Monday, May 16, 2011
Response to "The Future of the Arts/The Future of America" (Huffington Post article)
As long as we limit ourselves to thinking of art teachers as trainers of specialized techniques for the talented, we will continue to train new art teachers incorrectly and the general public will continue to undervalue what we do. Instead, teach art teachers to be educators of multiple arts, design thinking, visual literacy, meaningful marks, models of the world, and special aesthetic interventions indicating our cherished values. Educating everyone to contribute culture, not just consume it. (Article is available here.)
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
From Synaesthetic to Synthetic
Many years ago, almost forgotten, the art education department I currently chair used to be called the Department of Synaesthetic Education. Synaethesia is a physiological term, referring to the production of one kind of sensory or bodily response by stimulation of another sense or part of the body, that is, “the interassociation of sense impressions.” In the context of art education, synaesthesia was a romantic, patriarchic, and thoroughly modernist conception of children occupying a prized developmental stage shared in common with mature primitives and uninhibited (wild) or illiterate species of adults. Synaesthetic education was intended as the nurturing of a “dormant subconscious capacity to perceive simultaneously…the total sensory import of experience…through a more complete individual involvement” with the world. Not surprisingly, the faculty of the Department of Synaesthetic Education did not believe synaesthesia could be taught. They believed it to be a native capacity in children that could only be cultivated and preserved from atrophy, hopefully saving the child from the terrible sensory disassociation of adulthood.
I, on the other hand, do NOT see myself as a guide to the wild and untamed, controlling human destinies as if they were inert raw materials, civilizing the savage beast, shaping the wet clay of formless boys and girls with my own two bare-knuckled hands. The modernist narrative just doesn't work anymore. Enter the postmodern. I am interested in how we each, young or old, construct a shape for ourselves out of the bits and pieces at hand. I am interested in how we coalesce into aggregate bodies of social knowledge, constituted of physical bodies that embody and re-member experience as the basis of knowledge--and in how these bodies of social knowledge become the cultures that sustain us. And I am interested in our shape-shifting capacity, the meaning-making impulse to detach ourselves from expected patterns of behavior so that we may rush into the gaps in our own understandings.
In one of the final meetings of my third year faculty review this past academic year, I was asked if I thought my penchant for drawing upon the oft-competing bodies of knowledge comprising and surrounding arts education practice was synthetic. I thought about it a moment and said yes. And if I have helped move Syracuse University art education practices even further from the synaesthetic to the synthetic, I would say we are headed in the right direction.
~JHRolling
I, on the other hand, do NOT see myself as a guide to the wild and untamed, controlling human destinies as if they were inert raw materials, civilizing the savage beast, shaping the wet clay of formless boys and girls with my own two bare-knuckled hands. The modernist narrative just doesn't work anymore. Enter the postmodern. I am interested in how we each, young or old, construct a shape for ourselves out of the bits and pieces at hand. I am interested in how we coalesce into aggregate bodies of social knowledge, constituted of physical bodies that embody and re-member experience as the basis of knowledge--and in how these bodies of social knowledge become the cultures that sustain us. And I am interested in our shape-shifting capacity, the meaning-making impulse to detach ourselves from expected patterns of behavior so that we may rush into the gaps in our own understandings.
In one of the final meetings of my third year faculty review this past academic year, I was asked if I thought my penchant for drawing upon the oft-competing bodies of knowledge comprising and surrounding arts education practice was synthetic. I thought about it a moment and said yes. And if I have helped move Syracuse University art education practices even further from the synaesthetic to the synthetic, I would say we are headed in the right direction.
~JHRolling
Friday, August 20, 2010
My Arts & Design Education Manifesto
I just recently completed a very positive 3rd Year Review at Syracuse University! My final meeting was with the Deans of the School of Education (SoE) and the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA), as well as with the Chairs of the Department of Art in VPA, and of Teaching & Leadership in SoE. Near the end, after all the dialogue and the recommendations, the Chair of Teaching & Leadership asked a very pointed question, paraphrased here: "James, if you could look ahead 30 years from now, when your work at SU is drawing to a close, what do you want people to know and understand about the Department of Art Education at Syracuse University?"
I answered, but as it typical for me, when I had an opportunity to reflect further later on in the day, I was able to construct a much fuller response:
"30 years from now, this is what I want to be said of our approach to arts & design education at Syracuse University. I want it to be said that our art education teachers were trained to do more than teach students to make beautiful objects and artifacts, or express themselves, or critique visible social structures. More than this, I want it to be said that our teachers were trained to lead students as partners in the development of beautiful and needful objects, to express both themselves and their communities and contexts, to critique the visible and also envision the not-yet-visible at the cusp of creation.
I want it to be said that our students were trained to facilitate curriculum opportunities in and out of school, affording their students the resources and agency to give form to new ideas and material usages, inform current thinking, and transform our uncertainties and unknowns into possibilities and benefits.
I want it to be said that our students did so in collaboration with colleagues in entirely unrelated disciplines.
I want it to be said that our students took the risks involved with mutating hybrid educational enterprises, methods, and techniques—and with purposely leaving unfinished drafts and sketches for others to complete.
I want it to be said that our students understood that the great benefit of diversity and inclusion is its expansion of the gene pool for the next great moment of shared human genius.
Finally, I want it to be said that our students practiced and approached the idea of art in education not only as a noun, but as a verb, adjective and adverb. In other words, once again making relevant our common age-old methodology for comprehending the world, navigating pathways through it, and modifying the syntax, trajectory and interpretation of our meaningful events along the way. It is art that bends possibilities into purpose and unbraids the most stubborn structures into newly generative questions.
Toward that end, 30 years later, Art Education at SU continues to strive to be socially responsive and responsible."
JHRolling
I answered, but as it typical for me, when I had an opportunity to reflect further later on in the day, I was able to construct a much fuller response:
"30 years from now, this is what I want to be said of our approach to arts & design education at Syracuse University. I want it to be said that our art education teachers were trained to do more than teach students to make beautiful objects and artifacts, or express themselves, or critique visible social structures. More than this, I want it to be said that our teachers were trained to lead students as partners in the development of beautiful and needful objects, to express both themselves and their communities and contexts, to critique the visible and also envision the not-yet-visible at the cusp of creation.
I want it to be said that our students were trained to facilitate curriculum opportunities in and out of school, affording their students the resources and agency to give form to new ideas and material usages, inform current thinking, and transform our uncertainties and unknowns into possibilities and benefits.
I want it to be said that our students did so in collaboration with colleagues in entirely unrelated disciplines.
I want it to be said that our students took the risks involved with mutating hybrid educational enterprises, methods, and techniques—and with purposely leaving unfinished drafts and sketches for others to complete.
I want it to be said that our students understood that the great benefit of diversity and inclusion is its expansion of the gene pool for the next great moment of shared human genius.
Finally, I want it to be said that our students practiced and approached the idea of art in education not only as a noun, but as a verb, adjective and adverb. In other words, once again making relevant our common age-old methodology for comprehending the world, navigating pathways through it, and modifying the syntax, trajectory and interpretation of our meaningful events along the way. It is art that bends possibilities into purpose and unbraids the most stubborn structures into newly generative questions.
Toward that end, 30 years later, Art Education at SU continues to strive to be socially responsive and responsible."
JHRolling
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Visual Culture is a Many-Splendored Thing
A short posting ruminating on, and extending a definition of visual culture by art and art history theorist W.J.T. Mitchell. Visual culture is not just the social construction of vision, of what we see. Visual culture is also the visual construction of the social, our way of mapping who we present ourselves to be and how we interface with the social territory we have staked out as our position. And because personal and public identity is fleeting—or nomadic at best—our visual culture is ever a thing in flux.
JHRolling
JHRolling
Identity Wars
In an identity war, hostilities sometimes flare up in the most unexpected places.
Just as can happen in any major conflict, the contest over the identity of a nation can appear on the map as a cold war far from the primary battlefront. Since the election of President Obama, an identity war has steadily escalated in national politics over whose tribe best represents the nation—Conservative, Progressive, Tea Party, Libertarian. But there are other fronts in the war over which identity characterizes America at its best.
I am part of an unmoderated but generally collegial professional listserv in a prominent art education organization. Recently, one of my colleagues circulated a draft of an organizational position statement seeking discussion and feedback before officially submitting it for consideration by our delegates and board. It proposed that our national organization adopt a position calling for “an end to the ongoing blockade of the Occupied Territories by the State of Israel” and a condemnation of Israel for the destruction of Palestinian schools and the “murder” of nine humanitarian aid workers aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The core argument was that our organization should take this stand because a social justice platform allows art educators to promote the freedom of expression necessary in a democratic society. However, this argument was framed within inflammatory charges of state crimes that were sure to spark intense debate as to its overall merit.
Unfortunately, the colleague who initiated the proposal also took the least collegial approach imaginable in a follow-up email that included a blanket indictment of some who reacted strongly to her proposal as doing so because of their inability to overcome “their ethnocentric racism.” The feedback from that point on was dramatic and vehement. But most revealing in the many listserv responses was the resistance not to the label of “racist” but to the label of art education as a vehicle for “social justice.” The most far-reaching of such responses was recently published as a June 25, 2010 Opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled “The Political Assault on Art Education” by Ms. Michelle Marder Kamhi. A cold war had erupted.
One thing that stands out in the clamor—identities are often shaped in opposition to what we most adamantly claim not to be. There are those who will only recognize a conservative as a great American, or a liberal as an open-minded American. Yet just as there is more than one model for defining yourself as an American, there are a number of contrasting models for defining what art is and, by extension, what art education is. Ms. Kamhi’s claim that art education is under assault by intrusive politics also implies a singular definition of art or education that is apolitical, socially inert, and powerless to alter the status quo. On the contrary, definitions of art and art education abound, as do ideas of America, and the proliferation of new interpretations has important consequences. Some define the arts as practices generating beautiful forms and objects crafted through carefully honed techniques and observation; others define the arts as interpretive, communicating cultural meanings and allowing self-expression; still others define the arts as critical interventions interrogating our common beliefs and social structures through acts of appraisal, agitation, and activism.
Competing definitions sometimes overlap and are just as likely to confound. There are conservative art educators who are elitists and who indoctrinate in and out of the classroom; likewise, there are social justice advocates who are anti-Marxist and have no interest in overthrowing American traditions. In truth, the diversity of the art education field reflects the diversity of our nation.
By labeling others as dangerous merely because they do not belong to the tribe we associate ourselves with, we can drum up quick support to expel anyone who threatens the gates of our identity’s home. People will fight to the death to maintain an unassailable identity because they think they will die if they don’t. Thus, there are some who will never accept an African American who has a name like Barack Hussein Obama as the President of the America they have defined for themselves. There are others for whom any “social justice” initiative is read as an assault on capitalism. But so what? Resistance to opposing ideas is not unexpected and isn’t even necessarily a bad thing. Art ever reinterprets itself and thrives on the resistance of ideas worth rethinking. So does the American identity. At the end of each reinterpretation, there is a new possibility. So assail away.
Just as can happen in any major conflict, the contest over the identity of a nation can appear on the map as a cold war far from the primary battlefront. Since the election of President Obama, an identity war has steadily escalated in national politics over whose tribe best represents the nation—Conservative, Progressive, Tea Party, Libertarian. But there are other fronts in the war over which identity characterizes America at its best.
I am part of an unmoderated but generally collegial professional listserv in a prominent art education organization. Recently, one of my colleagues circulated a draft of an organizational position statement seeking discussion and feedback before officially submitting it for consideration by our delegates and board. It proposed that our national organization adopt a position calling for “an end to the ongoing blockade of the Occupied Territories by the State of Israel” and a condemnation of Israel for the destruction of Palestinian schools and the “murder” of nine humanitarian aid workers aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The core argument was that our organization should take this stand because a social justice platform allows art educators to promote the freedom of expression necessary in a democratic society. However, this argument was framed within inflammatory charges of state crimes that were sure to spark intense debate as to its overall merit.
Unfortunately, the colleague who initiated the proposal also took the least collegial approach imaginable in a follow-up email that included a blanket indictment of some who reacted strongly to her proposal as doing so because of their inability to overcome “their ethnocentric racism.” The feedback from that point on was dramatic and vehement. But most revealing in the many listserv responses was the resistance not to the label of “racist” but to the label of art education as a vehicle for “social justice.” The most far-reaching of such responses was recently published as a June 25, 2010 Opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled “The Political Assault on Art Education” by Ms. Michelle Marder Kamhi. A cold war had erupted.
One thing that stands out in the clamor—identities are often shaped in opposition to what we most adamantly claim not to be. There are those who will only recognize a conservative as a great American, or a liberal as an open-minded American. Yet just as there is more than one model for defining yourself as an American, there are a number of contrasting models for defining what art is and, by extension, what art education is. Ms. Kamhi’s claim that art education is under assault by intrusive politics also implies a singular definition of art or education that is apolitical, socially inert, and powerless to alter the status quo. On the contrary, definitions of art and art education abound, as do ideas of America, and the proliferation of new interpretations has important consequences. Some define the arts as practices generating beautiful forms and objects crafted through carefully honed techniques and observation; others define the arts as interpretive, communicating cultural meanings and allowing self-expression; still others define the arts as critical interventions interrogating our common beliefs and social structures through acts of appraisal, agitation, and activism.
Competing definitions sometimes overlap and are just as likely to confound. There are conservative art educators who are elitists and who indoctrinate in and out of the classroom; likewise, there are social justice advocates who are anti-Marxist and have no interest in overthrowing American traditions. In truth, the diversity of the art education field reflects the diversity of our nation.
By labeling others as dangerous merely because they do not belong to the tribe we associate ourselves with, we can drum up quick support to expel anyone who threatens the gates of our identity’s home. People will fight to the death to maintain an unassailable identity because they think they will die if they don’t. Thus, there are some who will never accept an African American who has a name like Barack Hussein Obama as the President of the America they have defined for themselves. There are others for whom any “social justice” initiative is read as an assault on capitalism. But so what? Resistance to opposing ideas is not unexpected and isn’t even necessarily a bad thing. Art ever reinterprets itself and thrives on the resistance of ideas worth rethinking. So does the American identity. At the end of each reinterpretation, there is a new possibility. So assail away.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
What Does Studio Thinking Look Like?
I recently had the opportunity to work with art education professor Lois Hetland to draft a statement of the benefits of studio thinking, the kind of thinking young learners develop when they do their learning in the art studio. Lois is an Associate Professor of Art Education at the Massachusetts College of Art and a Research Associate at Project Zero. Here is what we agreed on:
GOAL 1: Literacy
A studio-based visual arts education puts making at the center of learning experiences, supported by perception and reflection. Making is akin to thinking in the body; it motivates learners to communicate meaning symbolically both in speech/writing about their creative works and through the use of multimodal signs that ‘stand for’ other things. As learners navigate symbol systems, they must invent connections among the different forms of symbolizing—drawing, storytelling, dramatizing, using sound effects, gesturing, moving expressively. As students make personally meaningful images, marks, and models, their artmaking scaffolds their developing literacy.
GOAL 2: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)
A studio-based visual arts education aids learners in thinking visually—for example, by visualizing and mapping models of conceptual and real-world objects and systems. The ability to visualize what cannot be directly seen is a critical skill in mathematics and sciences, and mathematics and science education organizations emphasize the importance of visual representation and reasoning capacities in K–12 instruction (and beyond). The NCTM Standards, for example, explicitly describe visualization as a tool for problem-solving and also recognize the essential role of representing and interpreting mathematical ideas and problems in visual forms, including graphs, sketches, and diagrams. The importance of model-based teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering, and math education is being increasingly recognized in STEM education reform movements. Students who learn studio-based approaches to thinking develop strong skills in visualization. Given the importance of visualization in STEM fields, strong visualizers are likely to be more successful in STEM fields and therefore more likely to continue to pursue STEM studies in high school, college, and professionally.
(I would insert this addendum: that in rethinking science, technology, engineering, and math education in relation to the studio arts, STEM gets converted to STEAM. -JHR)
GOAL 3: A Well-Rounded Education
Monday, May 5, 2008
Core Values for Arts Education in the 21st Century
I came across this YouTube video of Senator Barack Obama speaking in Wallingford, Pennsylvania on the importance of the arts in education. What other presidential candidate has devoted this much time to speaking this insightfully on the arts? Subtract the arts from education and we are raising up a generation without any in-depth training in practices of innovation.
Parents, teachers, and educational policy-makers need to reconsider our continuing and persistent devaluation of the arts in education. As the new Chair of Art Education at Syracuse University, I am exploring possibilities and feeling out directions as if I were marking out a figure drawing on newsprint with a piece of charcoal blackening my fingertips. I would like to sketch out some new ideas on what the core values for arts education in the 21st century might otherwise be...especially since what many of us are adhering to right now hasn't exactly made the impression we need!
Arts practices ought to be:
• Informational
Studio arts based methods for organizing data about the human experience are systems of information pressed into handmade artifacts, manufactured forms, cultural symbolism, and critical lenses. The visual arts inform human beings of who we are, where we come from, what our purpose is, and where we are going.
• Educational
Because the arts are informative, they are also inherently instructional, aiding overall academic achievement; basic to higher thinking skills, social skills, multiple literacies, and the motivation to learn; and a natural arena for the integration of knowledge, the inclusion of all learners, and the comprehensive asset-development of school and community.
• Transformational
Because the arts are educational, they are also inherently transformative, developing imaginative and practice-based habits of innovation, a capacity suggested by educational philosopher John Dewey, one that enables a student to learn from experience in the process of “trying and discovering, modifying and adapting” (Cuffaro, 1995, p. 19).
James Haywood Rolling, Jr., Ed.D.
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