Blog Post 9 - Empathy

"Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else's position and to intuit what that person is feeling." That is a nice definition. I was also intrigued by Pink's statement that empathy is not "feeling bad for someone else. It is feeling with someone else, sensing what it would be like to be that person." While I did not yawn when reading Pink's description of his exhaustion, I have many times noted myself yawning after seeing others yawn or vice-versa. However, I have never fully understood why. Cognitive neuroscientist Steven Platek has attributed this behavior to a "primitive empathic mechanism." Does this mean that we are empathetic by design?

I have never thought about empathy as a marketable skill from an employer's perspective, at least for most industries. We associate empathy with organizations that are charitable, social work, those kinds of things... But, do we perhaps resent businesses for lacking empathy? When companies crumble and all the employees are left in the dust, the country often empathizes with the employees left behind. Would businesses be more successful if they invested more time and money, or really people, in the business of being empathetic? We all know how frustrating it is when we meet a bump in the road of life, and then have to sit on hold on the phone for hours just to correct the problem. I personally like to give my business to companies that have great customer service. And customer service, in a sense, is tied to empathy. They are empathetic of how it feels to be dissatisfied by a product or service. And as Pink points out, empathy is something that cannot be replaced by robots or people millions of miles away.

Will the next generation major in empathy??

Blog Post 8 - Symphony

Symphony was a familiar topic to me because of Dr. Unrath's spring class; my group was assigned to cover the synthesizing mind, one of Howard Gardner's five minds. The synthesizing mind and symphony are extremely similar concepts. The goal being to, as Pink says, "put together the pieces." Because I am posting this after the symphony group's lesson today (Oops!), I was able to recognize the many similarities between the symphony presentation given today and the synthesizing presentation that we gave our students in the spring. We asked the class to take two random notecards (with various random topics) and find the connection between the two, to find the symphony that they create together. Today in class, we were asked to do the same thing using various food items, peanuts, mints, cheez-its, very clever!

I even noticed that the symphony group had selected the same TED talk on metaphor that we had shown during our presentation. Metaphor is such a large part of using symphony and synthesis in thinking. Metaphor is a big idea, and often used in art. I think I mentioned in class that I would like to incorporate the big idea of metaphor at the Elementary level, inspired by "mix your metaphors."

I found this quote to be very inspiring. “Many engineering deadlocks have been broken by people who are not engineers at all. This is because perspective is more important than IQ. The ability to make big leaps of thought is a common denominator among the originators of breakthrough ideas. Usually this ability resides in people with very wide backgrounds, multidisciplinary minds, and a broad spectrum of experiences.

After reading Gardner’s chapter on synthesis I remember him suggesting that in the future we need more than minds that are genius in their own field, but minds that can recognize the perspectives of others fields and work together in a multi-disciplinary way.  This is no small task. But, I would like to point out that we often do this is the art classroom. J Asking our students to take big ideas from life experiences or content from other classes and give these concepts meaning through art making. Art has the potential to build a multi-disciplinary mind in our students, and a multi-disciplinary mind will be a powerful resource in the future.

Proposal

I believe that part of the reason many students do not consider themselves artists once they are older is due to the fact that they do not see being an artist as a viable career option. They have most likely heard somewhere along the way the term starving artist, or that artists don't actually make enough money to thrive. I know that I had heard this more than once growing up. However, the reality is that the creative industry is huge, and there are thousands of jobs that require an artist's mind. I am interested in developing a curriculum that engages students in learning about the variety of artists that work in the every day world and giving them the opportunity to try on that role. From animation and advertising to 3D modeling and magazine design, there are countless jobs that require an artist's eye and hand. I would like to give my students authentic experiences in these fields, so that they are aware of the opportunities for creative people. Also, I would like to bring in professionals from as many creative fields as possible to talk to students about the work that they do as an artist. I think middle school would be the perfect age to began exploring creative opportunities as students began to develop their identities. 

Blog Post - 7 - Story

When I read this line: "stories are easier to remember - because stories are how we remember," a lot clicked for me. Teaching using big ideas means teaching with story. Curriculum without story is simply an assemblage of facts, and facts alone, as Pink pointed out are extremely difficult to remember. We need to teach our students through memorable experiences, which will later become stories. Wow!

At the intersection of high concept and high touch, we find story. Story is high concept because of its innate ability to offer deeper understanding of one thing in the context of something else. It is high touch because of its emotional appeal.

It seems difficult for me to imagine a world that does not readily present any and every fact. I grew up with the internet, it came to life just as I began to write my own name. I remember being amazed by the online encyclopedias and being able to search for images of far away lands. The internet gave me the opportunity to explore my early interests. I wonder how my interests would have developed had I not had access to endless information. One of the most intersting things about the information age, to me, is that now people are regular creators and recorders of information. The majority of students regularly engage with sites that let them record the content of their lives. I envision that one day historians will write a large part of the history of our times based on the expression of the people. That is a big idea.

Living in an age that has an abundance of information and access to it, it seems that all children should be able to receive a great education. Most ikids seem to LOVE technology. Are we waiting for technology that engages students and makes learning fun? Could we break the cycle by giving children constant access to information and learning? I remember in my field experience watching the teacher allow kids with limited technology at home use the computers whenever they had free time so that they could play academic games. The kids seemed to love this. I wonder what educational computer applications would look like if Steve Jobs had created a series? :)

Blog Post 6 - Design

 The first few paragraphs of the Design chapter told a story that I knew I had heard before. A story that I would not forget, and will likely influence my future days as a teacher. The older students get, the less likely they are to believe that they are artists holding creative power. This is a problem. I want to teach my students from an early age that they are artists, and have powerful voices. The other part of the problem is driven by society's tendency to discount the value of design. I love the way that John Heskett simplifies design, "[D]esign, stripped to its essence, can be defined as the human nature to shape and make our environment in ways without precedent in nature, to serve our needs and give meaning to our lives." What a beautiful way to explain design. When design is considered in that context, design fills nearly every corner of our world, and shapes how we live.

L- Directed thinking - utility (logic)
R- Directed thinking - significance (creativity)

I thought the mention of L- and R- directed thinking was genius. When the two hemispheres of the mind work together, amazing things can happen. The problem is, in our current school system, we often ask students to only use these hemispheres separately. In art we have the opportunity to teach our students to use both sides of the brain. In my future classroom, I hope to develop not just the right side of the brain, but the whole brain, and everything in between.

Blog Post - 5

I love the way Eisner describes curriculum: the agenda for the development of the mind. It is slightly overwhelming to think that it is our responsibility to create a plan for developing the mind, but also shows the value that should be placed on curriculum development. Without a strong curriculum, we are not equipped to teach our students.

In my future classroom, I see myself monitoring curriculum by the engagement and understanding of the students, rather than strict deadlines to begin new units. I think that the art classroom is a place for exploration and there are opportunities that can and should be explored. The only way that this is possible is if the teacher allows the curriculum to be flexible enough to include experimentation. I want my students to know that their ideas and interests are important to me, and that they play a large role in the learning process, including the development of the curriculum. Just after writing out my thoughts above, I ran into this quote from Eisner, "To be able to make educational gold out of emerging activities in the classroom requires a high degree of artistry in teaching. Artistry in teaching is more likely to occur when the classroom provides a context for improvisation and where unpredictability, rather than predictability of activities and consequences in acknowledged." I hope that someday I will be able to teach using the artistry that Eisner describes.

"When birds have led their life in a cage, it is not difficult to understand that when the door is opened, they might now have a desire to leave." This quote from Eisner reminded me of the struggles students face as they grow older and have more years of experiencing, censoring their ideas and the thoughts that they are willing to share with the class. Unfortunately, the traditional school system is often based on one answer or one way of doing things. The art classroom MUST be the place where the spark of creativity and imagination is ignited for our students. The future cannot afford to lack in creative thinking.

The first phrase that struck me in Pink's A Whole New Mind, was "high concept and high touch." These two descriptions sound like they could be describing the type of curriculum we design in the art education program. We want our students to create conceptual art inspired by big ideas and make meaning through creation. I am eager to read more of Pink's book as I think it will line up perfectly with art education!

Blog Post - 4

"If children's artwork is examined in social rather than in individual terms, it becomes apparent that what they learn when working on a painting or sculpture is not simply what they learn from others as they become members of a community." For me, Eisner's statement about the learning that occurs in the art classroom connects to the way of learning through big ideas. When we ask our students to make work about big ideas, we are asking them to think about what they know, and express that knowledge through a very expressive medium, art making. This experience for students is a memorable one, which is why I am so supportive of an integrated art curriculum. Not only does this give students a deeper understanding of the material they are learning in their core classroom, but also gives society a reason to support the arts.

The art classroom also builds community, teaching students social norms and how to respectfully recognize the perspectives of others. In art, we have the opportunity to teach students about life. Eisner calls this concept situated learning, "the child is situated in a social and material context, and this context, viewed as a culture, teaches."

I love this phrases in the Eisner text, "life in classrooms looks more like life in life!" It sounds genius and innovative, but shouldn't this be how be teach children? I wrote earlier about the importance of not just teaching children for the purposes of school, but teaching them to prepare them for life. It only makes sense that to reach this desired effect, teachers should teach learning as it would happen in real life, constructing multi-sensory activities, diverse and dynamic in character.

I found that the introduction of A New Culture of Learning parroted a lot of the ideas presented in the Eisner text. "We believe that this new culture of learning can augment learning in nearly every facet of education and every stage of life. It is a core part of what we think of as "arc of life" learning, which comprises the activities in our daily lives that keep us learning, growing, and exploring. When I think of learning through this lens, it makes me question traditional methods - how could be ever expect students to learn through means that are much less engaging than the every day activities they are happening outside of the classroom? The art room is an opportunity for exploration and creativity. We can undoubtedly give our students experiences that are equally as exciting, if not more exciting, than the Angry Birds game they are playing on their ipad.