My Journal Transformation Proposal

Idea #1: "Teaching Principles and Practices"

I use my journal, in part, to document teaching ideas (including lesson plan-y ideas for our 339 course -- see the attached pic, below!).  

To me, as someone who prides himself on being a "real" teacher (compared to, say, someone who has the professional title "instructor" on a default level) it's super-important to be reflective -- to think about what I do, what I value, why I value what I do, how I can make improvements, etc.  

Since my personal identity is wrapped up in my professional identity (ie, all this "teacher stuff") I've used my journal to document and, hopefully, better understand my personal teaching values -- core, to-the-bone, don't-ever-forget-this-about-the-crazy-world-of-education aspects.  To some extent, I've done this sporadically over the past 6+ years as a teacher, but never in a systematic, it's-all-here fashion.  (And it's still not "all here" -- I've just tried to consciously collect any nuggets o'wisdom that have entered my brain over the past 2 months.)  I don't think I'm ready to do this yet, but one idea I have is to create a water-tight "THESE are my teaching principles" document.  I've crafted a formal "Teaching Philosophy Statement " -- it's own unique genre, specific to teacher-applicants -- but it's not quite the same.  So that's one idea.  Principles are h-u-g-e, and taking stock of your principles is essential, I believe, for any aspect of life.

Idea #2: "Theme Time Radio Hour" (TTRH)

One of my all-time favorite things in life is/was "Theme Time Radio Hour" with Bob Dylan.  From 2004 - 2009 (or something like that), Bob Dylan played the role of DJ/pop-culture-curator/historian and narrated an hour-long set revolving around one specific theme.  Some themes he's done in the past are: California, Birds, Fruit, War, Something, Questions... the list goes on and on -- I think he's got upwards of 30 episodes, and they're all A++++++ fantastic.  They accompanied me during 3 solo coast-to-coast roadtrips to/from Philly, so these podcasts/sets don't just appeal to me on a musical-appreciation level, but a personal life-story level too.  It kept my company during a major turning point in my life.

So ever since I first heard his awesome TTRH podcasts, I've thought: goddamn, I want to do some of these by myself sooooo bad -- if it's done well, it'll be a journey into metaphors/associations, transitions, historical tidbits, and rock'n'roll coolness.  I finally tried out a miniaturized version last ~November with my girlfriend, and it was super-cool.  Now, I want to make a full-length one.  

Some of the themes I'm thinking about messing with are: LA Anthems, Booze'n;'Music, "Last Stand" Songs, Desert, Gospel, Heart, and Jesus.  Depending on the specific theme, I've got anywhere from 5 potential songs to 20.  What's helped up to this point is bringing my journal around with me as often as possible -- I'll often extend some "TTRH brainstorming" to my friends (all 4 of them) every time we hang out: yo, if I did a TTRH on ______, what songs/tidbits could I include?

As far as how I'm going to do this, well here are my plans.  One of my best buddies, "Snarky," is into this idea 100%; he and I are going to co-host/curate a TTRH set.  We've thought through different approaches, and we're hoping to experiment with different approaches to find out which one(s) is the best for us.  Our ideas are:

• traditional TTRH: conduct some background research/prep.  Pick out 5 songs a piece.  Work through the transitions between songs/segments ahead of time.
  
• free-wheeling: on-the-spot haggling, free associations, surprise
  
• settling a questions: best Beatles album?
  
• digesting and deconstructing an album: picking Sgt. Pepper's, for example, and then listening to it one song at a time, with some debriefing and commentary in between numbers.

These are my thoughts for the moment.  More to come later!