Before the new year, I compiled a host of the TALONS‘ responses to reflective prompts on their work created during the Eminent Person Study, highlighting the means and methods they employed to create stellar examples of public speaking in their Eminent Addresses. Being able to have each of these reflections assembled in one place – […]
Read more "Room for Improvement: If and when we do Eminent again…"We began talking about Eminent Person the other day by discussing Gardner Campbell’s quoting of Gregory Bateson’s work, and the idea of: “…breaches in the weave of contextual structure.” As I’ve mentioned here many times in the past, many experiential aspects of the TALONS program, and authentic learning wherever it happens for that matter, seek […]
Read more "Eminent Person Study: Documenting Transformative Learning"It is always quite the task to put one’s finger on just what it is that happens at Night of the Notables. Even as they have added up over the years, and the alumni that return to the event are now three and four years into university, I still come home struggling to contextualize and […]
Read more "On Notable Nights"Andrew B. Watt struck me appropriately on the Sunday night before Night of the Notables with a post – you would do well to read in its entirety here – that makes a great many points that each are deserving of attention and reflection. But there are a few that I want to highlight […]
Read more "Teachers and Ritual Power"[View the story “Eminent Person Introductions 2012” on Storify]
Read more "Eminent Person Introduction Posts"I liked this idea Elaan posted from a pro-d conference that many of our district’s middle school teachers and admin are attending in Portland. Aside from puzzling me as to whether or not the 90s really are alive there, this reminded me of something that happened in the TALONS classroom last year: For the new […]
Read more "Passing the Torch"Tonight you reigned in triumph, and I hope that you each savour what this experience has revealed of the possibility you hold within yourselves. You will know success in this life for what tonight has taught you about the personal nature of success, the irrationality of fear and the necessity of friendship. Do not despair […]
Read more "Shared Solitudes"As sometimes happens, I didn’t sit down at work today – unless you count the few minutes I spent helping a guitar student figure out how to add piano to the upcoming QR-code-musical-Easter-egg-hunt I’m setting up (and will tell you about later), or taking part in a few of the interviews throughout the day. But […]
Read more "Confluence"With a new fall, the current incarnation of the Talons class sets out on one of the pillars of the program, encountering a person deemed Eminent in the annals of history: someone who has changed things and left the world indelibly marked with their unique gifts. The importance to gifted learners of such projects is […]
Read more "Eminent Person Study: Looking Back, Looking Forward"When I began teaching TALONS (2006), the requirement for learners’ Eminent Person Studies to make us of an interview with an expert presented an age-old sticking point. Documents in the program binders inherited from teachers of the original, locally-developed gifted program supplied handouts and tips for students conducting their first interviews (back then, only either […]
Read more "In search of the elusive Eminent Person Interview"