I chose symphony as my Pink sense. Sort of a case of throwing a dart and going with the sense it landed on. Symphony seemed the least interesting to me on the face of it so I thought I'd challemnge myself. Well, symphony and I are now bff's. What an interesting sensibility and how perfectly it fits into Pink's thesis about the 21st century.
It occurred to me the other day while watching President Obama speak at a news conference that his position particularly calls for a symphonic thinker. Confronted on all sides by a myriad of problems (financial, educational, healthcare, security) it would be easy to say all else is on hold until the economy is fixed. It takes a "big picture" thinker to see that all these things are interrelated and should all be part of the solution. In spite of his critics, the President has chosen to confront all of these problems with bold initiatives - "big thinking" to use Pink's words to describe symphony.
Symphonic thinking is also suited to so many aspects of education. Seeing the whole child and how curriculum can be designed to bridge a diversity of learning styles requires the synthetic thought which characterizes the symphonic mind.
I'm looking forward to to investigating this sense further and trying some of the suggestions in the symphony portfolio.
6 comments:
Good observation, Maureen. I can see the connection that you've made between Symphony and President Obama, and all that he has to deal with. On a smaller scale, when my house, family, etc. are not running smoothly, and things are out of whack, I feel like I am in a panic or hurried to get from point A to point B. But, when everything is in order, and things are organized and scheduled it is like a Symphony. I feel calm and relaxed. It is like beautiful music to my ears.
Hello Maureen,
Looks like we are the only two that selected Symphony. I was a little iffy about picking it as well in the beginning, but I had a good time doing a little research on the Symphony section of Daniel Pink's Book. One thing that I especially enjoyed was playing 6 degrees of separation with Symphony on the internet. If you haven't yet you need to do it. Good times. We'll it should be interesting to see all the comments rolling in and what our classmates think about out posts on Symphony.
very true!! grading students based on strictly test grades can be a disadvantage. grading them holistically integrating all aspects and combining all pieces of the puzzle, just as a symphony comes together when combining all its pieces, has proven to be a much better approach :)
Some great ideas here and the correlation to our president even better. He is trying to be holistic and I think it will work to our benefit. As for our students and grading I feel the same way, they should be graded holistically, not everyone is at the same place in their learning as everyone else. Students progress at their own levels and their grades should reflect that instead of being compared to their peers.
So true! Without symphony we could not meet all of our children's needs...not just as teachers but as mothers as well! Each child needs different things, in order to meet those needs we need to create symphony. Otherwise, we as well as our children are out of whack!
I remember as my last stint of teaching came to and end, my whole house, as well as my class, became a little too hectic - the symphony that had once been there had dissapated and everythign was awry.
It is so necessary! Great Job!
I agree that in order to successfully run our country, President Obama had to run things with symphony. He seems to be doing a good job meshing all of his ideas as well as the ideas of his cabinet into a symphonic theme. I think that with all of the things that are on our plates in life, it is important to include different aspects of how to deal with them in order to create a calm, manageable place.
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