ART: Week 7 - Gude Read & React

Week 7: R & R : Read; Gude: Playing, Creativity, Possibility; & New School Art Styles: The Project of Art Education; Post Modern Principles:

Although Gude’s articles speak to art teachers, the underlying message about all learning is present. Apply the reading to what you teach and to whom you deliver instruction.
Consider the following questions: -Summarize & -Where /when do you notice “discomfort” when you are teaching? Please illustrate with a teaching example. -What do you think accounts for the discomfort? -What (if anything) inhibits your creative development. Think internally, the obvious things like schedules most of us are stuck with, but sometimes internally there are ideas and perceptions we can let go of which open us to new possibilities. 

     Gude's articles outline her educational philosophies that diverge from the typical standards that focus on the formal elements & principles and Discipline Based Art Education construction. She has evolved over the years, tightening her own understanding of what exactly was lacking in a strict formalist based curriculum and offering various incarnations of what type of principles or themes would better suit students in their place. I have been inspired by the "original OMG" for many years and have read many of her articles as they are published. Reading them in succession really highlighted for me how, although the message is consistent and along the same lines, how Gude has solidified her thinking and can really support it through its application in her Spiral workshops. I really loved how in the 2010 article she was able to articulate how a teacher might feel if transitioning to a new method of teaching (her described bricolage method, the new NCCAS standards…or maybe that was just my interpretation as I am thinking so much about it at the moment.) I also felt like with the earlier articles I was wondering how transferable her principles of possibility really were, how universal. With the 2010 Playing, Creativity, Possibility article, I feel this was achieved more realistically. 

      Discomfort. I feel like I really hit my stride with teaching around year 8 or 9. Funny enough, this was around the time I had logged about 10,000 hours of teaching (minus college field work and student teaching.) 10,000 hours is significant in that it is theorized by Anders Ericsson (and others) that this is the amount of practice needed for someone to become an expert in something. It stood out to me because that is when Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers really became popular and this theory was popularized. Made since to me in my experience! I was finally comfortable with teaching, how I wanted to teach,  how I would connect with students to build relationships, and how to create a creative, relevant studio like class structure. I had already started to transform my teaching style to more of a bricolage curriculum and was working through those hurdles. I was finally comfortable with discomfort! It felt good because I felt my students (and some of my colleagues) were in it with me. That helped tremendously. Before I had this epiphany of feeling like a confident teacher, I remember the tightness in my chest and nervousness that being "unprepared" caused. I had to know everything about what I was about to present to my class. More than that though, I needed to know exactly what my outline for class was going to be. That helped immensely to relieve the discomfort. I was able to think on my feet, but it made me uncomfortable to realize, "OH! I haven't prepared for today! Things, supplies, materials aren't ready! I forgot to make copies!" or some such other realization. And that would still totally happen from time to time, but it happened less when I finally made peace with letting some of the control go to my students. 

       It is hard to look back at what gave me discomfort when I taught since I am not currently in the classroom. It is not readily available to peek out its head. Something that I realized I had to let go of as I started on my journey of relinquishing control and exploring creativity and creation with my students was my ego. I had to stop thinking that getting my students to create something technically masterful (in media skills) to hang in the hallway was the mark of being a good teacher. Although that is super great to see a student excel, it looks different when you are witnessing growth. Not just in media skills, but in the ability to think critically and creatively; to be able to explore their own thoughts and opinions freely. Being able to display proudly what my students were learning in those areas looked completely different. And it was not always show worthy. I could feel the judgement from some of my fellow art teachers. But as I became more confident that my students were learning (by reading their self-reflections and artists' statements, as well as looking in their sketch books) I didn't care, and being able to show what cool stuff they were doing as a class was worth way more than a grade could ever mean. It motivated those who didn't try very much (b/c they knew they were ALL going in the hall, finished or not.) And those changes in our studio eased that discomfort tremendously. 

     My creative discomfort lies in not being able to execute my ideas in a way I want to visually. I think the more I 'art', the more I am able to smooth out the clunkiness. I can get into the flow of things easier, but I have to continue to practice.  Ego also gets in the way here. I want what I see to flow out like spilled ink, effortlessly and smoothly with little more than a bump from my mind. But that's not the way it works…artists sweat and toil and W-O-R-K at it every day. My head knows this, but my artist's heart is still shackled by these restraints. I need to work more, sketch more, and silence my jailer. Stop the excuses and "just paint." I need more time to allow myself to play and give myself permission to see what comes and not treat everything as precious. Like I have to make the most of it because I get to do this so infrequently. I need to embrace the moments and string them together like pearls. Eventually I will have something beautiful. Whether it is "show-worthy" is not the point. It is the experience I need to engage in more.