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Flickr photo by UK photographer odh! |
I’m on my way to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where I will deliver the opening keynote address for their Art teachers’ annual conference tomorrow. It’s an honor and I’m very happy to be going back to Iowa (May have some delicious pork tenderloin to look forward to).
But I’ve been wondering what a former history teacher and current instruction technologist going to talk about in front of hundreds of Iowa Art teachers? I’ve been asking myself that question for weeks, and even asking for help from my personal learning network. I posted the question on Twitter and on my Facebook wall, since so many of my FB friends are progressive educators. Twitter bounced back with some great suggestions for reading and people I might contact. Facebook, unhampered by 140 character limit, provided for a richer and sometimes contentious conversation — and I’m wondering what my old high school chums are going to think about that.
Much of the advice I’ve received, I have taken to heart. But the Art Educators of Iowa have hired me to talk about the times we are teaching in and the challenges that we must realize and face. It’s what someone on the conference committee saw me speak about at some tech conference somewhere and it’s what they want me to share here — and I can do that. But I feel obliged to funnel my talk in the direction of art as much as I can, so here are some of the points I hope to make.
First of all, I will be mentioning Daniel Pink once during the presentation, much to the devastating disappointment of one of the more loquacious commenters on my Facebook page. The point that I hope to make is that art has become core (to quote the Iowa association’s web site). So much of what we do today, where we do it, and the tools with which we use to accomplish our goals is touched by design — and not merely for the sake of ergonomics. Aesthetic appeal is a huge part of what we are seeing. One of my favorite TED Talks was delivered by the design currator of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), Italian-born Paola Antonelli (Treat Design as Art). She talks about how, “In Italy, design is normal.” ”What you find at the store at the corner, without going to any kind of fancy story, is the kind of refined design that…” for which Italy is known. But it is not design for decoration. ((Antonelli, P. (Performer). (2008). Paola antonelli treats design as art [Television series episode]. In (Executive producer), TED Talks. TED Conferences LLC.))
Another angle that I will take will be from my typical message about literacy, more specifically the wRiting part of the 3Rs. We live in a time where we are overwhelmed by information. In the same way that many of products we shop for must include a sense of design in order to compete for our attention, so too must information. The content that we use, among the flood of information, it that which successfully earns our attention, and in much the same way that products must be designed for function, the same is true with information.
Information can sometimes be creatively laid out on a page in such a way that makes it easier to read and also appear easier to read. In addition, the use of images, motion, and graphics can aid in the conveyance of a message — and who’s teaching that today? I plan to spend some time talking about info-graphics and data visualization, a very interesting and valuable combination of mathematics, data, and art.
There is one more angle that I would like to take. I went to the jobs site, Monster.com, and did a search for the most recently posted job opportunities that included the word artist — a technique that I learned from David Thornburg. In analyzing the job descriptions, what emerged was not so much an appeal for people with specific artistic abilities, but more about workers who were creative problem solvers, goal and product oriented, self-directed, and able to collaborate within a team. Much of what I saw in these descriptions seemed to come right out of our ongoing conversations about 21st century skills.
So I have to wonder if Art class might actually be a uniquely ideal place to help learners develop some of these skills.
David, in response to your final thought: “So I have to wonder if Art class might actually be a uniquely ideal place to help learners develop some of these skills.” I agree! Art is problem solving and critical thinking in a concentrated form. The eye/brain/hand connection limits the tools and direction, so the creative process must constantly evaluate, adapt, and act upon a constantly changing set of input data. I love watching my students work through the problems of the week in their art assignments. What I most appreciate about the experience is that each individual solves the visual problem in a unique way. Enjoy your time in IOWA.
David, it’s wonderful every time you come back to Iowa!
These might give you some ideas for your talk:
http://bit.ly/bVXqPs
David,
Great post. As an instructor at UNI, I would like the opportunity to hear you speak. Could you post the time, location of the event?
Shelly, sorry for the delay. Just now getting back to the blog. I’m presenting at the Sioux City Art Center on Nebraska Street, and the keynote is from 12:30 to 1:30 in the auditorium. I’m also doing sessions about personal learning networks shortly after the keynote and also on Saturday morning before flying back home (for a day :-/ )
In my limited experience in working with art teachers, they were more technophobic and less technologically savvy than the average teacher. One of them was using *slides* so I had my daughter convert all of them to a digital format. But then I had to teach her Powerpoint, how to use a projector–well, really, her needs were infinite. So were those of the other creaking hippie art teacher. Our newest art teacher was on the other end of the spectrum–he was all about new, modern, the latest, the greatest. Apparently, he hasn’t updated his website since September 15th, so maybe he isn’t so earth-shakingly avant garde after all. And it has almost no content. He had me give a lecture last year called “Metadata and More” with the broad purpose of confusing his students. It included a discussion of the evolution from subject headings to folksonomy, from copyright to Creative Commons. It was extremely difficult to throw all of that into a meaningful presentation, but somehow that was his point. In other words, I suppose that, based on my experiences, I would be befuddled about your audience and what they need to know, which makes this a fairly useless comment which I’m going to post anyway.
We can understand art from two viewpoints, as David’s paragraph about job offers witnesses. Talented people producing masterpieces of all sorts are rare and need to be taken care of specifically. If we talk about art classes, which are for all the students, we perceive art from a more down-to-earth position, let me call it living art. Students able to produce this living art is most probably what employers expect to see.
As I see it, art classes are about understanding the high art and creating living art around us. David is right about aesthetics, me personally – I see ability to savor aesthetics to be a life-saver for the society, and shaping the aesthetic look is what art class should be about. Let us not forget that the word “artistic” can be an attribute to almost any other word, which means we can find art in anything around us… as well as stupidly label it to anything. So, art class should give students ability to identify real art. Having as much information as we have now available at our fingertips, this is definitely an essential skill. I dream to see future city, for example, with all the houses painted in different colors and of different shapes, because I believe our children will take this spirit of aesthetics out of their classes and apply to everything they see. Each of us is so different and unique – and art class should give students ways or methods using which they can each express their uniqueness.
I believe art classes will help us get over chauvinism and racism and all sorts of these nasty ‘izms. Tolerance will certainly find its place in our students’ hearts after they see how beautiful and fascinating can be art of different cultures/nations.
In my opinion, students need to see and talk much at these classes. And – voila – here is where your, David, technical knowledge (esp considering the above comment by Jude) comes in hand. Starting with presentation making and ending in creating videos, technology can be applied anywhere in the class which is aimed at seeing/showing and qualitative discussing. It would be also interesting to talk about how technologies influenced arts, and which new forms of art became available with technology’s emerging. Now, everyone can be artist and this can be SO used in the classroom. I’ve been dreaming of becoming a painter since my childhood, but I just wasn’t born for this – and now I can take photographs and cut/paste/blend/merge/change colours/rotate/etc – everything! Now each student can shoot his own movie, and record his own sound. They say that modern art is rather about reshaping than creating because everything beautiful has already been created before us – tools for reshaping are already at our kid’s disposal. Just give them to the teachers.
PS Sorry, – I never intended the comment to be so long. The keyboard simply started dancing itself.
I too have noticed that modern knowledge workers are ased to me “creative problem solvers who need to constantly think out of the box”. Art courses are considered a way to develop this creativity. This strikes me as odd.
It’s odd since I would have thought that architecture would be more appropriate. Architects are taught to keep coming back to function, focus, and environment when they design. Artists’ training is less about creative problem solving and more about perception and message.
But, I’m supportive of anything that supports a broader approach to education and curriculum. That’s my two cents. John, founder, Time4Learning.com, SpellingCity.com, Time4Writing.com, Time4Art.com