Oooops. I almost forgot MEANING

I thought I had already written this... must have dreamt it or something! Anyway... I'm someone who has never been very religious, much to the dismay of my Baptist preacher grandfather. I remember going to church regularly when I was in elementary school, but after that my parents really only made it important on Christmas Eve and Easter, so I appreciated that Pink made a differentiation between religion and spirituality. I do find a lot of meaning throughout the various aspects of my life and I'm someone who, as Pink would say, is spiritual because I have "concern for the meaning and purpose of life," even though I'm not religious.

I really enjoyed the various stations the Meaning group had us go through because each station emphasized different ways of making or finding meaning. When we had to sit and think about ourselves at 90 years old, I immediately thought of this quote from Dr. Robert Firestone in Pink's book:

You're not going to find the meaning of life hidden under a rock written by someone else. You'll only find it by giving meaning to life from inside yourself.

Asking myself questions like "What does your life look like?" and What have you accomplished and contributed?" really got me thinking about how I will create and find meaning in my life from this point on. I would like to think that I would have no regrets at the age of 90 because I will have raised my children as best I could and taught them to be the best people they can be, I have taught my students as best I could and also taught them to be the best people they can be, I have been a positive influence on those around me, and I have continued making art and making the world a more beautiful place with it; if I have done those things, I'll know I have lived a life full of meaning.

The idea of creating meaning is something that relates so completely to teaching and making art. As artists we want to create meaning in our artwork and convey meaning with it, and as teachers we want the art our students are creating to be meaningful to them. While watching all of the curriculum presentations this week I constantly noticed and underlying message of meaning in everything we're wanting to teach our students. Just as Dr. Firestone said when quoted by Pink, we cannot expect anyone else to provide meaning for us, and neither can our students. We have to create it and we have to teach them how to create it.

Empathy

Before I get into Pink at all, I have to tell the Empathy group what an AMAZE BALLS job they did. Your art making activity and the connections it made to Empathy and really FEELING for both people we paired up with, through either their story or by adding music to the interpretation of their story, was so creative and meaningful. Mad props go out to all of you!

We have all heard of Sympathy and Empathy, but those two words are often mistakenly used interchangeably. As Pink says, Sympathy is NOT Empathy. Sympathy is when you feel bad FOR someone. When a friend's relative dies, and you feel bad FOR them, you are being sympathetic. To be empathetic, you must put yourself in their position and feel what they feel. As we discussed in class on Friday, as teachers we have had many moments when we feel empathy for our students. One of my most recent moments happened when a fourth grade boy came by during his lunch recess, and because this student is not one of my regulars who come by for more work time, I knew it was for another reason. It turns out, he really needed to get somethings off of his chest, so I sat and listened to him tell me all about his new living situation at home. His mom had started dating a new guy, who is not a good influence on her. Now she drinks and smokes a lot and is almost never home. He told me he doesn't like it when his mom is like that, so when she's not home, he hides her cigarettes and alcohol, hoping she won't find them. While listening to him tell his story, I thought about a period a few years ago when my own mom had a bad drinking problem. Hers wasn't brought on because of the influence of anybody else and she's never been a smoker, but I still saw her in a really bad place. She was someone who was not herself when she was drinking 5 or 6 martinis or even more rum and diets every night. In addition to feeling those same emotions of sadness with him, I also felt really proud of him for even attempting to stop his mom by hiding her cigarettes and booze.

As teachers, we have to be able to relate to our students in order to really teach them, and that comes from being empathetic. In this chapter, Pink quotes one of the most brilliant people on the planet, Oprah, and she said:

Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.

We are the leaders in the classroom, so along with being Designers of quality curriculum, Storytellers, and Symphonic connection-makers, being Empathetic is our job.

Seeing the Big Picture

The most creative among us see relationships the rest of us never notice.

 According to Pink, Symphony is about seeing the "Big Picture" and all of us right-brained, creative people see that big picture better than others. This chapter was extremely relevant to those of us who did not initially start out on the career path of Education. Even though Graphic Design and Art Education aren't completely separate disciplines, I had to switch gears and develop my expertise in the field of education to become an Art teacher. When I got my job as the Art teacher at a S.T.E.M. school I definitely had to become a "boundary crosser." In fact, my teaching Art at Benton is all about Symphony. It is my job to find the connections between the field of Science, Technology, Engineering,  and Math AND Art.

In keeping with the "creative people are better than others" idea :), I loved Pink's discussion on how creativity effects gender roles. It always seems like the creative male is more sensitive than his male peers, but I had never thought about how more creative females may be more dominant and tougher than other girls. I think as Art teachers, we have to be dominant in a positive way in order to command the attention of our students and be tough in order to not take things that may happen in the classroom personally.

As the chapter goes on, Pink discusses the importance of Metaphor and understanding one thing in terms of something else. I couldn't help but notice, as Pink described how metaphors are usually considered as "flowery words designed to perfume the ordinary or unpleasant," a connection to Story; it is something L-brained people think of as unnecessary, similar to Story. Metaphor does, however, have a very strong presence in Art. Twyla Tharp was quoted as saying:

Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art.

As artists we create representations with everything we make, and as Art teachers we are teaching our students how to do the same thing, so everything we make and everything we teach is enriched by metaphor.

The last thing I'd like to add, because otherwise my graphic design side wouldn't be satisfied at all, is a logo to the Symphony Logo Collection. Pink used a lot of examples of companies who's logos create Symphony and make connections to their products for the consumer, and here is another one:

 Have you ever noticed how the words Burger and King are two hamburger patties between the top and bottom bun? Clever huh?

WE ARE OUR STORIES

Story was my groups assigned sense, so in my mind it is the best! As I was reading the chapter I found it impossible to not make connections to my teaching style. From the very beginning, Pink demonstrated how difficult it is to recall facts versus how much easier it is to recall information from a Story. I found out very early on with my elementary students that they didn't remember anything I said or taught them if I didn't tell a story with it. Sometimes it was a story that related to me, but most of the time I found a way to relate it to them so they could really make connections to what I was teaching that day.

I was also intrigued by the "Hero's Journey." I had never thought about how almost every story, especially epic tales, all have the same Departure, Initiation, and Return. It made me think about the different journeys I've made throughout my life, and I was glad when my group decided to have everyone share their journeys to becoming an art teacher and then use that for our art making activity. It is amazing how creating a visual to go along with a story can give it even more importance and significance. They only thing I think could have made it even more interesting is when we had everyone turn to their neighbor and briefly tell their story, if we would have had them tell their story on 50 words or less; what Pink called a Mini Saga.

As Pink says when he talks about buying a bottle of wine, it was the story of the wine makers that made him buy that particular bottle (maybe it was a wine mini saga!). I immediately thought of all of the products I have bought for the same reason, either a great story or interesting packaging. Story really is all around us. Pink once again ended the chapter with a fantastic quote that sums that thought up.

We are our stories. We compress years of experience, thought, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell to ourselves.

Design to a Designer

Like so many of our classmates, I come from a design background. Because of my degree in Graphic Design, I see the natural connection between Art and Design as well as Design in the world around us. As Pink states, "It's easy to dismiss design—to relegate it to mere ornament, the prettifying of places and objects to disguise their banality. But that is a serious misunderstanding of what design is and why it matters—especially now." In reality, everything (except what occurs in nature) is designed. Someone had to design the coffee maker I use every morning, the bookshelf I just bought, etc., but that doesn't mean that all design is good. What is happening now, as Pink discusses, is people (specifically the middle class) aren't satisfied with things that are strictly functional.

Pink uses Target as an example, which is perfect. Target has done a much better job of bringing in designers and branding themselves as THE hip, low cost store. There is a reason I drive all the way across town to go to Target when there is a Walmart five minutes away. There are a lot of the same products at both stores, but when it comes to cute clothes, fun accessories, and modern home goods Target is the place to go when you care about more than function. During the Design group's presentation, they asked us to come up with our own definition of design in less than 10 words. I came up with the following:

Thoughtful planning and creation, making a product more than functional.

 To me, that is exactly what design is about. It isn't just quickly coming up with a design that will work, it is about designing the best possible product that will be look nice aesthetically while performing it's necessary function.

The last thing Pink discussed that I found so interesting was the design of hospitals and classrooms. As a teacher who teaches art on a cart, I am in several different classrooms a day, and I know first hand that the set up of some classrooms promote learning and art activities much better than others. One thing I've never thought about however, is the design of hospitals. It seems like complete common sense now that I think about it, because if I was recovering in a dingy old room, with no light, chipping paint, and stains on the ceiling I could see it taking much longer for me to get better than if I was in a more cheerful, clean environment.

Pink & Play!

While reading Part One of Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind over the weekend, I was making connections left and right (brained ha ha). Cheesy I know, but it's the truth. Even though I am primarily right brained, which suits me well since I am an artist and art teacher, I completely agreed when Pink said the following:

Leading a healthy, happy, successful life depends on both [the left and right brain].

I am someone who is very much high concept and high touch, because as Pink says, I can detect patterns and opportunities, create artistic and emotional beauty, craft a satisfying narrative (I try at least), combine unrelated ideas into something new, empathize with others, understand subtleties of human interaction, find joy in myself and try to bring it out in others and search for purpose and meaning BUT I also tend to analyze details instead of seeing the big picture.

As Part One continued on, I continued finding connections, especially when Pink began talking about jobs going to Asia. When I was working as a graphic designer at the Springfield News-Leader during undergrad, our creative department began sending out some of our basic designs to a company in India. It didn't put any of us out of a job, but since the time I left Springfield and the News-Leader, they have sent more and more work out to this company. Because they were creating advertisements with English text, there were quite a few issues, but those same workers, and others in Asia, are definite competition for the "Knowledge Leaders" here in the U.S. As Pink states, India's colleges and universities  produce 350,000 engineering graduates each year, and those graduates are willing to work for $14,000 a year; it's no wonder American companies keep outsourcing jobs overseas.

I loved Pink's message in the Play chapter. As I mentioned in class today, I got to participate in a laughter club during my time student teaching at Hickman with a teacher named Jana Fick. She utilized many of Madan Kataria's laughing techniques including the "Lion Laugh." I can tell you from experience, it's IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO LAUGH. As Pink said, at first you might just be going through the motions, but then you start laughing at how ridiculous you sound doing that, and then—Oh my goodness—you're REALLY LAUGHING! There are other ways to incorporate Play into the workplace, and Pink's reasoning for why Play is important at work is this:

When you are playful, you are activating the right side of your brain. The logical brain is a limited brain. The right side is unlimited. You can be anything you want.

Creating Play and laughter in the workplace is something my principal at Benton has done very well. One of my first experiences with my fellow teachers was a series of team building activities put on by Venture Out at MU. Some of the things we had to do were figure out how to get everyone on our team across a "river of lava" when you can only safely cross the river while wearing a hard hat, there is only one hard hat, AND you can only cross the river one time. Activities like this helped us to quickly build community in a fun and relaxed way. To keep up the fun atmosphere at Benton, we also had morning huddles. Not only is the huddle the time to get necessary information for that particular day/week they also included random dance parties to Gagnam Style just to get the day started off right. If what Pink says is true, I work in a building (and am in a class) full of creative people, because

Laughing people are more creative people.

Chapter 5 & Chapter 5

On the path to teacher certification, John Dewey is someone we all frequently read about, and I have always been intrigued by his idea of learning communities. The idea of children learning from each other, with older or more experiences students helping and teaching younger/less experienced students would certainly make for a dynamic classroom. All I could think of while I was reading the first part of Chapter 5 in Eisner, however, was how would those communities work at Benton? To me, any behavioral problems would make something like this almost impossible. Students like mine need pretty rigid structure in the classroom and don't know what to do with leniency. I try to be as relaxed with them as I can be to keep Art classes fun and exciting, but there are also very strict, everyday expectations they are expected to follow to keep any behavioral issues at a minimum. The closest I've come to creating a learning community in any of my classes is when I have students who master a particular skill quickly go around and help a couple of students who are still struggling; this normally only lasts for a a few minutes, so the helpers don't miss out on too much of their own work time.

Something I feel I have already done with my kiddos is making class time more like real life. As a part of our structured set of expectations, I draw names the first class of each month and those four people are our art helpers for the whole month, and they help us pass out and clean up materials. Because I teach on a cart, and keep my materials either on a shelf in the S.T.E.M. lab or out in closets in the music trailer, I have to be incredibly organized. What would happen occasionally, however, is I would leave watercolor brushes on my downstairs cart after second grade had used them one afternoon, but would need them for third grade upstairs the next morning, so I would also pick two more students to be our class errand runners.  Those students were responsible for going and grabbing any supplies we needed from the other cart, and because they were given more responsibility, I only picked students I could trust. This created a job system in the classroom and meant that everyone would get a chance to be a helper, but the job of "errand runner" also gave them something to strive towards. Having specified helpers also made hand out and clean up times much more organized, which meant student had more work time.

The last thing Eisner discussed that is completely relevant in my classroom is Vygotsky's "Zone of Proximal Development." It is the job of every teacher to create an environment that is challenging to their students, but within reason. If tasks/assignments/projects/etc are too easy, student's can't learn anything, but if those same tasks are unrealistic and not within the student's ability, they can't learn either. My goal is always to design lessons and units that are doable for all students, with extra challenges built in for those who are more advanced/skilled. For example, I have some VERY detail orientated third grade girls, so when third grade was cup weaving towards the end of the year, I encouraged them to create a pattern with the colors and/or the thickness of the rows on their cups.

Moving onto Freedman and Teaching Visual Culture, I found we were once again looking at what makes Art, Art? I think it is interesting how having "good" taste in Art is one of the marks of a "cultured" person, when so many of those "cultured" ladies and gents have no knowledge about the piece of art on their wall or the sculpture in their home. Not only do some of them have no knowledge of things such as the artist's intention(s), they don't even develop their own interpretation or meaning. Freedman said "interpretation is the process of giving meaning to form," and that automatically brought me to VTS. Something like VTS can promote inquiry and show the audience that their are several possibilities of being "right." In addition to using VTS in classrooms like we already do, how awesome would it be if museums and galleries offered mini VTS sessions when viewers/buyers were looking at various works?