Thesis Defense

By Lesley -

Hallelujah! Isaac finished his thesis! He's been slaving away this past fall gathering his research and writing oodles about it. The title is "The Functions of Popular Music in the Lives of Adolescents". I got to hear him defend his thesis to his advisors and boy was I happy I didn't have to do that. Isaac did amazing answering the posed questions on the spot and it was evident he thought a lot about his thesis.

The day before his thesis defense I attended his school's "Winter Extravaganza". His Rock N' Roll History choir sang "Fix You" by Coldplay, Langston Hughes "The Homesick Blues" and Ben E. King's "Stand By Me." It was very entertaining to hear popular songs and not typical boring choral music. Don't get me wrong, I love choral music, but not when middle schoolers attempt it. I think this progressive idea of Isaac's to teach popular music to his 7th and 8th graders is genius. After attending the concert and hearing him support his claim that we need to embrace popular music and use it to teach students I realized just how lucky those kids are to have Mr. Bickmore. I hope in the near future he can present his idea at a conference or something like that so it can be implemented in several schools.

Comments

Lisa B. said…
This was a pretty great experience, for all the reasons you say. I learned a lot listening to the defense, and revisiting the previous night's performance in the light of what he said enriched both experiences. Impressive! Glad you posted about it.
January 7, 2010 at 9:26 PM
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