Not I

PLAY W1 (3 min): 1_W1_HMS 494 694- Class 8.mp3

Around 2014 I started to listen to this sound –

END W1

I had been making recordings of myself teaching,
being a young teacher
I was very self conscious that all the knowledge I tried to pack in my brain before each class, wouldn’t stick there to reference the next semester.

Sometimes I did end up using these recordings as a refresher for myself,
but they mostly just aggregated.

At some point I started to listen specifically to these accidental parts of these recordings
Along the margins

PLAY W2 (3:15): 1_W2_HMS 494 694- Class 9 pt 1_V2.mp3

Listening for
Changes in pace
Changes in enclosure
Signs that it was me, there

[AT 2:15]
I also heard
The chatter at the start of class
My first questions
END W2

PLAY E1: 2_E1_Hms220 F15 Wk15 M.mp3

How I started class
END E1
PLAY E1.1 + PLAY E1.2 (“why is everyone so far from me”)

PLAY E2 + 2.2 + LE (“see you Monday”)

And how I greeted students

By 2018
I had amassed an enormous amount of hellos and goodbyes
END

The sounds that bookended my time teaching

PLAY EW1 – Waiting (1:30): 3_EW1_Hms201 Sp18 Wk13 W.

What it sounded like to wait for them
I think of this as teaching without the learning. …

[sneeze]
… All the moments without the information.
But that have the same meaningfulness to them as the word “dear.”

PLAY EW2 – (AMBIENT): mp3 3_EW2_HMS 494 694- Class 7 Entry.mp3

If there’s something that defines those moments,   of these ambient shifts, goodbyes hellos, boundary crossings,…that characterizes them,… I wanted to draw out that figure in other moments of teaching. 

Some spirit that was animated by everything but the learning
END

PAUSE AUDIO
This object here is a tool a fairly simple instrument that i use to meet with groups of teachers and listen to the sounds of our own teaching. It’s a kind of hearth and a kind of animator. It has a series of jacks along the top, here, and on the side that allow up to 18 people to listen simultaneously while controlling their own volume.

…and on the back here are a series of controls that give shape to the animation of this spirit.
Pursed

Cupids bow  + lower dip
Filler for the top + heart shape or / puppet fold for the bottom
Filler on the Bottom / Flip on the top