Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The performance today

I love hearing the Jazz Band play. They work tremendously hard practiciing their instrument, they practice working together, and then when they get on stage there is still the element of improvisation. It reminds me a little of Barry Sanders; the Lions practiced their plays over and over, but when a play broke down or Barry found the open field his improvisational skills were second to none. Have you improvised recently? How did it go? Is it possible to get better at improvising?

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Thinking about thinking


Socrates (the goofy looking guy in the picture) was a great teacher. Part of what made him so great was his method of teaching; he liked to ask lots of questions, and then question the answers his students gave him. Sometimes his students were very frustrated by this method, but old Socrates stuck with it. Why do you think I would think this is a good method for teaching? Wouldn't it just make more sense to tell the students what the answers are, so that the students can study the answers? Be prepared to respond to my response to your response to this post.