Subject Matter Makes a Difference

(I should tell you right now, Matt Smith. It's a hard day's blogging. It's a long post. If you're feeling up to it, read the whole damn thing. If you're not, just read the part at the bottom that looks like this.)

Today I'm writing with a purpose.
I suppose I would have written in response to you, but I had other things on my mind while I was reading it -- and perhaps someday in the very near future I'll have a clear head and then things will be different. But as it stands, I have to write a paper on a "Teaching/Learning Experience," and I can't think unless I'm talking it out with someone.

So here I am. Talking it out with you. And my blog.

This past week I shared a teaching/learning experience with one of my classmates. Let's call her Jill -- first and foremost, the internet, as aforementioned, is a scary place. Secondly, there's no one named Jill in my class, so even if some complete weirdo in a monkey suit was trying to stalk this nameless girl, he'd have no luck. So THERE, Weirdo!

The point of the exercise, all in all, was to have the participants (Jill & I) figure out something new and different about our learning styles, or our teaching styles, or any combination of the two. However, in the course of the afternoon, I think I learned more about the differences of subject matter more than anything else. Wow. Subject Matter Makes a Difference. It's a great title for a horrible children's book (or for that matter, ANY book, unless it's a book about porn), and it's the title of this paper that I'm about to write.

Jill & I were setting out for the afternoon to accomplish two things: I was to teach her some practical piano skills, and Jill was to teach me some... er... fashion... skills? ("How to put together a really great outfit for not a whole lot of money" is, I believe, how she marketed the skill in the very beginning stages of this project.) For the sake of this paper, I'd like to set up both scenarios, so that you, Reader, can get an idea of the vast differences between the two undertakings.

Scenario #1: Meredith attempts to teach Jill some basic piano skills.
I think it was definitely to Jill's advantage that she had, in her youth, played the violin, if even for a very brief period of time. Those things that we learn in our youth seem to stay with us, put away in the junk drawer in the kitchen of our brains, and only brought out when we say to ourselves, "I think I saw that in there SOMEwhere." That being said, in the junk drawer of the kitchen of Jill's brain was some note recognition skills. She told me at the outset -- a few days before I even had her sit down at a piano -- that she knew how to read "violin music." I interpreted that to mean that she understood the treble clef (since that's what violin music would be written in) and my assumption was generally correct. I started off with that basic understanding and planned to do some reviewing.
I brought out some makeshift staff paper, drew some musical notation on it, and pointed out to Jill things that she recognized, but hadn't made use of in quite a few years. Already we were getting off to a great start. My job had just been made worlds easier because of her memory of the subject matter. I named notes, and matched the pictures of the notes on the page to the actual notes on the piano, and together, we ran through a C-major scale. Once I was certain that she had these concepts in her head, along with the concept of basic rhythmic notation, I set in front of her a piece of music called "Good King Wenceslas" -- and much to her glee -- she managed to play it with her right hand very nicely.
Then, on to the bass clef. We were now entering foreign territory, since in her youth, Jill never had to read the bass clef (what, in piano skills, would be the music written primarily for your left hand). Again, we matched the musical notation on the page to the notes on the piano, and using a basic hand position, managed to stumble through the bass clef.
Then the best part: putting the hands together.
Normally, with a younger student, I don't think I would have gotten to this point in the first, one-hour session. But, based on what Jill already brought with her in her musical knowledge suitcase (her brain), I figured we were already half way to a larger goal. The piece I chose on the spot was "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas," mainly because it was a simple piece that used a simple left-hand bass line, but also because we had already gotten into a Christmas spirit with the first piece of music. I used what I had just learned was the "part to whole" method -- taking the right-hand and reading that line through alone, then moving on to the left-hand, and playing that line alone, and then putting both hands together -- because that's how I had always learned as a beginner pianist. (I explained before the outset to Jill, however, that if she felt that method wasn't working, we could always move on to another way of thinking.)
It was a good lesson. It made me think of music as a certain type of subject matter, and I suppose, I'll have to get to that at the very end, so as not to give away the real nitty-gritty of "the things I learned during this project."

Scenario #2: Jill attempts to create for Meredith a really great outfit for not a whole lot of money, and instill in her a sense of what makes that outfit great for her.
The long description of the scenario sets the scene here for what the lesson was about for me. Jill said at numerous points during our trip to the stores that this was harder than she'd thought it would be, and I think, after all of it, I know why.
I followed Jill to Downtown Crossing -- home of Macy's, Filene's, Filene's Basement, Marshalls, and other name-y shops. The first bit of teaching that Jill did here was to tell me that these sorts of stores (Filene's, TJMaxx, Marshall's) all carry interesting things and fashionable things, but here you can find them without feeling that you're going bankrupt. End of first piece of teaching.
On to the inside of Filene's, and up through the basement. On the way up to Filene's, I noticed piles of galoshes (which I love) and I told Jill this. She said, "GREAT!" The one thing I needed to keep in mind, though, was that I should try to go with a funky pattern to spice them up. I confessed that I actually own a pink plaid pair of galoshes but lack the bravery to wear them in public, and really, that's one of my greater problems: taking the risk. Here, Jill looked me dead in the eye and said, "Take the risk. But only when it's raining." When you wear things that serve a purpose or a function, I shouldn't be worried about what I look like, she said. We moved on to the upstairs to the greater purpose of creating an inexpensive outfit.
Upstairs, Jill assessed the colors that I do and do not wear. "Look at this rack of shirts," she said. "I want you to pick out a color of shirt that you would not normally wear." I looked the rack over. All tank tops, but in a variety of bright colors. I explained that I typically go for functionality, and in that vein, I pick neutral colors that go with a lot of things, like black or white or brown. "I hate pink," I think I must have said.
Jill picked up a bright pink shirt with a grin.
We moved on to skirts.
I admitted I'd never worn army print. Jill loved army print. She picked up an army print skirt.
This sort of reverse-psychology thing happened throughout the trip. I would say I didn't typically wear things, or I would ask a ton of questions about fashion that I didn't understand (white after Labor Day? those really long shirts that girls wear now? beads or no beads?), and Jill would fill me in on the latest trend and pick out an outfit based on those types of things. She would explain why she agreed with it or didn't, but often she would just explain that a lot of things are just personal preference. If you like something -- a trend, a color, a style of whatevers -- you should just wear them, and not care about what other people think. Some standards, of course, applied. One pattern (not two or three), one focus of the outfit (like a bright green blazer), one or two pieces of jewelry (don't go overboard), but the rest is really up to who you are.
This was also a very good lesson. Jill kept second-guessing herself, but I think a lot of what she was teaching me was governed by a ton of constraints, like what the store had to offer, or what my natural instincts were with any particular fashion trend.

The summary:
Taking us back to the title, which, if you recall was "Subject Matter Makes a Difference."
Looking back at the entire experience, it occurred to me that what I was trying to teach Jill and what Jill was trying to teach me were not only different subjects, but different ways of thinking. One uses a scientific, more concrete way of thinking. The other uses a more abstract, ethereal way of thinking.

One is math. The other is a big, pink bunny.

I was trying to teach Jill a method. This method is generally the same any way you look at it. There are rules, and the rules never change. Any way that you attempt to teach this particular subject, the answer always has to be the same. There are different ways of seeing the subject, there are different ways of teaching the subject or approaching it -- but the end result is always the same. Two plus two is always four. You can look at it upside-down, sideways or eight ways from Sunday, but it's never going to change. Middle C always looks the same on paper and its position on the keyboard never changes. A C-major scale on the piano is always played, and always sounds, pretty much the same. Octaves may change, the way you use your hands to play the notes may change, but a C-major scale is a C-major scale is a C-major scale. No sharps, no flats, and no bones about it.
I suppose I could have started out somewhere in the middle of the learning, or taught her the more difficult things first, or looked at the Big Picture and then picked it apart to get at the learning, but in the end, no matter which way I taught her to play, the sound would be the same.
(On a side note: I told Jill at the outset, if you recall, that if she had a different way of thinking, we could move on to a different method. I never told her the other part of that, which is that I wasn't sure what that method was going to be. I generally teach piano to a person in much the same way I taught the last person, not leaving me much room for creative thinkers. I once had to teach a guitarist some piano skills, and it took me a week to come up with the concept that "the right hand is like your rhythm guitar and your left hand is like a bass guitar." That's the only other way of looking at it I've ever had.)
Music is very mathematical. Piano playing is extremely mathematical. It's only when you can get beyond the basic skills that you can even begin to see its artistic side. Like a great art teacher once told me, "You have to be able to do it the right way, before you can do it your way." First, learn the math. Then, you can learn how to make the math be M.C. Escher.

Jill was trying to teach me art. Moreover, she was trying to teach me to see the art in what I choose to do, and beyond that, be brave enough to do it. It's a difficult concept, and I think I asked enough questions to get beyond the fact that everybody is looking at me (which, as it turns out, they aren't) and that since everybody else is wearing that, I shouldn't wear it too. (Also, not true. Jill says I should wear whatever the hell I want, since it's my life, and besides that, everybody else isn't looking at you.)
There's a million different ways to look at art. Art is tangible, insomuch as you can often pick it up and spin it around and hang it on a wall. But it's intangible. What I think is art, the way I choose to display art, or even the school photo of art that I carry around in my wallet of a head is different from anybody else's way of looking at art. Their art is not my art. Even if it looks that way on the surface.
Art is opinionated, and is an opinion, and is colorful, and can be a completely white canvas if you want it to be. Anything goes, and if you want to wear cowboy boots with a big fluffy purple skirt, go right ahead. And if you really wanted to wear the skirt on your head, you could do that too.
Art is brave and it's hard to teach bravery. You are brave, or you aren't, or you learn what it takes to be brave. Often, you learn the hard way. Art has no right answer, and it takes bravery to see that. It takes bravery to say there is no right answer and then demonstrate that fact right there on your body for everyone to see. (But it doesn't matter because they're not looking.)

Subject Matter Makes a Difference. That, in a nutshell, was what I learned during my Teaching/Learning experience. Some subjects are best taught in one way, and others taught another. And if you throw different types of learners into the mix, then it's an entirely Different Subject altogether.