9.25.11 Adam News and Info

Loved your whole post Lynne, but this really struck me. Immediately I flashed on the videos of Adam as a very young child. His energy, curiosity and confidence in speaking up (maybe much to the chagrin of his parents at times) does indicate he had that certain precociousness and innate confidence early on.

The way he looks the camera dead on and appears totally at ease even as a very young child has always amazed me too. He never seemed to go through a camera shy or self-conscious period in that sense.

On another note, Cassie, thanks for the link to the article for teachers.

One of the comments there from Robby hit upon one of the main things my 21 year old son and I often talk about in terms of teaching writing.

Robby said:

Presumably, the standards of excellence were inculcated by those philosophers deemed competent and those deemed competent were thought to have mastered the standards of excellence. It seems circular if competence is defined by standards of excellence and possession of the standards of excellence are what makes a person competent.

As teachers of writing, and I assume this transfers over to many of the other arts, we develop these standards and then try to teach students how to competently reproduce them in their own writing, which effectively teaches them to think inside the box. I have
come to believe that we have to teach them that there is a box, and what it can do for them, but also teach that it is good and necessary to sometimes experiment outside of the box in order to grow creatively. The really great ones internalize the box, and then riff off
from it in their own unique ways; some even smash the box, for effect, altogether.

At one point, when I was explaining to my son why teaching standards of excellence and conventional structure was important in writing, and how that helps people who aren't natural writers be more clear in their writing, or be able to organize a short story, his
response was that, at the college level, teachers who require that students follow certain conventions in advanced writing classes are then telling their students that they are not
"natural writers," when in fact, many of them are natural writers looking for the opportunity to be more experimental, to create something new and original and fresh. He was speaking of a screenwriting class in particular where you had to have X happening by X page etc...

To bring this back to Adam.... Adam likes to be experimental? LOL