer. Give it a minute (some wait time for... you) . Maybe it's just the cubist genius answer you never expected.
Yalla, yalla!
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You are so right, I was tutoring a student yesterday and we were working with similes. The sentence was, Joe approaches conflict like a turtle. I had thought the answer to be he is slow at confronting his problem and takes his time. I checked the answer key and saw they were thinking the same thing. When I read my student's answer, he responded with, "Joe is hiding from his problem and will surround himself with a comforting environment until his problem goes away". This student in no way was wrong, and if anything I felt it was a better answer than I had come up with! Keep your mind open and you will always find something new.
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