Knocking+on+Heavens+Door


 * [[image:finger.JPG align="left"]]Designing Meaningful Learning Experiences – Case Study #1**
 * Student Engagement and Motivation**

HOW MANY MICE WERE ON THE TEAM?
It would have been a safe bet to call this young child “at-risk”. It only takes until the third paragraph of his autobiography for him to tell us he’s illegitimate and that his uncle wasn’t joking when he called him a little bastard. He states:

//“The full impact of this realization upon me was traumatic, because at the time I was born, in March, 1945…an enormous stigma was still attached to illegitimacy.”//

His first memory of music was at age five when he heard English hymns being sung at the Ripley Church of England Primary School. But he only enjoyed school for a few months because once he figured out it was for the “long haul”, he “began to panic.” As a child, all this young man wanted in school was to be anonymous. Thus he would never enter a competitive event. Anything that singled him out or brought him attention was hated (a classic at-risk characteristic).

Setting off illegal fireworks, shoplifting, vandalism, and smoking were all part of the ritual of his young life. And in the days before TV, his Saturday nights were built around sitting outside the local pub and listening to the singers such as Sid Perrin, who sang in the style of Mario Lanza. His grandmother played the piano and he would enjoy hearing play the standards of the time. At the age of ten he decided he would take after one of the relatives who played the violin. He admits he didn’t have the patience and quickly gave it up.

His uncle Adrian “was an incredible character and great influence” on the young man’s life. Adrian played the harmonica and had a record player on which he would play Stan Kenton, Dorsey Brothers, and Benny Goodman. To the youngster it seemed like “outlaw music”, but he “felt the message coming through.”

The young man began focusing on the music around him. Sunday afternoons there was the radio show //Two-Way Family Favorites//. A fond memory was of the radio show coming on at noon every Sunday just as they sat down to a “really good lunch” – the mixture of which he later refers to “as a real feast for the senses.”

But Saturdays were special. Beginning at 9am, //Children’s Favourites// were come on. One song in particular provided an anchor memory which lasts to this day. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee’s __Whooping and Hollering__.

“I guess it was the novelty element that made [the station] play it, but it cut through me like a knife.”

“Music became a healer for me, and I learned to listen with all my being, I found it could wipe away all the emotions of fear and confusion relating to my family.”

__Completely separate from school__, the young man continued his journey of exploring the world of music. He bought his first record player and record, Buddy Holly’s //The Chirping Crickets//. Television introduced him to Jerry Lee Lewis on //Sunday Night at the London Palladium.// The scene that would truly influence the young man was the Hollyfield Road School in Surbiton – just on the edge of London. It was while at Hollyfield that the young man skipped classes, bought records, and immersed himself in jazz, folk music, and rock n’ roll. This is when he bought his first guitar. A Hoyer. Made in Germany. With steel strings, it was painful to play. And the young aspiring musician had no one to teach him. He didn’t even know how to tune it.

“To begin with, I had not expected the guitar to be quite so big, almost the same size I was. Once I was able to hold it, I could hardly press the strings down, they were so high. Playing it seemed an impossible task, and I was overwhelmed by the reality of it….I learned totally by ear, by listening and playing along to [Scarlet Ribbons by Harry Belefonte].”

From here the young artist embarked on what can best be called a life-long education on the guitar. Learning new licks from beatniks in pubs, hanging out in Soho and watching other guitarist’s hands, as the musician puts it, “I had no technique, of course: I just spent hours mimicking it.”

Eventually he developed his learning style: he would play along with a record he wanted to learn, and when he thought he mastered it, he’d record it on a tape recorder and play it back. If it sounded like the record, then I was satisfied.

Eric Clapton spent his life studying his craft. As he closes his book, he writes:

//Looking back, my journey has brought me into proximity with some of the great masters of my profession, and all of them took the time to show me something of craft, even if they weren’t aware of it.//

Discussion Starters:

What characteristcs of an AT-RISK student did Eric Clapton have? How would you classify his level of engagement with school work as compared with practicing the guitar? Which WOW design qualities were probably evident when Clapton learned a new song or technique?