As both teacher and artist, I find the most significant meaning in understanding the world we live in and how we relate to it. We all seek to find out place in the world. We seek it in family, in friends, in academia, in a job, in our passions. As we grow and learn, we build ourselves a place of safety that encompasses all that we have learned and understand. This safety includes our emotions, our biases, our views on life, and our trusted peers. This safe space, or paradigm, is like a house; constantly in need of repairs and updates. In each of our personal histories, even the specific knowledge and skills we learn through our formative years is constantly in need of updating, editing, or curating. There is always something new to learn. The world in which we currently exist is not the world our children will inherit. The present skills we need to succeed may not be the best match for the tasks of the future. Greek philosopher Heraclitus said “change is the only constant;” a statement I observe to be true, while simultaneously at odds with the focus on standardization in education. For this reason, I strive to be a lifelong learner and model a growth mindset for my students. As our paradigm-house enlarges, so too does our safe space of understanding. As a teacher I strive to create a space that is conducive to keeping my students enlarging their paradigm-houses by creating, by thinking, and by learning.

 

I have learned much from the artists, educators, and researchers that I have studied both in and out of academia. Experiencing a diverse group of seemingly unrelated individuals, like artist Allan Kaprow, art teacher-researcher Olivia Gude, and British Anthropologist Tim Ingold, I find more common threads that what might be clear on the surface. Something I have experienced most often is my reflection on the work of others helps me realize things about myself. I have had ADHD my entire life, and in recent years I am beginning to understand more fully what that means and how it has changed the floorplan of my paradigm-house. I find that I can pull from seemingly unrelated experiences to create a common throughfare for future connections to be made. This rhizomatic method of thinking has served me well in building a bigger paradigm that helps me understand, and create, the world in which I live. I have come to realize that I have always had an interest in building these connections to make something new, something better. I have experienced people making better worlds since childhood; I watched my dad built a different world for his clients by physically altering their spaces as an excavator/demolitionist, and my mom build a better experience for hers by altering how they interacted with products and people in the software and publishing industry. I have found that my methods of teaching have some similarities to artists like Allan Kaprow’s artworks, which he labeled “Happenings.” Kaprow requires his participants in his Happenings to perform actions that rely on seemingly random triggers from the environment. His work titled Self-Service (1967) asked his volunteers to choose from a menu of tasks that in some way involved performing an action in relation to something in their environment (like finding individuals with “pleasant faces”) or until an event in their environment releases them from their task (i.e. they have counted 200 red cars) (Walker, 2014, p. 14). Much like the focus of a still life drawing or a science experiment, Kaprow asks us to focus on the details of our surroundings. We learn from our environments; they shape who we are and how we perceive the world. Educators strive to build a specific environment conducive to learning and meaning-making for our students/participants. This act of creation has become more challenging in a post Covid-19 pandemic era, wrought with technological changes, political strife, social unrest, and the destabilization these events cause in the field of education itself. Teachers all over America express the sentiment that creating this “ideal” environment on what feels like an increasingly shaky, unstable ground. It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention, and I cannot think of a more needful time. I believe that we build the world we need, as we need it, in a similar practice to artist Abraham Cruzvillegas’s Autoconstrucción (Walker Art Center, n.d.). This act of making creates a feedback loop like the process of art criticism in which we create/observe, analyze, interpret, evaluate, and repeat. Like learning, it is never-ending if done correctly. Tim Ingold explains the similar plight of the builder in his book Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, and Architecture; “Builders know all too well that operations seldom, if ever, go according to plan. Working in a fickle and inconstant environment, they have continually to improvise solutions to problems that could not have been anticipated… Completion is, at best, a legal fiction” (2013, p. 48). Ingold postulates that art, anthropology, architecture, and archaeology can be explored best by actively engaging with the processes and materials of study. From educational theory, the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) requires teachers to know that students learn in different ways dependent on the context of where, when, with whom, and how they can show their learning (Nelson, 2021, p. 3). The learning environment that our students will need at present should actively engage them in a way that encourages and allows for them to learn in the way that works best for their situation. As Kaprow involved his participants to create their own meaning from his Happenings, I believe classrooms of today should be structured to actively involve students in the exploration and meaning-making of their own learning environment.

 

I strive to create an environment in my classroom that is conducive to creating positive experiences through cognitive challenges, play, and rhizomatic thinking. Our paradigm-houses are built by the bricks we call our experiences. To build a bigger house, one needs more bricks. Building houses, metaphorical or actual, is hard work. It is easy to see the challenge of making something new as arduous and difficult if there is no interest in the task. Our past experiences drive our interests, and our interests drive our work. To quote teacher-researcher Olivia Gude, a purely technical and formal art course “would not engender in teen artists the commitment to get out of bed on chilly Saturday mornings” (2004, p. 7). Play and exploration have always been a hallmark of childhood, and while it is meant entirely in fun, the underlying lessons learned from play help us build skills that will benefit us as adults. Baby tigers play fight and learn how to hunt. Baby otters play with rocks and pebbles to cultivate dexterity they will need to forage later in life. Human children pretend to be someone else, which teaches them to think about how others might see the world. Play in childhood teaches us much, and should not be discounted as a valuable experience in education. Pablo Picasso was famously quoted, saying “every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Children are asked sooner and sooner by society to “grow up.” In my classroom I work to create experiences that include play to encourage rhizomatic thinking. Much like play in adolescent animals, learning is something that sometimes sneaks up on you while you enjoy an experience. Cross-curricular connections are made as we look at adjacent or seemingly unrelated experiences, like contour lines and learning how to drive. But when making marks on paper to map the contour of an object is likened to the pencil acting as the Google Maps Car finding highways, a new understanding of perception can be experienced. Setting a speed limit of your hand, starting the “drive” in an area of comfort before getting to the complicated “highways,” and keeping your eyes on the “road” are now just rules to the game. Students are then allowed to expand the game by choosing their own “map” to play on by selecting their choice of subject matter. Through the process of play a student can learn about perceiving their surroundings, drawing contour lines, and driving simultaneously. Understanding connections between varied individuals or subjects through cross-curricular lessons and scaffolding from knowledge learned through other experiences makes lasting associations that students can call on when new problems are presented to them. I strive to encourage students to understand that, while they may not yet know this new content, they do know something that will help them learn it.

 

My philosophy on my teaching practice is centered on the idea that education is not simply about transferring knowledge, but about nurturing a lifelong passion for learning that will help my students create the better world they will live in. Drawing upon my experiences as a practicing artist, I have come to believe that the most effective way to learn is by doing, and that exploration, play, and critical thinking are crucial to developing a student's artistic and personal identity. By creating a classroom environment that is supportive and encourages individual growth, I believe that I can provide my students with the tools and skills they need to thrive both in and out of the art classroom. As we look towards an uncertain future, it is essential that we equip our students with the ability to think for themselves and to approach challenges with creativity and resilience. With this in mind, I am committed to creating a learning experience that is dynamic, challenging, and ultimately rewarding for all of my students. None of us know for sure what changes the future will hold, but with a little creativity, encouragement, and some grit I believe our students will succeed.

 

References:

Gude, O. (2004). Investigation the Culture of Curriculum. Unedited version of chapter 9 in Real-World Readings in Art Education: Things Your Professor Never Told You, edited by Fehr, D., Fehr, K., Kiefer-Boyd, K. Falmer Press, New York, NY. 2000.

Ingold, Tim. (2013). Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art, and Architecture. Routledge.

Nelson, L. L. (2021). Design and deliver: planning and teaching using universal design for learning. Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Walker Art Center. (n.d.). Abraham Cruzvillegas: The Autoconstrucción Suites. Walker Art Center. https://walkerart.org/calendar/2013/abraham-cruzvillegas-autoconstruccion-suites

Walker, S.R. (2014). Chapter 2: Everyday Play. Unpublished manuscript for Artmaking, Play, and Meaning-Making.