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Baba Brinkman’s freestyle rap “Performance, Feedback, Revision” from “The Rap Guide to Evolution’, live in front of 3,500 people at Robin Ince’s “9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People” comedy variety show December 20 2009 at the Hammersmith Apollo, London. Instrumental beat by Nokz from Tehdit.
One thought that I have and that a lifetime teaching Maths has confirmed to me is that, The best solution is never at the extremes.
The best solution in optimisation problems are not exactly in the middle either but where the competing variables find an equilibrium together. Anybody who has played computer civiisation building games will know programmers build in a riot, plague, invasion of an enemy etc to throw at you if as a player you ignore completely or play with a variable to excess. Complete state control such as the totalitarian communist model of USSR is as far off the ideal political solution as the ‘American Dream’ free market, capatalist model. Excessive authoritarian parenting leads to as many problems with bringing up children as a laissez-faire, too liberal, no clear boundaries approach. My little experience in film-making taught me the need to have a structure but at the same time letting freedom in the model leads to unexpected magic happening that could never have been planned.
There has been million-dollar research into the quickest way to getting passengers on and off planes to minimise the time needed for the plane to stay on the ground. This is a billion dollar industry so it’s important to get it right, so guess what they found out!There are about 40 ways of getting people on and off a plane with such variables as the back/front of the aircraft, window/aisle, left/right etc. The best solution was one that involved a balance between order and randomness.
Teaching thirty youngsters is a more dynamically fluid chaotic system than people uninvolved with education think or will ever know. Establishing a successful relationship with one adolescent let alone a group is one of Performance – Feedback – Revision. The evolution of this relationship which can take years to develop, observing administrators attempt to judge in 20 minutes!
…..and how do human beings (teachers) ever learn to do anything? – like this –
Performance – Feedback – Revision
…..and how do I generally develop my lyricism (teaching style/behavioural management)? – like this –
Performance – Feedback – Revision
…..because the performance is necessary to change the words (learning) to decide which have an impact and which to send back to the drawing board.
Performance (by me) – Feedback (from me and my peers) – Revision (suited for the children I teach)
“… the human animal is a learning animal; we like to learn; we are good at it; we don’t need to be shown how or made to do it. What kills the processes are the people interfering with it or trying to regulate it or control it.” – John Holt
A Monkey in Manhattan 