Studio Based Teaching

Yes, I had an artistic problem:

I applied for a faculty grant to attend the conference in Chattanooga. Our school provides monies for faculty to pursue a number of things that are usually divided into three areas:

A. Professional development that leads directly to classroom teaching (i.e., a conference sponsored by the College Board for teaching AP Three-Dimensional Design or a workshop on hand-building with Randy Johnston.)

B. Professional development that indirectly leads to classroom teaching (i.e., a conference on Learning and the Brain, or a workshop on Strategies for Teaching Boys.)

C. Personal development for the teacher outside their area of expertise (i.e., guitar lessons for a non-music teacher.)

The feedback that I got was that committee did not want to fund my proposal because "we don't do that kind of teaching here." At first I was amused, but then I slowly got angry. I couldn't figure out what language it was that they objected to: Monologic presentations are out and collaborative explorations are in? Were they objecting to the format of the conference? That topics include Aesthetics? Studio Based Learning? Learning Environments? Were these topics that they couldn't understand or relate to? It was puzzling and frustrating at the same time.

In talking with my department head, it became clearer to me that this might be one of the hills that I die on. I feel like we have to show MORE how studio based learning is not only as valid as classroom based teaching, but in many instances, should be the preferred way of teaching in the classroom. My goal with this conference is to come back and have more information to run an informative teaching session for young teachers and open their eyes to how studio based teaching can impact all curriculums.

That said, the committee did fund some of the conference but not all, as they usually would. My department will make up the rest. A small hurdle cleared...

(in the interest of disclosure, the image at the top of the page comes from the UTC website...)

Elliot Eisner - what can education learn from the arts about the practice of education?

"the aim of education ought to be conceived of as the preparation of artists. By the term artist neither he nor I mean necessarily painters and dancers, poets and playwrights. We mean individuals who have developed the ideas, the sensibilities, the skills, and the imagination to create work that is well proportioned, skilfully executed, and imaginative, regardless of the domain in which an individual works. The highest accolade we can confer upon someone is to say that he or she is an artist whether as a carpenter or a surgeon, a cook or an engineer, a physicist or a teacher. The fine arts have no monopoly on the artistic."

- Elliot Eisner

for the entire transcription of his speech, given in 2002 at Stanford University, go HERE.

AP's versus our curriculum

Interesting issue has come up recently in school. Found out that colleges check out the scores our students get on their AP portfolio and compare them to the grades we give them in our classes. For instance, if the average score of our students in AP 3D design is a 4.2 and I happen to give them a B- average for my AP Ceramics class, then my ceramics program would be valued at a much higher rate than if my students averaged a 2.8 on the AP and I gave them an A- (my course would effectively be considered a joke...and probably for good reason)

So, the implications for this seem to be:

1. Discourage kids who we know will do poorly (and even average) on the AP from submitting their portfolio. Only 4's and 5's should take it.

The big issue is we don't know what grade a kid will get. My best student in 15 years of teaching received a 4, while one of my most distracted, unproductive kid received a 3 - both were scores they received were jokes! My grades for them (A and C+) respectively both hurt and helped my program - but not in the way I thought...

2. Lower the grades of my students.

We already have a difficult time as it is attracting students to stay with the visual arts into the upper levels because colleges don't value the class in the same way they do other courses of study. If we were to lower their GPA's artificially, we would lose them altogether...

A Conference in Tennessee.

There looks like there will be an interesting conference in Chattanooga in May. Only 50 participants are being accepted with a deadline of March 1. The information on the website is excellent and the structure (teams of five will create a "Learningscape") bypasses traditional conference formats.

I am intrigued and plan on doing a bit more reading...Thoughts?

The college admissions process...

The University of Sydney taken from Trekearth.com

One of the things that we think about here at our school is how the college admissions process shapes how we do business as a school. One of the things we seems to debate is whether the high school learning process is valued in and of itself or if it is merely valued as the vehicle to get one into college.

Recently, one of our college councilors had an argument with a college admissions officer from a prominent New England small college. Essentially, the argument was over what was the true GPA of the student in question. Our view was that the entire transcript had earned the kid his/her GPA while the CA officer was only concerned with "the essential 5": math, English, history, science, foreign language.

My first reaction was to think about the colleges and their own visual and performing arts faculty/facilities/curriculum. For these liberal arts colleges, who are they hoping will fill this part of their campus? Are they drafting any artists/musicians/actors etc to fill these spots? How do these schools approach this end of education? Do they value certain parts of their own school over others?

It just seems to me like we are swinging the education pendulum towards a automatons and valuing only what we can measure. My hope is that this discussion will help figure out ways we can value the things that we can not "fill in a bubble" about: Expeditionary Learning, Aesthetics, Studio Based Learning, Community Based Learning, Brainstorming, Problem Solving etc. If you followed the link in the last post, the website for the conference at the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts is an excellent resource for beginning this conversation...

Mission Statement

A Mission Statement for this blog:

The GreenFire kiln at Noble and Greenough School.

I have decided to start this blog as a way of discussing some the issues that I return to again and again in the field of education. I am interested in learning more about the view points surrounding arts education, especially at the secondary school level. Clay is my medium but I would welcome input from educators, parents, administrators, town officials, etc. that pertain to any visual medium.

As this blog progresses, I hope we can explore many of the various issues in this area: content vs. competency, where arts fits into a high school/college/elementary school curriculum, public education vs. private, funding, the college application process and its effect of schools...

If any future readers want to bring on issues that are important to you, please bring them up. I welcome all input and truly hope this can become an active forum for all involved.

A little about who I am: I have been teaching ceramics at Noble and Greenough School in Dedham MA for 13 years. I have also taught at Sewickley Academy outside of Pittsburgh and at Phillips Andover in Massachusetts. I have taught drawing, painting, printmaking, and ceramics at the high school level as well as drawing and 2D design at number of community colleges while living in Portland, OR.