Kwanzaa Chapel

I attended Kwanzaa Chapel on Friday Dec. 10.  I know absolutely nothing about Kwanzaa, so the message was very eye opening.  Kwanzaa didn't seem to be a specifically religious holiday.  It seemed more of an opportunity for people of African descent to come together and celebrate their commonalities.  There are seven principles of Kwanzaa, and they are as follows:
1.  Unity
2. Self-determination
3. Collective work and responsibility
4. Cooperative economics
5. Purpose
6. Creativity
7. Faith
The speaker, Sheila Radford-Hill, challenged the notion that these are "universal" principles.  She said that each African American's experience is so different that an entire culture's variance can't be represented by simply seven principles.  She then went on to describe how, though they aren't all-encompassing, these principles really get to the heart of what the African American experience is all about.
I really enjoyed this talk.  I learned about Kwanzaa and thought critically about what a message like this meant to the education world.  The best I could come up with is that kids are all very different, and it's the teacher's job to demonstrate how their commonalities can help them build relationships.  Specific to music, each student will have different feelings or opinions about a piece, but it's important to talk about and celebrate those differences, and ultimately come together to perform the music.  Each person will "feel" it differently, but the collective effort and commonality of the notes are the shared things each musician can bring to the table.

Can Dispositions Be Taught?

...What a loaded question.

Here's the conclusion I've come to:  You can be a talented person and a good teacher without being an effective teacher.  If you know your stuff, you can get your point across, but you have to develop dispositions to get your students to care about what you're saying.  If you aren't kind or passionate, you lose a lot of credibility.

I'm one of the few crazy people left who think that people are inherently good.  I believe that everyone has the capacity to be compassionate and reflective and is born with the ability to compromise with others.  Because of this, I don't think taught is the right word here.  I think dispositions need to be brought out of people.  I think that it takes a really good mentor to model good dispositional habits for future teachers to aspire to.  By simply demonstrating the importance of a specific way of interacting with students, I think that a person should just get it.

The person who is most helping me get it right now is Sandra Peter, my choir director.  She represents, to me, the perfect choir director.  She is, first and foremost, always positive.  Kids don't want to be around crabby people, so positivity is key.  Secondly, she is organized.  She always knows what's coming next, and pacing is SO important to keeping students' attention.  Third, she cares about each individual student.  When we walked into our first choir rehearsal at Luther freshman year, she knew the names of all 100 women in her freshman choir.  If you're late for rehearsal, she asks why rather than yelling at you for it.

So, to answer your question, dispositions can be brought out in people who have good role models.