Teaching with inspiration

This piece of news that I found caught my eye in particular, not only because it talks about a professor and his practice in the classroom, but also because it presents a new way to call students attention during lectures.

The University is the stage, the professors are the players. These are the words of Professor Warwick Murray, a British-born associate professor of human geography at the Victoria University of Wellington's school of geography, environment and earth sciences in New Zealan, who stands in front of his class, picks up his acoustic guitar and plays it to his class, inspired by the influence of the English rock pioneers.

His gold is to keep reminding to others that there is more than one way to apprehend an important theme or provide a vivid mental marker for students to retain information. He says that "Art is an entry point to the intellectual world - and as such it should always be a scholarly tool worth considering”.

"Take a trip up a mountainside, reach the top and you will find

Stretching out towards the sun a thousand peaks of which you know but one

This restless earth moving day by day

changes its form as we turn the other way

.... forms of thinking forms of belief

the restless earth and its shifting relief"

News Link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/jan/08/highereducationprofile.highereducation?INTCMP=SRCH