JOURNAL #4
#RISKandREWARD
JOURNAL #4
2/20/22
I want to focus again on TAB (Teaching for Artistic Behavior) and "Big Ideas" in the classroom. As someone who admittedly has had little to no personal experience and instruction in these ideas and teaching styles, I have a lot of studying, processing and thinking to do surrounding this style of education. (You can also look to my previous post for a definition of these styles.) My own art education experience was closer to a packaged or DBAE curriculum for middle school. Then I started attending the community college for art at the age of fourteen for the entirety of my High School education through a program called "Running Start." This was a state funded program to allow High school students to take college level classes for credit on a tuition paid program (I was approved for grades 9-12.) My classes at this level were all college level, technique and observationally driven.
The experimentation, play, practice, self motivation and practice of TAB is useful in building the student's ability for artistic learning; a practice that is self motivated and authentic. I want to spend a moment on the introduction of "Big Ideas" into student work. I'm intrigued by this because not only can big ideas consider the work of other artists and the main themes and body of their work, but as the student works and makes art, they are thinking of where their own work fits in to this larger dialog. This shift allows the student a few things; it holds them responsible for a conversation and opens up ideas and concepts for how they want to interact with their world. Even if they are not ready or don't know how they want to interact with this larger dialog, through TAB and big ideas they are holding space for that passion. After all, there is a lot of living and life experiences that they have yet to discover.
I want to acknowledge how intimidating this idea and space might feel. The weight of the expanse of infinite possibility. That's a huge concept and oppressive to even the established adult artist! In this expansive world of ideas, discovery and mediums, the role of educator can act as a tether. Giving guidance and stability through support, a plethora of visual references and peer dialog.
I wanted to build on my piece that I had started previously. I had made a work that was representative of my technical formal art background. Now, as I add to it, I really want to think about TAB and big ideas in education (and practice and how implementing those methods and ideas could effect my students, myself and even my own personal work.
What does exploration teach us?
Where does exploration lead us?
We know now that music enhances and supports mathematical thinking and learning- What does art support?
Art is a very different exploration than music. From a very fundamental foundational perspective, we use our eyes everyday. Absorbing visual information on an almost constant basis. Having a linguistic and interpretive foundation for the visual information can enhance the understanding of our world.
Watching a TAB classroom in action was really eye opening for me.
The respect and trust that the students were given to be masters of their own exploration and learning was really special and it worked. I was in awe of their ability to quickly find materials and clean up their work when the time came. Ultimately, I felt that this method is about trust. Trusting the students to control and be in charge of their own learning. In reality, most of the time students are completely able and aware of their surroundings to grasp so much; we take their abilities for granted.
Seeing this composure, and wealth of ideas and techniques in a TAB classroom made me wish I had some of this experience in my past. I remember how controlling school felt. Like we were all going to go ferrel if left on our own. At the community college my art classes were really driven to precice observational drawing.
On this piece that I am continuing this week, I wanted to spend some time in a authentic explorative train of thought style of embroidery reflective of my TAB experience this week. I wanted to let my thoughts and experimentation to lead the art making. I have to admit, I found it challenging.
I tried some new things and some of these explorations ended in failure; I ended up cutting these off the piece. It was frustrating.
As I worked through these moments of frustration something happened- I started finding solutions and moments that I enjoyed. Successes that started to make sense to the piece compositionally. There were moments of learning and joy.
I don't feel that this piece is resolved- I want to push it further visually and symbolically with my teaching experience. Did my risks lead to failure? Should I push through and keep working? The thing about risk is that the reward isn't always immediate, and reward isn't always something tangible.
