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Feb. 16th, 2007 12:06 amMy mother used to take a basket to school every day. It contained stuff she might need, and it was the first thing that went into the car every morning. That basket came up in a conversation we had today and I can't get it out of my mind.
Most of you know that Mum is a guide at the Jewish Museum in Melbourne. She is so good at what she does (and she was always an exceptional teacher) that the Jewish Museum wants to work out how she does what she does. I think they want to bottle it. That precise topic was raised with her when she was last at the Museum, which got Mum thinking. She and I sat down over the phone and tussled with it till we had it worked out.
The Museum thinks that videoing her will do the trick. We think that her success is due to something that would be hard to track in single video.
It all comes down to that teaching basket. Mum and I worked out that what she does when she teaches or gives a tour is to use her basket. The basket itself is her assessment of her group and the stuff in her basket are stories and information. It used to live in the back of her car and contain chalk and paper and exam results and geological samples - these days it resides in her brain and is much richer.
The information is taken out to explain and to argue and to clarify. Different bits come out for different needs and they are strung together to create dozens of results. The stories are also taken out of the basket as she needs them and polished with the particular shine needed by a particular group.
She does stringing of data and facts and the polish and shine of stories on automatic. Until we talked about it it didn't occur to her that she didn't give the same material to all groups, or that she told one story in twenty different ways. A group of adult US tourists needs different words and different reflections to a single five year old, and a group of schoolgirls from the local Moslem secondary school has rather different interests to an elderly gentleman trying to work out if he has Jewish ancestry.
Could the Jewish Museum just take Mum's whole basket and all its contents and produce their perfect tour guide over and over and over again? Could someone else learn the information and stories from her basket and reproduce them usefully?
The answer was a very clear 'no' to using the stories. Some tales are taken from our family (I teach this way, too - the personal is my favourite way of explaining wider issues) and would sound very false told by someone else. Her tale about the shochetim in Cairns (I intend to use this story when I teach the Jewish Food and Culture course that starts next week) works much more widely, but you can only use it with people who have senses of humour. The stories can't be used without the basket, and the basket is the mind of the teacher and the ability of the teacher to interact with the visitors.
Mum assesses individuals and groups and adjusts and readjusts and is constantly aware of reaction to what she says. She teaches real people, each and every time she talks to someone at that Museum. Even the information and data is no good without that teacher's mind at work. The basket containing the stuff is more important than the stuff it contains, when you get down to it.
I worked out a way of teaching some of this - how to develop that basket and some of its content and how to teach people to use it. Whether I ever get to teach baskets is moot, but it's the sort of thinking I needed tonight. It's precisely what I ought to be thinking about, so early in the annual educational cycle.
It was an awesome conversation to hold with my mother. With anyone's mother.
One of my themes for this year is seeing just how much people over sixty (and Mum is in her mid seventies) have to offer and are not asked for by a community that usually equates age with disfunction. Pulling her teaching and guiding styles to pieces and putting it together again helped me realise that age can mean profound experience of the sort that is truly enviable.
Most of you know that Mum is a guide at the Jewish Museum in Melbourne. She is so good at what she does (and she was always an exceptional teacher) that the Jewish Museum wants to work out how she does what she does. I think they want to bottle it. That precise topic was raised with her when she was last at the Museum, which got Mum thinking. She and I sat down over the phone and tussled with it till we had it worked out.
The Museum thinks that videoing her will do the trick. We think that her success is due to something that would be hard to track in single video.
It all comes down to that teaching basket. Mum and I worked out that what she does when she teaches or gives a tour is to use her basket. The basket itself is her assessment of her group and the stuff in her basket are stories and information. It used to live in the back of her car and contain chalk and paper and exam results and geological samples - these days it resides in her brain and is much richer.
The information is taken out to explain and to argue and to clarify. Different bits come out for different needs and they are strung together to create dozens of results. The stories are also taken out of the basket as she needs them and polished with the particular shine needed by a particular group.
She does stringing of data and facts and the polish and shine of stories on automatic. Until we talked about it it didn't occur to her that she didn't give the same material to all groups, or that she told one story in twenty different ways. A group of adult US tourists needs different words and different reflections to a single five year old, and a group of schoolgirls from the local Moslem secondary school has rather different interests to an elderly gentleman trying to work out if he has Jewish ancestry.
Could the Jewish Museum just take Mum's whole basket and all its contents and produce their perfect tour guide over and over and over again? Could someone else learn the information and stories from her basket and reproduce them usefully?
The answer was a very clear 'no' to using the stories. Some tales are taken from our family (I teach this way, too - the personal is my favourite way of explaining wider issues) and would sound very false told by someone else. Her tale about the shochetim in Cairns (I intend to use this story when I teach the Jewish Food and Culture course that starts next week) works much more widely, but you can only use it with people who have senses of humour. The stories can't be used without the basket, and the basket is the mind of the teacher and the ability of the teacher to interact with the visitors.
Mum assesses individuals and groups and adjusts and readjusts and is constantly aware of reaction to what she says. She teaches real people, each and every time she talks to someone at that Museum. Even the information and data is no good without that teacher's mind at work. The basket containing the stuff is more important than the stuff it contains, when you get down to it.
I worked out a way of teaching some of this - how to develop that basket and some of its content and how to teach people to use it. Whether I ever get to teach baskets is moot, but it's the sort of thinking I needed tonight. It's precisely what I ought to be thinking about, so early in the annual educational cycle.
It was an awesome conversation to hold with my mother. With anyone's mother.
One of my themes for this year is seeing just how much people over sixty (and Mum is in her mid seventies) have to offer and are not asked for by a community that usually equates age with disfunction. Pulling her teaching and guiding styles to pieces and putting it together again helped me realise that age can mean profound experience of the sort that is truly enviable.