The music I listened to growing up was a powerful influence in my life. One of my favorite artists was Charlie Peacock. It’s been a while since I have listened to one of his songs, but today I had an experience that reminded me of his song Experience. This is a song with deep lyrics but the chorus catches the heart of it
We can only possess what we experience,
Truth, to be understood, must be lived,
We can only possess what we experience.
This afternoon I was on Mashable and discovered this amazing Cosplay video featuring Pianist Sonya Belosouva playing the theme song from the Walking Dead and mashing-up and re-enacting scenes from the show. Wow! What a moving, dramatic and passionate piece of artistry.
As is the case with many embedded videos another “suggested” video was in the cue right after it. Strange because what led me here was a Google search for education and Zombies or something like that. So the next video looked interesting I’ll hit play.
Ten seconds into the video and I was all in, because one of my favorite things to do the first day of school is to stand by the door and welcome my students to my class and get them collaborating and learning right away with a seating challenge. However as the video played on I really felt conflicted and found the degree to which the teacher was controlling his classroom troubling. On the fist days of school I want my students to know that I care deeply for them, they are going to be challenged to learn differently and we are going to have fun. The teacher in the video acted more like a hypnotist trying to tame his class and train them to pass-in papers. I also had a hard time when he showed graphs of his students test scores as validation of his teaching and something for all of his students to aspire to. Now, don’t get me wrong there were also many things he did that I admired. This was one of the most well planned and executed lessons I have seen. In fact, on my best day of teaching I never had this much cohesiveness and classroom management and I have never welcomed a video crew into my class to film a whole lesson. Still the tone he set and the interaction at the end of the video with the girl with heavy breathing just bugged me.
Well, it’s time to take my daughter to her riding lessons…. but before I do…. let me send this video out to some educators I look up to on Twitter.
The Tweet went something like this:
1. That’s me w/o the “please” on day 1 before this year2. Have you ever taught at a “tough” school?Sometimes you learn lessons as a teacher that are hard to let go of…. I’m going to refrain from casting stonesWatch this to hear him talk @ his class
- “You can only possess what you experience… truth to be understood must be lived.”
- If you don’t have the experience, Dig deeper to find how the context helps to explain the reason of the situation.
- Address concerns directly to the person who can respond and act to change them, in this case Tyler (who I hope to hear back from).
2,ooo years ago in the book of Galatians, there is a little nugget of wisdom that I know but many times fail to do. It’s the ultimate human interaction manifesto and best social media advisement I know of.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”Galatians 5:22-23New English Translation (NET)

Alicia leads content strategy for LearnWorthy managing a team of content producers, strategists, and copywriters. She creatively oversees content programs, awareness campaigns, research reports, and other integrated marketing projects.