Wow! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that my classroom would be mentioned in the same sentence as Prince! This idea, creating purple classrooms with purple pedagogy, is so clever. Prince is literally the antithesis of standardization and I'm honored to be in any sort of proximity to his creative genius. Thanks!
Really enjoyed reading about these ideas around teacher personality, meaningful cross curricular learning and the importance of enduring understanding. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on how this concept of fostering a 'purple pedagogy' can exist within the standardised frameworks and regulations of a typical school? I'm sure all teachers would ideally want to utilise their own coloured pedagogy, rather than being another Mr Myers. Do you see this being a difficult tension to navigate? Many thanks again
Great question! Well it certainly helps to be in a school culture that aligns with your values as a teacher--Dan, from the article, and I taught in a public high school that valued teacher autonomy and experimentation, so we had the license and admin support to experiment and design our own curriculums. I do think, in all classrooms in any type of school, we have a complex mix of considerations. We may have a terrible textbook we have to work with. We may have a listless set of standards we have to consider. But as teachers we always have a choice. I always choose to optimistically build something new from the materials that we have--supplementing them with additional materials that we too might bring to the classroom. Adrian's example in the post is a great example of starting the year with just a poem and defining the classroom culture by a phrase in that poem. Even such a small step (one poem-one class) sends a powerful message about what his classroom culture will be for the year. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
I really appreciate this response, thank you for getting back. The idea of working within constraints while still making deliberate, value driven choices resonates well, and the example of starting with a single poem captures that nicely. It makes the tension feel more manageable and less like an all or nothing dilemma.
This question reminds me of a workshop I did with Melissa Daniels for HiTech High. In our grade level team (middle school) she led us through designing a unit from scratch. In the first step we were given post-its and asked to write our subject standards for the unit, the concepts, skills, and our own interests. When we put them all on the table we had way more fun connecting ideas and proposing where to go with the unit. We were pouring ourselves into the unit as well as the things that need to be there because the curriculum said so. It completely shifted how I now plan units with teams.
Interesting that Melissa had you link the unit design to your own interests -- this seems to be an important question we don't ask often -- why should the teacher care (and if the teacher doesn't care about what they are teaching we know the students won't!) Content should be taught because it is deeply important to the subject-area and the teacher can convey this critical importance.
Wow! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that my classroom would be mentioned in the same sentence as Prince! This idea, creating purple classrooms with purple pedagogy, is so clever. Prince is literally the antithesis of standardization and I'm honored to be in any sort of proximity to his creative genius. Thanks!
It's well deserved. You've been offering some of the most creative ideas for teaching I've read.
Really enjoyed reading about these ideas around teacher personality, meaningful cross curricular learning and the importance of enduring understanding. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on how this concept of fostering a 'purple pedagogy' can exist within the standardised frameworks and regulations of a typical school? I'm sure all teachers would ideally want to utilise their own coloured pedagogy, rather than being another Mr Myers. Do you see this being a difficult tension to navigate? Many thanks again
Great question! Well it certainly helps to be in a school culture that aligns with your values as a teacher--Dan, from the article, and I taught in a public high school that valued teacher autonomy and experimentation, so we had the license and admin support to experiment and design our own curriculums. I do think, in all classrooms in any type of school, we have a complex mix of considerations. We may have a terrible textbook we have to work with. We may have a listless set of standards we have to consider. But as teachers we always have a choice. I always choose to optimistically build something new from the materials that we have--supplementing them with additional materials that we too might bring to the classroom. Adrian's example in the post is a great example of starting the year with just a poem and defining the classroom culture by a phrase in that poem. Even such a small step (one poem-one class) sends a powerful message about what his classroom culture will be for the year. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
I really appreciate this response, thank you for getting back. The idea of working within constraints while still making deliberate, value driven choices resonates well, and the example of starting with a single poem captures that nicely. It makes the tension feel more manageable and less like an all or nothing dilemma.
This question reminds me of a workshop I did with Melissa Daniels for HiTech High. In our grade level team (middle school) she led us through designing a unit from scratch. In the first step we were given post-its and asked to write our subject standards for the unit, the concepts, skills, and our own interests. When we put them all on the table we had way more fun connecting ideas and proposing where to go with the unit. We were pouring ourselves into the unit as well as the things that need to be there because the curriculum said so. It completely shifted how I now plan units with teams.
Interesting that Melissa had you link the unit design to your own interests -- this seems to be an important question we don't ask often -- why should the teacher care (and if the teacher doesn't care about what they are teaching we know the students won't!) Content should be taught because it is deeply important to the subject-area and the teacher can convey this critical importance.
Brilliant, Kurt. This question of "what is my purple music" is something I'm reflecting on.
Thanks Angela. You’re right. It’s a bigger question than only for education.
It definitely is. Among the things that made Prince a genius was how much cross over he had. Maybe that's part of it.
Brilliant post Kurt. 100% agree. Purple pedagogy for the win. And Dan the science man sounds like my kind of teacher.
+thanks for the s/o
I saw the connection between Dan and your work--one of the reasons I kept your entire quote in!