The Drawing Megachallenge #1: The Whys

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The main challenge when learning to draw, in my experience, is that, until you actually become very good, everything you draw looks rather cruddy. That’s why most of us stop drawing for pleasure around age ten or so: by then our inner critic has grown too clever for our own good. None of our art looks like the cool stuff we see around us, and we are not experienced enough to realize that the only way to climb that curve is by making lots and lots of rather cruddy drawings.

So we give up on art.

I did not quite give up at that age, but did not go much farther either. Whenever I got the itch to draw, I’d fall back on the four things I’d learned to draw by copying other drawings. These were, in no particular order:

  • a black bird
  • a flying eagle
  • a dragon (from the neck up; I still can’t figure out the legs)
  • a knight holding a big sword, ready to fight the dragon. He looks a bit dumb if I don’t draw the dragon.

Bird and knight-b-001

That’s about it. Every time I tried to draw something else I’d ended up throwing my experiment away, frustrated, and drawing one of those four things. It’s kind of like St. Exupery tells in The Little Prince, how he only knew how to draw a boa (it looked like a spaghetti with eyes), or alternatively, a boa that swallowed an elephant (it looked suspiciously like a hat). So when the Little Prince asked him to draw a rose, he just drew the boa.

Boa-b

I had to draw my own boa. I don’t want a lawsuit from St. Exupery.

Hmm. I think I could add the boa to my list.

Recently I got the bug again and took a drawing class at the place where I teach (philosophy, not art. Just to be clear). Looking for ways to motivate myself to keep practicing (and practice is the only way you can get good at drawing!) I discovered on Pinterest the “30-day drawing challenges.” There’s a whole bunch of them. I thought, of course, What a great idea! I’ll keep these in a place where I can see them, and after a few months my drawing skills will get so much better!

The trouble, I soon found out, is this: most of those drawing challenges don’t have any kind of progression, any structure to guide you into, say, developing basic skills, and then building up from them. They mostly look something like this:

30-day Drawing Challenge
Day 1 Draw an animal
Day 2 Draw your favorite Disney character
Day 3 Draw a monster or mythical creature
Day 4 Draw a shopping cart looking at his watch
Day 5 Draw a wedding cake with a Disney character figurine on it
Day 6 Draw a Halloween version of your favorite Disney character. (Disney characters seem to be very popular in these challenges).
Day 7… Etc. etc.

Which is fine, if you already know how to draw! But given my limitations, my challenge would probably look something like this:

My 30-day Drawing Challenge
Day 1: Draw an animal.
Here’s my boa. It’s coming handy already. Actually there’s two animals there, since he’s eaten the elephant. I’m rocking this challenge.		 Boa-b
Day 2: Draw your favorite Disney character.
Easy: that would be the dragon from Sleeping Beauty.		 Dragon_head
Day 3: Draw a monster or mythical creature.
Well, a dragon is a monster…		 Dragon_head
Day 4: Draw a shopping cart looking at his watch.
Now I got stumped. How do I go from a dragon’s head to this?		  

?

 

(I guess I should be thankful. Day five was going to look like I decapitated a dragon and served the head in the wedding. Gross.)

There’s another problem too: Unless you are a developed artist already, these prompts will not help you develop a style. Think about this: if you practice by copying a Disney character, you are basically learning to draw how someone drew that Disney character!

What I wanted – and what I’m trying to develop here, and maybe share with the world – is a structure that would put me on the path to:

(a) Develop the basic skills you need to start drawing: observation, copying from real models, pencil-eye coordination and so forth.

(b) Discover the basic structure of the objects I want to draw, so I can play with them and modify them at will. Get that knight to put down his sword and dance, if he wants to.

(c) Build up a “mental library” of the details that make such drawings lifelike.

(d) Progress from basic techniques to more complex ones (say, from pencil sketches to digital painting…)

(e) Develop a style (or styles) of my own, something that makes my art mine, distinctive.

That’s the why of this Drawing Megachallenge. It is simply a list (or a series of 30-object lists) of things to draw, that tries to build progressively from the more basic to the more complex, from copying to imagining, from sketching to more involved techniques.

I ended up with 10 sets (call it 10 basic challenges, if you will) of 30 objects each, which you can draw one-a-day if you want to focus on a set per month. But you can use them many times in order to learn different techniques. They can be combined, too, and mixed up for additional challenges.

In my next post I’ll talk about the lists — the “challenges.”

Next>>> See #2: The Challenges

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The Drawing Megachallenge #2: The Challenges

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Following the idea of the 30-day drawing challenges, I made up 10 subject lists of 30 items each (10 “sets”), so that each will take you about a month to complete, if you do a drawing-a-day.

The 10 “sets”:

  1. Objects (everyday objects you can easily copy, plus a couple of fantasy ones)
  2. Human figure, performing specific poses or actions. Every human figure list is divided, 15 male and 15 female, so I have to practice both
  3. Human faces, practicing different expressions and different hair styles
  4. Human figure, now specifying “non-fantastic” roles and professions. Here the goal is to observe more carefully clothing, accessories, manipulating items…
  5. Animals
  6. Human figure, fantastic, historical of sci-fi types
  7. Fantastic beasts and monsters
  8. Vehicles (real and fantastic)
  9. Buildings
  10. Scenery

10 sets means about 300 drawing “challenges” or ideas, grouped by topics and building up towards increasing complexity and difficulty. (There is a sci-fi/fantasy theme in some of the lists, which you can skip over if that is not your thing). Already I am finding the need for some “supplemental” lists, that I will list here as the need for them grows.

Supplemental set 1 (Set 11): Hands

This is a big project. I’m only a few challenges in, so I’ll probably be changing many things as I go. I can’t, obviously, guarantee results; but I can tell you that I have personally learned a LOT just by trying to draw things that I hadn’t tried before.

Since I want to start with the basics (pencil sketches) and incorporate more advanced techniques all the way to digital painting, and hopefully develop something of my own style on the way, I’ve combined these sets with a list of 8 “techniques.” More on these in future posts. This is the list:

The 8 techniques:   (These will be explained further in a new post)

1. Pencil studies: rough sketches of any kind; the goal is to investigate the “inner structure” of your objects.
2. Clean lines (or “line art”): sketches are fun, but now push yourself to finish a drawing!
3. 2-D simplified sketches (like old clipart or signs).
4. Digital line art, going from sketches to cleaned lines but on your computer or tablet. The goal is to become familiar with basic tools of digital drawing (tablet, program, brushes…)
5. Digital doodling. Very basic/abstract, quick representations.
6. Basic digital coloring. Begin exploring tools for coloring. The focus is on learning how to use the tools and exploring palettes, rather than on getting the details (shading, lighting) “right.”
7. 2-D design (traditional or digital), Another foray into the abstract, but here looking more intentionally for a “logo” look.
8. Advanced digital coloring.

For the complete sets (a.k.a. “Challenges”) just expand this post!

Click to see the full Challenges!

The Drawing Megachallenge #3: The “Rules”

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If you want to try the Path of the Megachallenge, little pencilhopper, here are some, erm, “rules” that can be helpful:

Rule 1: All these rules are suggestions!

This is not a do or die method! It’s just to help me (and whomever wants to try it) on the way! Feel free to skip topics, mix them, change the order of lists or styles, move to a different list if you feel you’ve done too much of the same and then come back, switch male and female topics, or whatever. Exercise your freedom!

Rule 2: Push yourself!

Try to do one challenge a day, and try to follow the list to some extent. Otherwise you may end up just drawing those challenges you are comfortable with (and then you’ll be learning very little). Even if out of order, try to finish one set before moving to the next. It is difficult, but soon you’ll find it is fun to try drawing something difficult, and figuring it out!

Rule 3: Don’t judge your drawings! Draw-and-forget, keep moving forward.

This is perhaps the most important rule.

I took a drawing class recently. After working for about an hour, our teacher ordered us to rip our first drawings to pieces and throw them to the garbage!

03-21-Medium-length, unkempt. Surprised.

I was going for 03-21=surprised. I think it looks more like scared. So that would be mmm… 03-07.

At the moment I thought it was cruel, but there is great wisdom to this approach: I was already judging, by our first warm-up exercise, my own worth as an artist! And doing quite poorly. Instead, this draw-and-discard approach was liberating! It made you realize that each drawing, good or bad, is a step towards greater skill, and that mistakes are as useful to learning as hitting the nail on the head. This is as important with the pencil sketches as with the most advanced techniques.

On a more personal note, this is why I decided to post my own middling works. There’s so much incredibly cool art on the internet, that beginners such as me can (and do) easily get discouraged. By posting my own beginning steps (unimpressive to anyone else, but to me, filled with that surprise that comes when a drawing turns out better than your previous ones), other middling amateurs will find encouragement and keep learning!

Rule 4: Test your own resources first, use references later

I’m not sure if this is a good rule; I’m kind of testing it out.

My approach is to try to discover things on my own first. See how much I can draw from memory, then look for a real model (e.g. my own pose in the mirror, an actual car or cat or policeman), then look for online pictures and references, and then, as a fourth step, for tutorials and online tips & tricks. I think one learns better this way. Tutorials can be excellent for completing the work, solving that problem that drives you crazy, but can be very limiting if you start there – you’d be copying someone else’s style.

Something I learned already from this rule, by the way, is how little I do actually observe! I don’t even know what a rock singer wears!

But then you learn this little trick, though: close your eyes, and concentrate on trying to remember those details. You’ve seen those things; perhaps you are not paying attention to your own memories! Following this rule will train you to observe and remember.

Rule 5: Whenever possible, copy from real

One thing that my teacher (from rule #3) insisted on was to learn by copying from real, 3-D objects, as opposed to from pictures (even from pictures of those same 3-D objects). His argument was that when we draw we are flattening the object; if we copy from a picture we are flattening even more something already flattened—shadows of shadows, as Plato would have it. I don’t know exactly why, but this shows in my drawings: the lines don’t go the same way; my drawings from “reference” pictures look wrong.

Of course this may become a bit problematic when you’re trying to draw, say, a leaping werewolf; but my guess is that the preliminary, non-fantasy subjects can help you develop enough of an eye to compensate later, when drawing from one’s imagination. (And also, remember rule #1.)

Rule 6: References are good shortcuts

And by “references” I mean anything that you can observe and copy from, even tutorials and tips. What, this contradicts my two previous rules??? Gall dang, yes! I think there’s a point where you find you can’t quite make much more progress on your own, and that’s the time to launch Pinterest or your favorite source, and see how others do it.

When? You’ll know. Let your hunger guide you to the right food. Don’t stuff yourself up with charts and tutorials and references for which you have yet no use (or that may spoil your appetite for the real thing).

Rule 7: Carry a pencil in your pocket

I keep a regular 2B, with a pen cap held in place with a rubber band so it doesn’t lose its point. Primitive, yeah, but when a lecture gets boring, or the waiting gets long, it’s a much better option than wasting time on my phone! There’ll always be something I can sketch (but in case I only get the back of a dozen heads, I also bring with me the current list I’m working on).

I think I’ll start looking for a pocket-sized notebook too, one with a sleeve for a pencil, for when I can’t carry around a regular-sized one.

Rule 8: Share!

Add notes to your drawings – what you liked, what you discovered – and tag them accordingly for others to find and get inspired!

More on sharing in my next post…

Things you can do instead of grading #138:

/ AlftheRed / Leave a comment

A Star Wars diorama!

Star Wars diorama

Things you can do instead of grading #139:

A meme of a Star Wars diorama

Things you can do instead of grading #140:

Blog about your meme of a Star Wars diorama…

Run Like Zombies Are Chasing You!!!

/ AlftheRed / 2 Comments

So this morning I went for a run, and this is how it went:

  1. Took a short ride in a helicopter and was shot down.
  2. Had to change my route because of a police blockade.
  3. A small army of zombies chased me. All the way to the end of a pier, and then down the beach.
  4. I scavenged my way through an abandoned hospital.
  5. I was forced to change my route again because of a flash flood alert.
  6. I ran through tall grass, and got mosquitoes in my eyes.
  7. A particularly fast zombie forced me to pick up the pace.
  8. I had to find shelter so the rain wouldn’t ruin my phone (it has a cracked shield).

Oh, and I tried a new “augmented reality” running app. It’s called Zombies, Run! (Perhaps I should have begun there…)

So here’s a challenge for you: can you guess which of these events happened in “real” reality, and which were “augmented”?  (You can check your guesses at the end of this post.)

I have no ties with the producers of this app, but I think it deserves a shoutout for the good of all of those who, like me, do enjoy running once you’re there, but have the hardest time actually getting there. (Seriously, I could run a half-marathon in the time it takes me to convince myself to get out the door. That is, if I could actually run a half-marathon.)

Zombies, Run! Logo

So let me tell you how it works, and why I think it’s awesome. Now, if you already plan to try it out, you shouldn’t continue reading. There are some mild spoilers ahead, and it’s much more fun to find out by yourself. But if you are curious and want more information, then by all means…

Zombies, Run! immerses you in a zombie apocalypse adventure. While you run (actually run, like, with your feet, not with a gamepad), you listen to a story develop, with various characters talking to you, asking you to do specific tasks, warning you about a swarm of zombies right at your heels, and overall motivating you into running further, either because you hear the zombies approaching, or because you want to know how the story continues. (The app tracks your progress via GPS, and gives you a snippet of the story at a time).

The app is a breeze to install. It asks you to sign up, but then it only asks for an e-mail and a password, no other personal info required (that in itself made me start liking it). It’s basically free, though they’ll probably convince me to buy some add-ons at some point (I’ll get to that).

I found the controls are very simple (and I’m the guy who gets confused by Instagram). The first time you open it, it’ll ask you if you want to listen to your music while you run. You can choose not to, or use the music in your phone, or you can tell it you’ll use a third-party app (I tried it with Pandora). If you do the latter, you’ll need to open that app and get it going, and then press start on Zombies, Run! Zombies lowers the volume of the music whenever something is about to happen.

That’s nearly all the preparation you need, but you can also choose how long you want your run to be, how you want the distance tracked, and whether you want to add “chases,” moments in which you need to pick up speed. I chose 5k for a start, and used GPS.

File_000

And the fun starts right away. You are in a helicopter, and then you are on the ground, running to get away from a small army of zombies. The story is not told to you, but performed, with various characters encouraging you to survive, and asking you to do certain tasks. As far as I know, your character never talks. It’s a bit like playing Half Life in your head while running, but without a gun. Or a crowbar. Or everyone you meet telling you you’re the best thing that happened in their life. No, I’m guessing some of these characters would happily let you die if you don’t run fast enough.

To be clear, you are not asked, at any point, to change your route. You can run on a track, or a treadmill. Nor do you need to hit a specific speed – you can probably use this while walking, though I can’t imagine it would be as much fun. The detours – there are many, and they get scary when you’re getting tired – all happen in your imagination.

As you cover fractions of your total distance, two things happen: you “pick up” (that is, a voice tells you that you have) supplies that can be later used in a “build your base” minigame (got to do something with those collectibles…), and more importantly, a new segment of the narrative develops. If you chose “chases,” you may get a warning that zombies are closing in, and will have to pick a speed for a few seconds, and they start growling in your ears! If you fail, you lose some of your supplies (I don’t think you actually die). In-between, you listen to your music.

What took me by surprise, though, is how well done those bits of narrative are! It feels a bit cheesy at first, but then, every bit of narrative adds a small twist to the story. You think you’re getting to your destination, but in the next bit you’ll be told that the bridge is down or someone you know is trapped (these aren’t things that actually happened to me; I’m trying not to spoil it) and you need to run longer and faster than you expected — and you will, because you are that person, and you want to know what will happen next! In your first adventure, for example, you’ll be guided and encouraged by a nervous radio operator, who’s going through the grief of having lost a previous runner, who really struggles with giving you the bad news, and who sounds just like Simon Pegg!* What I mean to say is, they didn’t just come with a neat idea and phoned it in. The developers really put their heart into this.

(*He’s not. I’ll update when I find out his name.)

And this is why this idea works so well! Of course, I’m the kind of person that runs longer while listening to an audiobook than music, so it may not be everybody’s cup o’tea. But think about this: This was a morning in which it rained until about 11. It was stuffy and humid. I was in the middle of some very productive work. There was a chance it would continue raining, which wouldn’t fare well with my (slightly) cracked phone. Any one of these reasons would normally be enough for me not to go running. Take all four together, and I still went out, because I wanted to try out these new app. I didn’t even like it yet! So. It worked. It got me out and running. Which I think it’s the best that you can ask of an app of this kind.

And here’s a cheap tie-in with the running theme of my blog: It’s wonder that’ll keep me running. Because I can’t help but wonder what the next mission will bring. Yep, wonder does wonders…

A couple caveats. You may encounter some technical issues (it froze in my son’s Android). Second, you get four missions free, and then a free one every week, so if you run twice per week you’ll be faced with the choice of paying for some extras by the fourth week. And third, while I think the “chases” sections are a great idea, game-wise and training-wise (mustering the energy to sprint when you are really tired is a great skill to have in real-life situations, such as at the end of a soccer game, or during an actual zombie apocalypse), I can imagine a bunch of runners collapsing because they overexerted themselves, and showing up in the news. So: know your limits, see a doctor if you can afford one, and if you’re too tired just let the zombies have those supplies.

So which of the events above happened in augmented reality? The answer is: 1, 3, 4 and 7. The others were all real real. Yes, there was a flash-flood alert (and a kind lifeguard told me not to run by the lake shore), I had to run through tall grass, and there was a police blockade (this is Chicago, in case you were wondering). No, I did not stop to find out what the blockade was about. Being chased by a small army of zombies gives you a different perspective on what’s important.

And how was your morning?

 

 

Stung by a Stingray

/ AlftheRed / Leave a comment

Part 2 in a series discussing the meaning of Wonder

The Greek philosopher Plato wrote most of his reflections – deep, penetrating thoughts, always pushing the limits with his questions, always seeking for an additional degree of precision in his answers – in the form of dialogues; like plays in which the main character would be his beloved teacher, Socrates.

socrates_and_the_socratic_method_by_hotcheeto89-d4hzal6

Socrates and the Socratic Method  — Drawing by hotcheeto89

In one such dialogue, Theaetetus, Socrates is having a discussion with a youth, the very own Theaetetus (my students won’t even try to pronounce his name, so let’s call him Tee). They’re trying to find what is the nature of knowledge, no less. Tee is kind of the ideal student: clever, respectful, curious, and possessing a good sense of himself and his capacities. He’s not afraid to bring forth his own opinions, be contradicted, if it happens, and learn from the whole thing. And he is not interested in what impression he is making on the teachers, whether he’ll look clever or dumb. He is interested in learning about things that, well, have caught his interest.

In his impish manner, Socrates has shown to Tee that it is possible to become taller or shorter, bigger or smaller, without changing in size at all. Compare yourself with someone who has grown a lot. You’re the same size than you were, but you are also shorter!

Quote1

“These puzzles are not new to you, I guess,” Socrates asks.

“No,” Tee replies, “but indeed, it is extraordinary how they set me wondering whatever they can mean. Sometimes I get quite dizzy with thinking of them.”

This reaction, I should here mention, is very telling. You can see young Tee (who is a student of math), trying to solve a problem, realizing he’s missed something, looking at it from a different angle, finding it doesn’t add up, starting yet again, until the whole thing gets mixed up in his head. Yet we don’t get from Tee’s reply the impression that he is frustrated by that. Rather, there is something pleasant and fun about getting dizzy and completely baffled!

* * *

Maybe I can introduce here a first definition for “Wonder.” I would call it an onomatopoeic definition.

“Wonder” is what makes us say: “WHAAAT???”

This is not an angry “What?” It’s a baffled, dumbfounded “What?” Socrates compares it with being stung by a stingray. You feel numb, disoriented.

And this is what Socrates makes of Tee’s reply: “That shows that Theodorus (Tee’s own teacher) was not wrong in his estimate of your nature. This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin.”

These are big words. Up until very recently, at least (until, perhaps, the 1800’s), you could say that this remark by Plato was basically unchallenged. Meaning that everyone who was doing philosophy agreed with this: Philosophy has its origin in this sense of wonder. Let’s look at it in more detail.

There are questions that we ask out of a survival (or more broadly, “practical”) interest: “Where should I go if a tornado struck?” “How can I increase the yield in my crops?”” Does this model come with airbags?” “Do you have homework?”

There are questions that we ask because they help us orient ourselves in the here and now, learn where everyone else is at: “Where’s everybody gone?” “What did you have for dinner?” “What was Hawaii like?” “Who won the game?”

And then there are questions that we ask for no practical reason at all; just because they are baffling, or puzzling, or intriguing.

What is winning

Epic Rap Battles of History got it right. It’s not about who wins!

Sometimes they are kind of silly, but the process of thinking through them is a lot of fun.

And sometimes, they are really BIG questions; questions that make us feel that our grasp on reality is no thicker than a light fabric of theories we’ve spun around our minds. Let’s take gravity, for example.

A: “Isn’t it curious that we seem to be stuck to the ground, when nothing is actually grabbing us?”

B: “Duh! That’s gravity!”

A: “But what is gravity?”

B: “It is… the reason why things are attracted towards the earth.”

A: “So… You’re basically saying that the reason things are attracted towards the earth is that there is something that makes things be attracted towards the earth.”

B: “…”

A: “But how does it work…?”

Now A has punched a hole through the fabric, realizing that gravity is for them no more than a word, put in place of—a placeholder, perhaps, for a real explanation. Now B has two options:

Option 1: Retreat!

“Well, I don’t know myself, but I’m sure scientists know.”

(Which is perhaps not true now, and was certainly not true before Einstein.)

Option 2: Allow  oneself to be baffled.

“Dude, I have no idea…!”

Again, it’s both uncomfortable – deeply unsettling, some would say – and exciting. Here is this world we’ve taken for granted, and there’s actually so little we know about it!

This is, according to Plato, and Aristotle, and the bulk of classical philosophers, what originated not just philosophy, but all the sciences (which in the beginning, if you want to know, were all jumbled up under the name “Philosophy”).

Newton

Yep, that’s what Newton’s brilliant work on the laws of motion (and, yes, gravity!) was called: not ‘Physics,’ or ‘Astronomy,’ but the ‘Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy’!

And that’s where it all began, philosophy and science: with people that got carried away by these immense questions, and decided to be methodical about it.

<Coming next: Wonder is not just “Whaaat?”, but also “WOW!”>

Wonder

/ AlftheRed / 3 Comments

Part 1 in a series discussing the meaning of Wonder

Plato would be mad at me. So would be Alice, for that matter.

I didn’t try to define my subject (which would have upset Plato), and (against the King’s only good bit of advice to Alice) I didn’t begin at the beginning.

I’ve had the nerve to subtitle my blog, “Looking for Wonder in All Things,” and to name it after one of the most famous expressions from (you probably knew this) Alice in Wonderland. Yet at no point, in the year or so it’s been up, did I even try to explain what this Wonder thing is!

LCarroll 10

I’ve had my reasons, of course; the first being that it is a very difficult thing to do. I have a very narrow comfort zone; doing something difficult is already stepping out of it…

Secondly, Wonder and Philosophy go a long way back. Plato makes Socrates say (in Theaetetus) that “this sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher,” no less, and that philosophy, indeed, has no other origin than wonder. After Plato, many great philosophers – and hundreds of minor ones – have written magnificent things about it. So the task is reasonably daunting. Especially since I plan to do it blog style.

What got me started, then? Well, this: I teach Philosophy. I brought my students to the library to do some hunting. Among the questions I posed was, how do you define ‘wonder’?

Easy, I thought. Just go into one of the many encyclopedias of philosophy we’ve pulled out for you and look into the index. Well, here’s what they found.

Nothing.

In fact, I think I should center it for emphasis. Here’s what they found:

Nothing.

Yep. They looked in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 10 volumes, and the word wasn’t even in the index. They looked in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and got just a few inconsequential hits, of people, well, wondering about something, but never about wonder itself. Somehow we’ve gone from “the mark of the philosopher” to “not worth writing an article about,” and this is certainly puzzling. A screaming silence, if you will.

I’m talking, of course, of the peer-reviewed heavyweights. Wikipedia, which is awesome (another word for “wonderful”), but so far unquotable in the academic world, has a somewhat discombobulated article that amounts to, let’s see, 700 words. Fewer, probably, than any minor supervillain from Marvel (yet another word for “Wonder”). Certainly less than Wikipedia’s entry on Wonder Woman (which, come to think about it, is such a silly name for a character: it applies to about half the population on Earth!)

Wwoman

Yet wonder is very, very important. Not just for philosophers, but for human life.

Without wonder, it’s like the light has died inside you.

* * *

Just bring these two images to your mind: two traditional high school classrooms. In one students are slumped, their eyes glassy, their whole body language lazily screaming, “when is this class going to end?” In another, students are not just sitting upright but a bit forward, itching to speak, nearly falling from their desks in their efforts to catch the teacher’s attention so they can share what is buzzing through their minds…

The difference? Easy. Wonder. Call it curiosity or interest, if you want; that’s wonder at its lowest intensity. Bring it up all the way to mind-blowing (or sometimes mind-numbing) puzzlement, disbelief, the impossibility to reconcile what they think they know with what is being proposed, and you have something closer to what Plato meant by it.

Do you begin to see why wonder is important? Maybe you’ve been present at a class, or a meeting, where “nobody cares.” It feels like people are breathing, but not really alive. We can lose our capacity for wonder – that interior light. It is rather common, actually.

But why?

If you’ve read this far, it means you haven’t lost your capacity for wonder – at least it’s a very good sign. But maybe you are considering – wondering, yes – how to recover it, wake it up when someone has lost it. If you teach, or if giving presentations is one of your career hazards, you may be asking yourself how to wake up this wonder in your students, in your audience.

I’ll put down a few thoughts in my following posts. I can’t claim them as mine, since some of my favorite philosophers have been working on this for a very long time; but the least I can say is that they are “time-tested” – for at least twenty three hundred years or so.

In the meantime, I’d very much like to hear your thoughts on the matter!

<To be continued…>

Getting ALL your students to participate in class

/ AlftheRed / 2 Comments

Its’ not so difficult, believe me!

The trick is to make it easy, both for them and for you, to visually check whether each student has participated or not. I use a very simple method: paper cards that are green on one side, and red on the other. Every time a student asks a question or adds a (somewhat substantial) comment, they get to turn their card from red to green.

It’s all explained in this little video:

By the end of class, you can see with just a glimpse which students still have red cards on their desks. If you have a “participation grade”, it will take you no more than a minute to pen down which students got their points, and which didn’t. (That is, when you’ve learned all their names. At the beginning of a course it may take a bit longer.)

The neat thing is that students immediately know whether they are getting their points or not, and will make an extra effort – I normally get about 80% of the students to participate in one form or another without prompting. Which makes it also easier to pay attention to the students that find it more difficult to participate, and to help them out.

This system also helps you to avoid a student “hogging” the discussion without being curt to them: if a student is raising their hand for the tenth time (it’s a good problem; I love those students!) you can simply say, “Let’s hear from the red cards first.” A very easy way to open the discussion.

Let me know if this was any help!

AML