Writer’s Block
by beccaborrelli
Solstice. James Turrell. 2009.
In the past week I’ve started 4 posts, and abandoned 4 posts.
There seems to be less to write about on a teaching blog, now that everything is theoretical.
I’m really loving graduate school. I’m learning a lot… so I’ve toyed with the idea of writing about what I’m learning.
If I were going write about what excites me… I could write about how the Enlightenment and human rationalism shaped a powerful paradigm that led to an extremely unbalanced concept of schooling. I could write about how the field of art education is in a unique position to reorient ideologies regarding schools.
That would rock people’s sock off.
:-I
I’ve discovered it really just rocks mine.
Everyone I meet gets the thesis test:
“Let me tell you about my thesis idea!!”
They always smile excitedly until I start talking about paradigm shifts and pluralism. The eyes glaze and the smile turns strained. Usually they’ll say something like:
“I can tell you’re really excited about that…”
Which is code for… I have no idea what you’re talking about… how it’s relevant… or why I should care… BUT I’m your friend, and I support your passion for intellectual poppycock.
*Sigh*
Not that I blame them.
As I was eagerly tearing through a potential primary source for my thesis this evening– even as an excited reader I found myself getting hung up on theoretical jargon bordering on pompous. Who is this stuff written for? If some of the most compelling ideas in art education are written in an academic language so cryptic and bombastic that only .0025% of educators will give a sh*# enough to plow through it… does it do any good? Or does it just perpetuate an elite academic class of art educators that can look down from lofty universities onto cute art teachers making paper mache with kindergarteners and shake their heads whilst lamenting:
“If only she had woven themes of socio-economic oppression and/or a discussion on cultural bias in this curriculum. Paradoxical concerns of the 21st century are pressing matters for today’s young artist/citizen.”
Just writing the latter makes me want to respond with some teenage kitsch to redeem myself:
wtf??
To be fair, I love lofty theoretical stuff. I eat that up. Yet at the end of the day I’m taking these ideologies to a classroom of little children. Where’s the bridge people? I’ve heard the arguments for universities to teach theory. They’re all good… but where’s the bridge? How am I going to take this and plunk it down into an industrial model of education that doesn’t give a hoot for conceptual. Parents and administrators don’t want conceptual. They want some pretty art for the fridge pleaseandthankyou. And while yes I’m willing to fight the good fight, I want some tools in my arsenal.
I find myself craving some powerful stories. Some compelling narratives to serve as metaphor for all the multi-syllabic words. I crave a language to bridge the gap between the researchers publishing in journals, and the teachers in the trenches up to their elbows in tempera paint.
But it’s hard to find stories when there aren’t children. It’s hard to find metaphor when there isn’t a physical classroom to speak of. It’s hard to make sense of all the books, ideas, and theories when there’s no little hand tugging at your leg saying:
“John dumped the yellow paint in Beth’s art box.”
I love graduate school. Did I say that? I hope I did because I am not suggesting that I’m ungrateful for this amazing opportunity.
But I do miss the classroom.
Very much.
This Brazen Teacher 
Brilliantly written, Braz. One comment: the masterpieces on the fridge are truly that for parents. I don’t have many of my own prints and paintings (lost in the proverbial flood of moves, time, and disinterest), but those tiny-hand-created masterpieces are archived like the Declaration. Perhaps, that is your bridge?
Yes 🙂
My reply to your comment turned into a novella… trying to stop doing that. I will see if I can post a reply in a week or so. You got me thinking 🙂
I think that is the current problem teachers are having. There is a lot of blue sky talk that sounds wonderful but no practical applications for it.
We’re working on developing PD to help apply the “blue sky” to the curriculum.
Haha, you titled this post as the name to my new blog Im about to start. lol, sorry, just thought I would point out a nice coincidence.
First, I just wanna say, you’re lucky you have something you are excited about that you are not only learning but forming a career out of. Not many people get to have that. Im happy for you, congratulations.
Now, you got me thinking about metaphors and conceptualizations for classrooms, for kids; analogies that would work. I didnt get very far. How can one take high level learning and apply it to the very building blocks of our learning process. How can you teach those lessons when they dont have the tools to learn those lessons yet? Visually probably. Art is a great way to teach theory. Thats where conceptual meets tangible. There is no right or wrong when dealing with theory, same goes for art.
Teach conceptual metaphor and have those thoughts pour out in the form of art. Thought laid out for us to see. Just my two cents.
Buzz Buzz
publish the novellas doggone it.
and i say art-of-the-very-young are very often
masterpieces, period.
i’ve got a color photocopy of some kid’s
crayon drawing posted in my home
that some stranger… i don’t remember who…
sent me back when i traded a lot of zines
and other papernet items in the mail a lot.
you should see it: big ugly many-armed monster
fighting some kind of *flying* entity…
cars racing about down below…
& my facebook icon is indeed my face…
as drawn in 4-color pen (*my* pen, in fact;
sort of a trademark of mine in those days)
by, i’m guessing, a 5-year old step-sister
(now a full-grown MD); a treasure of my
small original-art collection. i used the
whole picture as a cover for an issue of my zine
(just the face for f’book… those icons are *small*).
it looks just *like* me.
my life-long cartoonist-slash-graphic-designer pal
has drawn me several times too and sure i love
those too. but that shot of eva’s *captures* me, dammit.
big round body and stick limbs and all.
“If only she had woven themes of socio-economic oppression and/or a discussion on cultural bias in this curriculum. Paradoxical concerns of the 21st century are pressing matters for today’s young artist/citizen.”
but what they don’t know
(and wouldn’t care if they did)
is that we (who take teaching seriously)
weave these themes into our work
all the time.
“art”… even in the broad arts-&-sciences sense…
happens *off the radar* of the machine-like
entities that, ahem, valorize obfuscatory prose.
and if we won’t teach our charges…
by example…
how this works, we’re missing what may be
some of the best opportunities that our
demi-profession has to offer.
“yes, yes… the self-styled grownups *will* be served…
it’s like death and taxes… life in schools is run (on paper)
by weird beings indifferent or even hostile to everything worthwhile.
but they know nothing of how *cool* this stuff is and never can;
applejack will not be sold to bullies.
when we close the doors (and the paperwork is done),
we can do *this*… or even *this*!…”
Fly’s: “art as where conceptual meets tangible”
YES couldn’t agree more
That being said when you teach tangible wo conceptual you can always get pretty artwork… a “masterpiece” if you will. When you add in the conceptual kids have to take risks. Risks often times lead to “less pretty.” Yet if there’s more learning and out-of-box thinking, does “less pretty” matter?
Herein lies the problem because to me, the answer is ‘no.’ To a parent who wants tangible proof, the “pretty” is the whole point.
Vlorbik said “art happens off the radar.” YES, YES, YES!
But the radar matters. What is on the radar will later end up as data at the next school board meeting when they are deciding what to fund. And what to not.
(vlorbik: the other day I read on the wordpress blog that novellas are considered a comment bar faux pas. Thoughts on this? I want to publish the novellas dangit.)
what william goldman said about making movies
(but i didn’t believe), i’ll say about “good style”
in blogging: nobody knows anything.
the medium’s too new and fashions
are changing at a shocking rate
(but then i’m something of an old fogey
to be sure).
publish and be (not damned, but)
thought annoying by the novella-scorners.
good heavens… really these things are
more in the nature of those (*actually*
annoying for the most part) open-ended
*series* that publishers are so fond of
(particularly in the “genres” like
crime novels and adventure-SF etc.)
than mere novellas. or those big fat
never-ending historical bodice busters.
and after all, we’re doing it for free.
anybody with any idea how to do it better
is more than welcome to try. wanting
*me* to do it better by their lights?
i’ll be glad to *sell* you some copy
you can do whatever you want with…
I think the point of Art classes, or what I believe they should be is that you teach the idea that pretty is subjective, pretty is conceptual, that pretty isnt what art is but a by-product of artistic thinking. The point of Art classes to me is to teach that. To lessen the idea of superficiality and recognize and appreciate the conceptual, the idea behind something. Because to me, teaching that and for them to learn it, goes beyond just art but mathematics, biology, physics, science, learning the conceptual and the idea behind whats pretty. Learning the inner workings, learning the process of thinking outside the box. How do you create something tangible from that to show off to parents? Well, find practicality out of it.
buzz buzz