Autumnal Authenticity

I'd like to send a plea for educational authenticity into the sky (i.e., Internet ether) in advance of schools resuming in various forms this autumn.

Humor me, if you will, for an analogous professional wrestling connection that inspired this post.

AEW World Champion Jon Moxley (whose T-shirt I happen to be wearing as I type this post) recently appeared on a podcast and spoke about his favorite match during his years of fame in the WWE, a bout on a smaller pay-per-view broadcast on the WWE Network:

I’d always heard so much about how he’s the great ring general and all this and that. And I worked with him in six-mans and stuff before, but never just got in the ring with him and didn’t say a word, and see what happens yet. And what I was taught, if you got caught in the ring going over a spot before the show by like Les Thatcher, it was looked at as like a weakness. Which is the exact opposite of the way the business is now, but that’s the way I was brought up. You call it in the ring, just work, build it from the ground up. And you know, it takes a different level of patience, just a different style of match. So I think I’m pretty good at that, and this guy is supposed to be like, the Harley Races and Ric Flairs say that this guy is like the new top ring general. So like, "Okay dude, let’s see what you got."

So I remember I showed up really late. And there’s this weird gamesmanship that goes on with old school worker type stuff. It’s kind of like playing chicken or having a stare-off. Nobody wants to be the first guy to blink. Nobody wants to be the first guy to look like, "So what are we gonna to do, what’s our spots?" "What do you wanna do?’""I dunno. What do you wanna do?" “Let’s just call it out there." Nobody wants to be the first guy to blink and be like, "I’m the inferior worker of the two of us." So I got there really late and just hung out in the locker room. And then it was finally like 5:30 or 6:00, something. And Michael Hayes is looking for me, "Hunter is in his locker room and wants to talk." I’m like, "Okay." So I go there and he’s like, "What do you want do?’"I’m like, "Whatever you want to do." We basically came up with a finish, then a table spot I had done before, and a cool a false finish. The rest of it, we basically called in the ring.

For me, I'd rather have that than a WrestleMania in front of a stadium. The unique, old-school setting where I'm in control. That was unique and one of the last old-school matches you'll see in WWE probably. I'll take that over a 'created moment' that we overproduced. That was a pure wrestling moment. (My Mom's Basement, 2020)

The crazy part of this story for me personally is that I saw Moxley, then wrestling under the stage name Dean Ambrose, wrestle two other times in person. One was in the main event of a non-televised WWE show in front of maybe 700 people in Moline, Illinois, against Kevin Owens. The other was at AT&T Stadium near Dallas, Texas, at WrestleMania 32 against former UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar in front of over 100,000 people. Here are pics from both shows:

Looking back on that time, I much preferred his match in front of the smaller crowd as opposed to the Lesnar bout at WrestleMania. Granted, we now know that Lesnar worked a safe, uneventful match in Dallas to avoid injury in advance of his fight against Mark Hunt later that summer at UFC 200, but still, I was several hundred yards closer to the ring and could hear the banter between Owens and Ambrose. The crowd noise was crisp rather than humming and popping in amalgamation of such a sea of humanity.

It's kind of like seeing your favorite band in a small club versus a stadium. I much preferred the time I saw the Deftones in the basement venue of the Eagle's Ballroom in Milwaukee when I was in high school versus seeing them at the back of a large sun-blistered crowd in Grant Park at Chicago's Lollapalooza festival.

I better circle back to education before I lose them...

I worry for our K-12 students this autumn. Let's say that districts begin the school year with only online instruction or even a blended model in which students attend a few days a week or half days.

What should that online instruction look like? Feel like? How can or will it motivate our students?

Digitizing worksheets and creating rigid checklists of specific, fully-defined tasks has a purpose in certain cases and certainly helps parents facilitate their child's learning activities at home during an already challenging time.

But I think we can all agree that the optimal situation would be for there to be no danger of a pandemic and students working in-person with their peers and teacher. Why?

That teacher will get to intimately know the needs and interests of each child. That teacher will find ways to make learning the content of a course or grade level relevant to each learner - at least the good ones would.

I challenge teachers who now find themselves more-than-likely teaching online in some capacity this fall to find ways to include the following verbs among others in your learning objectives: create, design, critique, publish, record...

No doubt, you should also plan lessons in which students can learn new content, but don't stop there. Facilitate socioculturally relevant activities for each student that best fit their realities. Allow them to solve problems that really mean something to them. Help them discover new avenues for constructing meaning that impact their lives and the lives of others.

Hell, allow them to co-construct their ventures along with you these next few months.

You'll notice I didn't get overly specific here and recommend certain activities, approaches, technologies, etc. That's because I don't know your students.

To be candid, as a newly-hired teacher educator moving to the Peach State in a few weeks, I don't even know my undergrads and graduate students just yet. But I will get to know them in some capacity and together, we will create opportunities to learn how to effectively and equitably teach students in the year 2020 and beyond.

We got this, right? Let's not play to the sea of humanity in a stadium. Let's work to the crowd right in front of us, in our own 'classroom,' whatever that may look like this autumn.

Reference:

My Mom's Basement. (Host). (2020, May 22). Quarantine mini-pod: Jon Moxley [Audio podcast]. Apple Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/quarantine-mini-pod-jon-moxley/id1457255205?i=1000475380342