Last Friday I spent most of the day in a state required workshop on 'Field Supervision for T-TESS". For those of you not in public education T-TESS is Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System, which is the latest version of rules and regulations for the classroom and a system to evaluate teachers. It was the perfect counter point to this wonderful book. I respect how we need to continue to check and guide and help educators in the classroom. I do not agree that more rules or requirements or restrictions are the answer. The current system is data driven because data creates solid information that can be passed on to other who do not teach or have not taught.
This rant is partly due to the fact I have been supervising student teachers for 14 years and I still had to take this workshop. Which came with a price tag of $125.
You could use lessons from this book under T-TESS but you would have to disguise it.
As you finish this book, enjoy. Laugh and imagine yourself as a student in one of these classes.
Let me know what you think about the last part of the book.
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Melissa Hidalgo - My Love, Our Public Lands
This first semester of the MAE program has been inspiring due to the readings we have had. These readings have felt personal and heartfelt....
What a refreshing, back-to-the-basics and yet ahead of its time book.
ReplyDeletepage 10 "Corita insisted that her students be totally devoted to the job at hand and gave generous praise for its completion, yet refused to enshrine it. She saw the finished work as a prelude to the next project." Wonderful, and like a kid.
This book needs to distill in me a while, and then be picked up again and rediscovered. However, over Thanksgiving, I am going to try some of the seeing and sourcing assignments. I would love to keep these in my back pocket for the "what do I make today?" type of days. Looking for the beauty that is around us. Being so much more aware and intune with our surroundings. What a blessing.
Wouldn't it be fun to try some of her assignments. I have a few toy lesson plans I would like to pull out for my high school students. They would have so much fun playing with them afterward because of the effort put forth to make them.
DeleteChris, I think you picked up on a good point: finishing a work. I think that knowing when a work is done and finished, it's a complicated question. And an art teacher really need to address it in the class. I learnt a lot from reading about it in this book...
DeleteGlad you like it!
ReplyDeleteTTESS... I have decided that I will not fret over this. I will do what I do and defend how it is relevant and meaningful for my students. I will keep “data” and fill the forms, but what will be meaningful for me is what has always been there in my course with my students.
ReplyDeleteOf the second part of the book, two chapters stood out to me the most. The first was Celebrations. It is odd, but the reason this chapter connected with me is because I have always struggled with celebrating. I am from a family of non-celebrators. Yes, we had birthday parties and observed the major American holidays, but they came and went quickly without great effort or commitment. This has affected all aspects of my life personal, interpersonal and professional. I have a difficult time celebration my accomplishments and accepting praise. I do give praise and acknowledgment to family, friends and students. I do this pretty well on a one to one, or very small group setting, but I struggle celebration in large scale arena. I have worked at improving this character flaw (I do believe it to be a weakness), but honestly, I know my progress has been slow. I think this chapter approaches celebration in a interesting way, and when coupled with the idea of seeing it as play, I believe it could be a truly rewarding endeavor.
I thought the Coda section was a great way to end the book. Though it was short I highlighted several passages that I felt connected with me and my students. For example, “When students judge themselves as taking a wrong turn proclaiming, “I messed up,” I ash them to describe what this means.” I do versions of this often. Just today I walked a mental circle with a student who was being dismissive of their progress. They wanted to restart a project, but could only offer vague comments on how it “sucked” and was “ugly”, but would not specify how or why it was that way. I worked with the student and think I made an impact on the value of clear self-criticism.
Probably my favorite quote from the second half of the book is “When you are not separate from the creative process, time ceases to exist. You might start to feel tired and suddenly realize what much time has passed.” This sensation is essentially why I create art. The first time I was completely aware of it was in an undergraduate painting class. I was new to painting and had worked, or played, for about eight hours. When I stopped to change my cd player, I felt faint and then euphoric as I realized I had made great progress and had been totally immersed in my art. This is one of the concepts that I try to pass to my students, but being pent up in their regimented school day and their young age seems to work against my efforts; however, I have noticed a few students embracing this flow and reaping its benefits.
ReplyDeleteJames, I can so see you wrapped up and then amazed at your progress! Young kids may not be ready to immerse themselves in the way an adult does. They just get into the process. Since I have started teaching choice-based, I have seen more of them really revel in the process. Makes me a little jealous, why can't I do that instead of overthinking everything?!
ReplyDeleteChris, I used to struggle just about each time I started an artwork. It took a while to realize why I worried and questioned so much, but I whittled away everything that I didn’t love, while pushing myself to try approaches that I felt might better fit my artistic needs, even though they were unlike anything I had done before. Currently, when I start and work on my art, there are moments of uncertainty, but not of frustration and doubt. Not sure if this process will help you, but I am much happier with my artistic direction than three years ago when most sessions seemed nearly as stressful as rewarding.
DeleteJames, I also found the end of the book very interesting. It was one of my favorites part of the book. It is important to think of our works and our judgments very clearly sometimes. There was a time that I stopped painting because I felt my works are worthless! Then I started to think more clearly that what is in my mind that makes me evaluate my works in this way. After I thought more clearly I found out that this feeling is really wrong...
Deletelosing track of time is wonderful...I believe it is one of the way making art is connected to the spiritual...another place where you can lose track of time
ReplyDeleteStudio is a very easy way to do it too. Had to make myself leave the metals lab tonight after realizing it was going on 9:00.
DeleteThat's true. I also think that there is something profoundly spiritual about art...I always play music in my studio and that also helps me to be in a different world for hours...
DeleteI often found myself wanting to highlight the entire quotes from Sister Corita, especially on the Connect and Create chapter and the Celebrate chapter. Comparing the life of a tree to the creative process of going through difficult moments, working through them to have a “spring and summer.” To me this is back to the spiritual and healing components of making art.
ReplyDeleteThe work and play discussions being one in the same is on the spot for me. When I work on art at home, I am at first distracted from the household chores that need to be done. Feeling like the art is just another chore, but when I start creating, I cannot stop. I have worked late into the night without realizing it.
The idea of the workmen mentality, mentioned by Sir Laurence Olivier, is something people don’t realize about creative people. Even when we have free time as Corita states, we are researching for ideas, memories and experiences to create art. I had a discussion with a coach one time about teaching art. He couldn’t understand work ethic and practicing skills could make a better artist beyond raw talent. I became frustrated and ended the conversation when he didn’t think athletes could be taught either. Obviously, he didn’t stay long. Why have practice, review play plans, or show skills if you can’t help students improve?
When someone asks how long I have worked on a piece of art, I want to say some silly answer, “30 years and 16 hours.”
I liked the classroom rules for Corita’s class: “Be neat, respect the technique and apply all the other ‘what ifs’ you had come across in other classes”, especially how she charged 75 cents per cut. I start my trimester teaching metals after Thanksgiving and I am nervous about the safety aspect. Maybe I will threaten them with charging a dollar for every cut and burn.
One more quote so relevant to why we need art in school, “Natural inventiveness and playfulness give way to rewards for right answers-right according to the bias of the authority. Later on, these children, grown into young adults competing for admission to universities, are penalized for ‘right answers’ and rewarded for creativity-the ability to make connections and to play around with the materials and ideas.”
Paige and James, I remember all too well the "talented" student in the class. The one student that just seemed to get it all the time. Later that student continued to do the same work that won all the awards or they were not doing any art at all...because they were not hungry for art, and they had no experience with making mistakes or taking chances. I know I would not be student ANYONE would ever had thought would end up an artist much less an art professor.
DeleteOne time I heard an educator talk about comparing confidence with poker chips. Students who have gained praise, they had more chips. Good at something, school, sports, art, etc. more chips were gained. Then, when it is time for students to take risks or gamble, the ones with more chips were more willing to roll the dice. To those, chips were easier to gain and they had many. For me, I have a medium amount of chips, not necessarily easy to get. I, like many of my students need to be willing to gamble my chips in order to gain many more.
DeletePaige, I run across the attitude that artist have to be born with some blessed abilities to be an artist. Parents especially seem to often carry this opinion. I think it leads to many of them dismissing art class as trivial. The only time I really see great support is when their child has a love for art, or has had prior praise, or success in an art course. This is of course a generalization, but I think it is evidence of the self defeating pedestal that creative work has been placed. Students very often ask me “how can you do that?” when I do a demo. I always stress that practice is important and that they can learn the skills too, but often it seems like many of them doubt that is true. It’s nice when I see a student actually work through a tough task and realize that they can achieve such successes.
ReplyDeleteMost of the students I see succeeding at the high school level have sketches and doodles all over their notebooks and often carry sketchbooks outside of class. And, as you say, they have had previous love for art and prior praise. Now, they continue to improve, with ""Plork" and enjoy the creative process. Still, it is difficult for others, not as ambitious in the arts, to understand how the student progressed.
DeleteIt's so silly, too. Humans are artists by nature. We're the most creative species on the planet, thanks to our large brains and opposable thumbs--we have an innate drive to MAKE THINGS. I love when people say "I'm no artist, I can only draw stick figures." We all know how much you can DO with a stick figure! (Tim Urban of Wait But Why and Allie Brosch of Hyperbole and a Half are excellent examples.) Visual language is the one universal language, and it's one we all inherently speak. Take away the preconceived notions about what it means to be an artist, and you will get an artist out of everyone you bring into the studio.
DeleteThis will be my first year doing T-TESS and I’m so nervous about it. I was told not to let this eat me alive though. During our last faulty meeting before the thanksgiving break, our principals told us to expect observations when we come back. Isn’t that the worst time to have an observation?!?! The kids are going to be wild in those three weeks! Just the get the kids to work before this week was rough enough. I will just have to put my game face on and prepare projects that I know students will be excited and engaged the whole time. I also tend to stress out over little things so I will have to remind myself that what ever happen happens.
ReplyDeleteThe only bad thing about it was it made me see what a real art teacher can do and how I wished I had had Sister Corita Kent as my art teacher instead of the crappy ones I had in school. It has only made me a better artist and art teacher. Most of my questions were answer in this book with how to get my kids to “think outside the box” creatively! I feel like I have been struggling with getting my kids to understand the process of art making and making personal connections to their work. I love how Corita makes the connection with literature and art in Connect and Create. Simply just using newspaper or magazine and having student deconstructed and rebuild new meaning that I can easily do with my 4th and 5th graders. I had to take out my teacher planner and note all this information for upcoming projects next semester and next year! I would love to implement the assignment about using a 4-inch by 4-inch finder, and cut out images from the magazine. Students will place their images in their notebook and create a poem from what they are processing. A few weeks later have students come back to the same images and makes new connections to the same pictures. This process will help build students to be more observant and even higher order thinking, which at my school we need!
I appreciate the importance of this book. The instructions in this book embody Kent’s approach to both art making and education: if you are able to find joy and beauty in the everyday world, the creative spirit will be freed and art will flow. I will definitely add this to my teacher bookshelf. Thank you future for introducing us to Corita!
I also like the viewfinder idea for magazines. I have used it before, but reading it was a nice reminder. Once we created collages with magazines, then the students used a viewfinder on their own work. This became more abstract and helped the students depart from their favorite sport, advertisement, or logos. You are in good hands with Future. You will gain confidence and ideas with each course.
DeleteGo for it...a view finder is easy to make.
DeleteAbout T-TESS, seeing how I just successfully made it through a work shop, remember you are only expected to be "proficient", it is about know where student began on a subject or process and where they are now , how do you talk to them and how do you make adjustments for the kids. Mainly be present and be YOU.
I liked the last part of the book a lot, where she talks about the feeling of failure or “messing up” a creative work. I liked what she said about having a picture in our head. That, if students start their works without having an imagined ideal work in their mind, then the process of making will be less judgmental, and students will be more open to accidents that occur while working.
ReplyDeleteIf I were a student, I would really appreciate hearing such idea from my teacher. An academic institution is always full of judgment, grading, rules and so on. Although I think such structure can be informative and useful, for teaching and learning art, it can also be harmful. I wish in my studio practice I could be less judgmental and less doubtful about my own work. I think over evaluation of my work is something I got from my previous education. If I were a student in a class in which I could be open to the accident, without an ideal picture in my head, my studio time would be pure joy and experiment.
I was given the advise to be like a child in the studio..free and open to play, and when the work is complete become the adult that documents and manages the work. I literally have a little fairy door by the opening to studio so that I can bring in the fantasies of my youth.
DeleteThat's perfectly true... :)
DeleteI think I said something similar last week...the more obsessive we are about making the work look EXACTLY LIKE THE PICTURE IN OUR HEADS, the less room we give ourselves to experiment and learn from the medium. I agree that hearing the permission to play would be incredibly liberating and should probably be repeated at least once a week to K-12 students so they grow up understanding it intuitively. I can say from experience it's much harder to internalize in adulthood!
DeleteThis book represents a different side of art than what we see in this hyper-judgemental environment of American academic art. Honestly, I think it's healthier. It's much more respectful of the different, global types of and perspectives on art, and does not turn up its nose at something for being "too crafty." (Side note: I read in my Women in Art class in college that the craft distinction came from a patriarchal desire to separate the art women did from the art men did, thereby refusing to give women credit for being artists. If this is true, that is all the more reason to do away with the art v. craft debate ASAP.)
Absolutely ...and along with that artificial division put aside the concept that academe has all the answers and offers the only path to art making.
DeleteWell, I read 90% of the book last week and responded to it all, so this will be a response to the last chapter, "Celebration."
ReplyDeleteSister Corita sounded like quite an amazing teacher and woman. I don't ordinarily think of Catholic clergy and their associates as studio artists...but then, the history of illuminated manuscripts reveals they were frequently painted by nuns. No surprise there, as the church and its teachings were once the epicenter of art in Europe, artists' most dependable patron and subject matter. (See: Sistine Chapel.)
I like Sister Corita's focus on the importance of taking time off to rejuvenate and it should be strongly appreciated and heeded in the workaholic society of academia. In fact, right now I'm working through nausea and should probably be in bed as I've been going hard at it all day (on the Lord's day too...my very Christian grandparents would tsk-tsk at me). I believe my last full day off was sometime in August. We don't tend to think of work as that addictive, but especially in studio art, it really is, and we need to remind ourselves to take a breather lest we completely burn out. Corita obviously understood and respected this.
I also really like how accepting they are of other cultures and rituals, and how accepting those people seemed to be of theirs. This is the kind of unity in diversity we should see around the world--if people would simply get over their primitive bigotries. As I told an interviewer for the school paper regarding the Dia de los Muertos ofrendas that we assembled in the South Gallery last month, life is simply so much more FASCINATING when you take an interest in the many different cultures and means of celebrating life that take place around the world. Learning new perspectives on life and love from others with their own unique histories and experiences is so liberating. Like the Bali man who saw who he was as separate from how he "brought home the rice"--here in North America, we are so much the opposite, with our career representing ALL that we are! (As artists and art educators, I'm sure you all are as proud as I am to say that's what we are; however, that's not ALL we are, nor should it be! We are also gamers and hikers and athletes and readers. We are mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, sisters and brothers and friends. I believe connection with others should always be at the forefront of our identities.)
I'd also like to focus on the quote on the very last page, where she writes about getting all the conscious ideas out so the unconscious can float free. This is similar to the explorations of the Freudian unconscious I did in my lecture--which was my jumping-off point for the idea of the truth being accessible through not only talk therapy, but also art and meditation and social connection. Rob Glover, head professor of the metals department, told me for the first year I was here to just play around with materials and let the theories come out in the work. I didn't believe him until this time last fall, when it started happening. And once it did, it was like opening floodgates that didn't stop. (He calls it "acting" instead of "reacting.") Isn't it amazing how good our art gets the moment we let go of perfection and let intuition take over? I think this is what Steward means when she tells us to "trust the process." It can be hard to do, especially for perfectionists like me, but it is so worth it!
Nicely said. I was once part of an art show titled "What I Did On My Summer Vacation". All the artist had a hard time because as you said there is never a day off.
DeleteI am going to work on time off this next year.