6: Reciprical-Reflexivity

As stated at the end of the embodied sculpted analysis, I wanted to further pursue visual storytelling and memories with my second grade students. Though I will not be working with this group in the future, using art experiences to empower children to revision the past and value who they are directly relates to my draft problem statement and my future context.

To organize memories, I introduced a timeline. My second graders are familiar with number lines and units to measure length, but I told them our new unit was years. We discussed that zero was the day of their birth and tried to locate our current age on the timeline. If their birthday was soon, their age was very close to the next marker. If it had just happened, they were only a little bit past the mark.

The last number noted on our timeline was 9. I anticipated that this would be old enough for everyone except myself. These two anchor points, zero and their age, quickly became problems. Koreans count themselves as 1 on the day they are born. They also increase their age on January 1 of each year. Those two cultural traits meant that many of my students told me they were 9 and the line was not long enough for them. They also could not rectify the zero/one dilemma.

Locations on the line were less precise due to this confusion but the line did give the students a starting place for organizing their memories. I encouraged them to use pictures and symbols to represent the stories, giving my own examples of moving just before my 5th birthday and my brother being born when I was 7. Like most tasks, some students flew threw the assignment, some struggled to do enough markings, and others would have continued longer if time permitted. Some students were able to do the entire process without words. Others used a word or two next to some of their images. Still others wrote whole sentences to accompany each picture.

One boy documented his life in circled pictures above the line. The standardization creates an aesthetic rhythm that I find compelling. This student loves dogs and seemed to be tracking his life through his interactions with his pet dog. He later added some more memories below the line, including a fire in his apartment building and school life. This second set of memories is not bound by circles.





Students were asked to select 3 pieces of paper and draw one story from their timeline on each sheet. Students were free to pick from various pastel background papers and were encouraged to color carefully with colored pencils, a medium with which they are familiar.

For a few of the students, telling the story on paper was not sufficient; they wanted to vocalize their stories. I encouraged them to tell me their story through their picture. Still, two boys went back and forth, trying to tell crazier stories and get a laugh from their classmates.

In preparation for the second hour-long class period, I solicited the parents for photos. Though I asked parents to help their child select a picture that they like, whether a baby photo, something recent, a specific memory, or a fun image, I do not know how many of the students were involved in the choosing. One mom, who I know to be out of town when I e-mailed the request, replied “not sure if (she) will like this one but I love it.” Another mom sent two pictures—one that the student selected and another, more recent photo, in case the first photo wasn’t acceptable. Since some parents did not respond to the inquiry, I acquired yearbook headshots for the remaining students.

All photos were color-printed on copy paper and cut to be 18 cm x 28 cm, then sliced with a knife to create a paper loom.

The beginning of the second class proved to be an interesting scenario. For the first time in my six years of teaching, parents requested an “open classroom” for the specials time where they could come and observe. Parents of children in both second grade classes were invited to come to watch the class, even though only one of the classes would be in art at the time. Nine second grade parents observed music, then followed the 10 students to art class. They drank coffee and chatted in Korean at the back of my room but for the most part, they did not interact with the students. Then without warning, the parents got up and all exited about halfway through the hour-long period. (Later that day, I received more photos via e-mail for students in the other 2nd grade class—it seems watching the project reminded the parents to submit a photo.)

As class started, I gave the students a few minutes to free-write sentences of introduction. Words were traced in marker and then I cut the sentences and the memory pictures from the previous week into 2cm wide strips.

The students categorized the strips as a puzzle and only wanted to arrange them in the “proper” order. When they saw a paper loom, though, the understood the weaving purpose. I reminded the students of previously learned weaving patterns, such as over-under and over-over-under, but emphasized the hidden/revealed aspect of this weaving. With an array of paper strips—the fragmented stories of their life—and the photograph, students were given permission to weave a picture. They could select any strips they wanted to and they could cover or expose as much of the strip or the photograph as they desired, though the two situations were mutually exclusive. Some students thoughtfully mixed and matched their pieces while others wove at random.

As students worked, I challenged students who were bound by a traditional weaving pattern. One student even pulled out her entire weaving and found new freedom in being able to cover and uncover at will. She still chose to operate within a pattern but it was not the traditional checkerboard. For another student, we played with which words were visible. The strips were longer than the paper loom so she could pull the strip either direction to expose different words. With this margin of play, she chose to reveal specific family relationships and her passport country.

The photographic paper loom was a point of contention for some students. While one boy was loudly and joyously praising cute baby pictures of his classmates, others hid their photos. One boy told his table mates that his picture (a yearbook picture) was the worst. When two students agreed with his sentiment, he burst into tears. In his finished weaving, his face is completely covered. As he told me at the end of class:

          Look I covered my face. Because I do not like my face.
          You don’t like your face or you don’t like this picture of your face?
          Just this picture.
          Why don’t you like it?
          I not like all (of the picture).

I explained this situation to his classroom teacher. She remarked that his frequently says things of this nature, then gets sensitive if anyone else agrees with his negative self-talk.

My two energetic boys also lost control before the end of the period. One boy was talking about the death of a relative with laughter, joking, and acting out “blood spurting everywhere!” This was, of course, encouraged by the other boy.


A third boy (who at times joins the silly-party) was fully focused on his art project. He had told his mom to e-mail a particular picture of him as a toddler and in class, he worked carefully to see how the strips would interact with his photo. Though he first managed to reveal his whole face, he later decided it was funny to have only one eye visible. He narrated as he worked:

          I’m Minecrafting myself.
               (later)
          Hey look I puzzled a little bit of my picture.
          What if you could take a picture of yourself
               and then you could build it on Minecraft?

This student was captivated by his ability to sculpt his image and exercise control over a representation of himself. Like many of my students, he creates with Minecraft for entertainment. This virtual world is another space wherein students can manipulate their environment, but perhaps also their image. Though the Minecraft sandbox world is bound by a block appearance, the students could use the vocabulary to construct their bodies and ask many of the same questions as suggested in Keifer-Boyd’s critical avatar creation. For my elementary students, this is a language they already speak and skills they already possess. In addition, it is my understanding that Minecraft worlds are not public in the same way that Second Life explorations could expose K-12 students to interactions with those beyond the school community.

The creative and building aspects of Minecraft allow players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. Other activities in the game include exploration, gathering resources, crafting, and combat. Gameplay in its commercial release has two principal modes: survival, which requires players to acquire resources and maintain their health and hunger; and creative, where players have an unlimited supply of resources, the ability to fly, and no health or hunger.

The second group of students seemed less successful. Many students chose to trace their sentences in complicated color patterns that ate up much of their limited work time. Only one third of the students finished. Of the students who finished, one boy was at the point of tears because of his struggles with a gluestick! I intervened, helping him glue the ends of his weaving so as to alleviate unnecessary stress, but I saw him wipe away tears as we worked together. This boy was also upset earlier in class. He was the first to begin tracing his words in marker but due to his intricate color pattern, another boy who only used black marker finished before him. “What!” he exclaimed, “you cannot do all black!” When I defended the student’s choice as acceptable, he was clearly frustrated and muttered “what the heck,” an odd statement for a non-native speaker, only 7 years in age.

Two girls were focused on storytelling and did not finish their weavings. They were giggling back and forth during the work time and came up to me a few times to tell me about their stories. One of the girls became so enthralled by her memories of being younger that she clapped and squealed, “I want to be five years old!!!!”

Despite less satisfying results, some students were actively thinking about the aspects they were hiding or revealing in their choices. One student was heard saying, “I don’t need the white part so I will cover like this.”

The weaving metaphor, exposing and revealing their past to construct an image to present to the world, is beautiful to me but perhaps too mature for most young children. I am curious about child psychology and developmentally-appropriate levels of symbolic conversation. In addition, I wonder about humor. Both in these projects and in current 4th grade collages, some students are transfixed by juxtaposing crazy images and creating humorous compositions. The second graders shouted things like “look, I only have one eye!” This was not due to any deep meaning, feeling limited in vision or symbolically handicapped, but because having one eye is silly. It’s funny to see themselves in that light and such a statement and art project can generate laughter from a peer.

Laughter is a part of free, full lives. I do not know what role it might have in our artmaking at Blessed Homes and if it has a role in the action research for Spring 2015.

I am also concerned about the safety needed when working with issues of identity. Some students did not feel safe to show their pictures to their classmates. Being kind and respectful to each other has been a struggle for both classes throughout the year. Though the children at Blessed Homes exist together in a family, power and inclusion/exclusion is still a factor. I am wondering what introductory experiences might facilitate deeper relationships between children and open a space for authentic, vulnerable, individual exploration.

With additional time, it would be interesting to have students reflect on their weaving, asking them:

Who is this?
How is this individual similar to you?
How is this person different from you?
What did you chose to hide/reveal? Why?
In life, how do we hide and reveal?







References:
Keifer-Boyd, K. ( 2012). Critique, advocacy and dissemination: I've got the data and the findings, now what? In S. Klein (Ed.), Action research: Plain and simple (pp. 197-215). New York City, NY: Palgrave.

Read more...

5: Embodied Sculpted Analysis

To combine my current and my future worlds, I used embodied sculpted analysis to understand Karen culture (and Karen children) through the eyes of my current students. A theatre game technique of mirror play, based on Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed and Games for Actors and Non-actors, provided entry into the images of Karen children for the second grade classes. After going over rules, I assigned partners and students took turns posing like the child in the photo while the other student played photographer with the ipad. We switched roles, then had both students stand in the position for a time of class discussion.

 How does it feel?
When else have you felt like this?
When else has your body been in this pose?
What would the next movement be?


While I found the image of the dancing Karen student to be dynamic, the students were most concerned with how tired their arm felt while freezing in that position. A student compared it to raising their hand and waiting for the teacher. A few students did make comparisons to dancing performances on stage or for cultural festivals. They had a difficult time connecting it to specific memories and spent more time dancing, laughing, and trying to make their classmates laugh than talking about their lives and memories.

After a few minutes of discussion, one student pointed out the "tissue" in the girl's hand which led to further comments about dancing with objects.

The second image, another dance, led to more silliness. The students struggled with directions and were competing for each others' attention. The ipads only served to distract them so I stopped the photographer role. (Later in the week, the students were pretending to play photographer during music class and using the photographer role-play to bully other students.)

To regroup, I bypassed any additional images of dancing and went to a third image that included younger children and a different pose. The students took turns being each actor in the scenario. This image clearly resonated with the students. They told stories of something (literally) being kept just out of their reach. These experiences flirted with the line between fun and frustration. One student made the connection to making a dog behave when feeding them or giving them a treat. Despite the students' ability to relate to the image, they still had a hard time controlling their bodies, their words, and being respectful to everyone.

To calm down and reflect, students worked silently, using a picture to tell me one of the stories they remembered during the day's acting session.

Every student chose to draw about the third scenario. Though they had taken turns acting in both roles, only two students drew a memory as the dominant older child who holds the item just out of reach. The other eight students identified with the smaller child who is striving to attain the object. Four of the memories involve siblings. An only child drew and wrote about an experience with a classmate. The other five memories do not specify the relationship to the other individuals. In three of the images where the artist depicts themselves as the victim, they seem to have crossed out or erased a smiley face on themselves and replaced it with a frown. One student writes "It did feeld hard...To get that! Then I feeled angry." (punctuation their own--no words omitted) There are Korean words emanating from the perpetrator, a creature with horns, angled eyes, and a boar's mouth.

One student finished early and drew a second memory, based on the first image. Her sentence details "when my brother laght at me when I dance."

Based on Tuesday's quasi-disastrous class, I made adjustments for Thursday's students. I was curious to see the results with a different group, wondering if the struggles were due to the individuals or the experience. I had the ipads on hand so that I could have the option for photography but did not start the lesson with the photographer role. I also incorporated additional images. The third image was the last and most recent image shown, which could be part of the reason all the students drew a memory based on it, but they also seemed to have the strongest connection to the scenario. I postulated that this was due to the age of those photographed (younger than the other images) and the interaction between two individuals (not a choreographed dance but kid antics).

So as not to change all the variables for the second teaching group, I started and ended with the same two images. In between, instead of showing one image of three teenage dancers, I showed four images of young children (2-8 years old) interacting in various ways.

The students latched on to the activities and displayed greater levels of self-control. I think this had very little to do with different teacher presentation, as I do not feel I was significantly better at classroom management with the Thursday class. The group, though, was more mellow overall, did not have the distraction of the ipads, and appeared to make a stronger connection to the images. They were very respectful of each other and had to physically connect to another classmate to do three of the poses. I was concerned that this would be an issue but they managed to regain composure quickly, even after lifting each other or standing on a chair. When it came time to sharing with their words, Tuesday's class had retold memories that seemed to be fables, trying to make their classmates laugh and top each others' stories. Thursday's class did not struggle in this regard but shared more reasonable stories.

When it came time to draw a memory, one student's artwork came from the first dancing image. Four students drew riding/rolling/racing experiences based on the third image. One student connected to the fourth image, drawing a sword fight and writing "my friend and me played a fight game with my friend it was fun. I like my friend." Five students drew stories that related to the sixth images (which was the third image on Tuesday). Three of the experiences are negative, with references to crying, "Please! Please! Please!" "No," and taking something away. The other two are neutral or positive, talking about playing a game with a sister or friend.

No students chose to draw about the second image or the fifth image. I found each of these to be compelling. The weight, the struggle, of lifting someone to help them accomplish something--it is beautiful. The students had rich discussion about this image. They said it was hard to be the lifter but it was also scary to be the one lifted, not sure if they were safe or if they would fall. Still, every student said they preferred to be the one lifted rather than the one doing the lifting. I thought, especially as small people in a big world, that they would relate to things out of reach and working together to accomplish a goal. They told stories but did not chose to draw any of these memories.

The fifth image, more aesthetically enticing, is equally if not more compelling for me. While I found the embrace to be comforting, the students thought their classmates arm was heavy on them. They did not find pleasure in having someone wrap their arms around their shoulders. This seemed strange to me as it appears to be a loving, hug-like gesture. Again, no students drew memories from this pose.

In both one-hour lessons, I found that the students (7 and 8 years old) were very literal in their understandings. They did not naturally come to a deeper emotional/symbolic understanding (lonely, loved, supported, etc.). Because they found it physically demanding to hold some of the positions, they made negative connections to situations that appeared pleasant, joyous, and festive. I found that connections to images with multiple young children were significantly easier and were more likely to be the trigger for the memories they chose to draw.

I am still conflicted about how to honor their contributions when the memories are less memory and more fantasy. Particularly in Tuesday's group of silly students, they seemed to be combining the image with their own experiences to create an embellished story. Though my problem statement does include "revision their past," I meant this for children who have suffered from traumatic experiences. I don't want to undermine the life experiences of my current students but "fish stories" to make their classmates laugh are not what I was imagining when I wrote about empowering children to revision their past.

For the next phase, I want to combine memories and visual storytelling. I am still considering how to trigger and document memories and might utilize a timeline or a map in the artmaking process.

Read more...

4: Layered Analysis

It’s slow going

Some pictures are a year or two old
Pictures and names
We only know Mary’s name

It broke down whatever barriers were keeping our kids embarrassed about themselves and created a way to interact without a lot of words

To be a kid and play with her friends

Art…(is) a venue I love when it comes to building relationships and goes deep into my soul.

Crafts seemed to be received well thanks to lots of energy and sharing

Playing with the youngest ones during the school day and helping with homework, activities, and English learning with the older ones afterschool.

Specific role would be at Blessed Homes

Worked on the mural that went up in the cafeteria room

More painting at Esther’s house

Super gross, but is starting to look a little bit better. I think once we paint it, it will be a respectable home for a small family.

Safe house
Fullness of life
Just full of love
Loving
Loving others together

If loving people is a skill acquired through training, then these kids haven’t had the model to learn from or don’t have the hope to practice the unprofitable skill. Even the orphans at several of the homes we have visited have the advantage of growing up in a caring community.

Deepen relationships for the transition

Calming fears, removing what I perceive as obstacles, and using old and new relationships to encourage me along the journey.

Walk together in relationship
Come alongside people
Continue developing relationships with others in the area
Cooperation from a prominent Muslim in the community

Karen people are still not welcome in Burma
The ceasefire is not doing much to ease racial tension between Burmese and the Karen people.

This is likely his future too
And were they willing?
Weird split in the recent past
Jobs little better than slave labor
Feeling a little useless

The road, access road, great opportunity

Beautiful (dirt) access road to this land for the new youth center

Empowering them to be more effective
Confident with themselves
To be free and full to overflow in service
Admirable…finding their strengths
With big ideas

To change people, and make them into so much more than themselves
Sometimes (change happens) with beautiful and exciting things, like volleyball in the jungle

Forever impacted by their time here

We got good and messy today
Really beautiful time with them
The beauty and the bitterness

The whole event is really beautiful and special, then Danielle pulled out a heap of glow sticks to make the whole thing even cooler.

So here I am, finishing the school year and headed back to Blessed Homes

_____


I’m struggling to code. To relate it to the theoretical lens of the research question.

My data – It is limited. I am planning for the future. That sounds normal. But I am planning for a project in a place where I am not. Not yet. For a job that is not my job. Not yet. Where my knowledge is limited. My experience bound by a mere 24 days over the past 13 months. Plus a few more in the surrounding community for a total of just over a month spent along the Thai-Burma border.

Conversations. Journaling. Interviews. Observations. I have nothing fresh. I went back to my three visits and found the newsletters from those times. I hoped they would suffice.

There is something authentic about analyzing a document made for a different purpose. They weren’t written with this question in mind. The first set was written by our trip leader – my friend and colleague. The second two sets are my own writing, but they are snippets. They are silly and sad and seasoned with my faith. They are a call to my friends and my family around the world to join me in spirit and in prayer for these children. My children.

The newsletters tell the stories of the previous three visits but they don’t speak directly to empowerment through artmaking. Art was a part of each visit, but not necessarily the focus of the documentation.

I went through the newsletters, 21 of them, searching for any reference to this people group, to their plight, to empowerment and art, to a revision of the past, an exploration of who they are, an understanding of others, and a future life together. The pieces are fragmented. Some phrases are taken out of context, or refer to the context of empowerment through sports. A worthy vehicle for change, but not the primary language I hope to be speaking, and not the focus of this action research.

I don’t have a code. A set of symbols or distinct categories. I have a thread. I strung the words together, wove a story from the newsletters, and told a future tale – one I hope to live out starting in August and through action research next spring.

It’s a first attempt, a practice in layered analysis, but I don’t think it is the right data to be analyzing for this question. That data does not yet exist. I will write and rewrite this data.

____


It’s slow going
Pictures and names
Creating a way to interact without a lot of words
Creating as a way to interact without a lot of words
To be a kid and play with friends

Mural, more painting, starting to look a little bit better
I think once we paint it, it will be a respectable home for a small family.

Safe house
Fullness of life
Just full of love
Loving others together

The advantage of growing up in a caring community.

Deepen relationships for the transition
Come alongside people
Continue developing relationships with others in the area

Cooperation from the community

Karen people are still not welcome in Burma
The ceasefire is not doing much to ease racial tension between Burmese and the Karen people
This is likely his future, if we are willing.

The road, beautiful (dirt) access road to opportunity

Empowering them to be more effective
Confident with themselves
To be free and full to overflow in service
Finding their strengths

Sometimes (change happens) with beautiful things
Forever impacted

Let beauty emerge instead of bitterness

____


Trauma
Disrupt
Empower

As I try to process, to envision a future, to go deeper, I wrote disrupt. But their life has already been disrupted; they live in an orphanage. Is it traumatic? I don’t want to write trauma on their life. It is tragic to me, but some have seen such love, know so little of anything before, and might not identify as a victim. Do they know a different way of life?

Regardless of their past, the goal of the project is to empower them to use artmaking as a way to revision whatever past they know, value who they are, understand each other, and create a new future story together.

It is individual and collective.
To write and rewrite, revise and cowrite.

As I research arts-imagination and arts-empowerment, especially in a community, murals are the natural outlet. Yet an emerging idea, perhaps a component to the study, would be a visual journal. There is ownership in a journal. Not loose leaf paper, to be easily discarded. A solid book. Hardcover. To write your name on the front and write yourself on the pages. Pages full of possibility.  Empowered to make decisions in the safety of your book.

An article by Cathy Malchiodi, about trauma-informed expressive arts therapy, mentions that this approach considers:

• an emphasis on cultural sensitivity and empowerment
• helping to move individuals from being not only survivors, but ultimately to becoming "thrivers" through skill building, support networks, and resilience enhancement (Malchiodi, 2011)

I find words of significance later in the article, listing five components of trauma-informed expressive arts therapy.

• Reinforces a sense of safety through reconnection with positive attachment and self-soothing.
• Builds strengths by using the arts to normalize and enhance resilience.

Enhance resilience, with cultural sensitivity and empowerment.  Expressive arts therapy does this.  Empower these children to use artmaking as a way to revision their past, value who they are, understand each other, and create a new future story together.

Confident in themselves.

Growing up in a caring community.

Creating as a way to create a future for Burma.

Read more...

4: Layered Analysis (Mary Elizabeth Meier)

Using Mary Elizabeth Meier’s posed questions, I went through the story constellation excerpts, noting documentation and shifts. While there are a few instances in shifts of how to use a particular item, such as a document camera, nearly every instance of shifts as a teacher relate to their approach to teaching. I subdivided these into shifts in the physical classroom, shifts in the lesson plans/course content, shifts in student expectations, and shifts in what their role as teacher should be. These shifts are tied to a greater shift in values and priorities in the art room, moving from teaching techniques to teaching dispositions.

The inquiry method, and comfort level with uncertainty, seemed to be driving both the discussion group and many of the changes in the classrooms. I circled each instance of uncertainty and marked the margin with a large question mark. Some examples are below:

Because I never knew where classroom I would be in that day (7)
Next year I will be even more uncertain because I am changing grade levels (8)
I feel like I am questioning myself about that (13)
This time was a little easier because I wasn’t alone, there were seven other people all searching for the answer to the same question (20)
Open response of inquiry and student led process (21)
It is not a clear line, but one that is full of possibilities (22)

Though some teachers specifically note their initial uneasiness with the format of the collaborative inquiry group and whether it would be effective, they have infused questioning into their classroom practice and are continuing to ask questions of themselves to refine their teaching. “What happened to me this year is what I am trying to do for my kids too” (9). They have seen, first hand, how their role as a learner is transformed through documented inquiry and are now finding ways to recreate this for their students.

The loosening of the parameters was initially unsettling, even scary, as they seemed to be losing control; there was no longer an example of the end product. At the same time, using the document camera to trace gave students confidence to explore even if it meant ruining the work because they could start again. The shifts in teacher approach were then seen in student behaviors as they sensed the freedom and took ownership of their artmaking, whether in secondary non-traditional materials, choosing to collaborate in sculptures, or drawing from other sources to inform their subject matter.

It is interesting how removing or reworking physical barriers and restrictions opens the mind for more possibilities. This is seen in the use of the document camera by the students, but it is also seen in the teachers who are reworking their classrooms, repurposing custodial equipment, and reinventing shared spaces to allow for inquiry. When the felt limitations are no longer an obstacle, no longer impeding their potential. I want to re-examine the excerpts to see both physical and mental removal of barriers and self-imposed limitations on what can be.

(I have recently been exploring self-imposed limitations and the freedom that comes when these barriers are identified and removed. It’s not surprising to me that in trying to understand the coding, through prose, I am drawn to this level of understanding.)

In this next layer of coding, I found more than 15 references to physical removal of barriers, more than 10 instances of mental removal of limitations, and at least three instances where it was impossible to code as one or the other. In those cases, the physical change directly removed mental barriers for the teacher or students. As noted earlier, using the document camera physically allows for restarting a project in a timely manner but it also removes the mental limitations on the students, giving them freedom to take risks, even if it will mean restarting. At the elementary level, the physical change of access to materials, such as the sculpture studio, removed the mental barrier of independent work, freeing students to work collaboratively. Then in another situation, the inability to overcome physical barriers (art on a cart) is still a major mental road-block to implementing centers.

While the recorded conversations were rich in discussion of physical and mental barriers, the blog posts supplied did not directly reflect the same ideas. Inquiry is discussed, though, and could be seen as a way to push through natural mental limitations. The use of open-ended questions, with students, with peers, and with themselves, expands possibilities. If possibilities were not seen as legitimate options previously, the questioning must be breaking through hidden barriers and invisible restrictions, even when participants have not directly stated from what they were shifting.

MENTAL – I don’t understand how this group will work/don’t understand inquiry
PHYSICAL – I am given these tools
MENTAL – I only understand one way to use these tools
MENTAL – I start to understand the inquiry process and how to use with students
MENTAL – I understand a new way to use these tools
PHYSICAL – I use these tools differently with my students
PHYSICAL – I design my lessons differently
PHYSICAL/MENTAL – My students have new opportunities and freedom
PHYSICAL – I don’t have a venue for thoughtful discussion and development with peers
PHYSICAL – I can use skype
MENTAL – I have new things to think about and I find value in searching out with these other people

I see two parallel lines of impact. Following one stream, I see the participants removing barriers for personal growth as an educator. Though all recorded comments show an initial uneasiness with the CIG, participants have been able to overcome years of mental and physical barriers to professional development through the CIG. After this first year, they place a high value on inquiry, documentation, and reflection, expressing a desire to continue as a group into the next school year. Though their colleagues don’t understand the format and resist “talking shop,” the CIG participants are now looking at ways to continue interactions when time and space will physically limit them (such as a group Skype during school-required in-service days).

The concurrent line of change comes about in the classroom. The participants are given technology and exposed to the inquiry method. At first, understanding is shallow and use of the tools is limited. As the year progresses, the participants learn new ways to use the tools and deepen their understanding of inquiry. The more the participants see the results of inquiry in the CIG, the more they value and infuse the process into their classroom. They replicate their experience for their students. “What happened to me this year is what I am trying to do for my kids too.” Rachel (9)

Read more...

3: Narrative Inquiry

Read more...

2: Arts-based Action Research

What is evident these days is whenever art occurs it nudges aside assumed conventions, upsets past complacencies and opens up new criticalities--Graeme Sullivan

To make one’s mark in the world.
To make seen the unseen.
To bear witness to the past and envision what is beyond.

Around the world, arts-imagination and arts-embodiment are seen in community art programs that provide a space, a place, a canvas for the stories of the oppressed and afflicted.

Walls of Hope is “an international art and human rights project of art, education, conflict resolution, crime prevention, diplomacy building, community development and preservation of historic memory." It grew from the work of Claudia Bernardi in Perquin, El Salvador, but the model has been replicated in Canada, Northern Ireland, Guatemala, Columbia, and other locations. The project acknowledges the trauma, the violence, the sorted histories, and allows participants to “produce a visual testimony that represents their recent history” and, through collaboration, “expands from creativity towards diplomacy, judicial concerns, and the demand for the respect for social and human rights.” These participatory works embody the collective knowledge of the community, making visible the past and disrupting stories of prejudice, hate, and violence.

At the same time, many of the murals go beyond telling to understanding for oneself and problem-solving for the future. Bernardi writes of her experience taking Walls of Hope to the Guatemala in the essay “Art Recuperates Memory as a Demand of Justice.” The team, through open-ended questions, facilitated locals in selecting their story, designing the composition, and executing the work. The participants were keen on a composition that broke the work into five segments, each representing one of the five communities from which they came, until one man brought forth a different way of seeing. Don Luis, from Chajul, spoke up:

Brothers and Sisters, until now I have believed that what happened to us in our community of Chajul was tragic. I also thought that had not happened elsewhere. To my horror I see now, that what happened in Chajul happened also in your lands. We have the same memories. We have lost families, our homes and our children. For this, I propose that we will paint a mural not divided in five parts for our stories are the same.

And with that, the composition was switched to three areas: the left representing the past, the center as the present, and the right envisioning a future.

For these locals, artmaking was a way to understand their past, understand each other, and create a new future story together. They were no longer victims of a story but critical participants empowered to change the ending. Similar to the audience in Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed, the mural creators imagined change through “dialogue and mutual learning” (Keifer-Boyd 11).

MTV EXIT also used a collaborative mural approach in their Roadshow campaign in Mae Sot, Thailand. A blending place of Thai locals and Burmese refugees, MTV EXIT brought together artists from both communities “to create a mural that reflected how they could positively coexist.” The mural juxtaposes Thai and Burmese symbolism with a handshake superimposed over the composition and a line of figures uniting the sides. Other aspects of the campaign include participant-created dramas, radio theatres, local cultural performances, and celebrity musicians, all to bring awareness to trafficking and the exploitation of the vulnerable along the border. Art brought youth from the diverse groups “together to learn creative ways to raise awareness about human trafficking in their community and demonstrate the similarities between their cultures.” Art-making exposed commonalities, critiqued the discourses of discrimination and division, and made visual a larger understanding of the self and other.

I spent about ten days in the Philippines, thinking about these issues.  Wanting to sit and sketch, web, plan it out.  Put on paper what was processing inside.  The pencil in the hand--it helps me process.  My brain would think but only come up with more questions.  I hoped it might suddenly crystallize, spontaneously come together, be it while underwater on a dive or when sleeping in a hut on an isolated beach.  It didn't.

So I came back to a land of electricity and toilets that flush with a button (instead of bucket-flush), grabbed my portable whiteboard, and started marking marks on it.  I'd been thinking about an image of a tree.  What are the roots for my kids?  It is not family.  It is not country.  How can we give them a support system so they can grow a strong trunk and then branch out, confidently, in fullness and freedom?  I used words and word combinations from Wordle explorations using the text from the Blessed Homes website and the tagline of Partners: Relief and Development (Full, Free Lives for the Children of Burma). 

There are many variables still.  Which kids?  Which site?  What time frame?  I'm drawn to the young ones, especially five little girls that live in Noh Bo, the home that will be my base.  At the same time, there's something inside me that says I should work with the teens.  Then I question individual or collaborative.  Perhaps a mixture.

I've been taking my elective classes in TESOL; I made that choice based on my current teaching situation, with over 70% non-native speakers.  But in this transition, I hear it over and over again.  Teach us English.  Teach them English.  You can help by teaching English.  English is viewed as currency, as increased chance of success in future endeavors.  Simply bringing my native language to the border will empower these children for their next steps.

At the same time, I would never be content going through an English grammar textbook.  I want to connect at a deeper level.  I envision combining art and English with explorations of big ideas (dreams, hopes, risk, creation, adaptation, belonging), giving them a space and a place to find their voice.  A blank canvas.  The whiteboard where they can write and rewrite. 

So I've started to write and rewrite on my whiteboard.  Please help clarify the [undefined areas] of the problem statement.

Side note:  I've never understood the semantics arguments over labels.  The blind student.  The deaf child.  The kid with cerebral palsy.  (Dis)abled.  Differently-abled.  Until now.  I don't want my kids to be defined by their status as an orphan.  I don't want them to be defined as an (illegal) refugee.  They are my kids.  They are people.  Children.  I don't want them labeled as victims, shackled to an identity of abandoned, disadvantaged, and without people or place.  Have you seen them laugh?  Have you seen them smile?  They have the same needs, the same desires, and I want them empowered to dream.  Confident to take risks, knowing that we'll catch them.  I want to slowly remove the support from the training wheels, watch them pedal down the street, and then, when they fall and skin their knees, run to help them back up and on the bike again.  Do they really have to be burdened with the label of orphan?  From the very first introduction, a term of pity.  Not a sister, daughter, mother, lover, student, teacher, doctor, or friend.  An orphan.  So I'm open to suggestions here as well.  Is there a better phrasing, terminology, wording for my problem statement?  So far I have "refugee children who have been orphaned due to the ongoing conflict in Burma."  Ideally, they'd be children first, with any other characteristics coming after...


References:
https://elearning.psu.edu/courses/aed815/sites/edu.courses.aed815/files/content/graeme_arts-based_research.pdf
http://wallsofhope.org/about/
http://www.scu.edu/cas/jai/upload/The-brush-is-like-a-Candel-copy.pdf
Keifer-Boyd, K. (2011). Arts-based research as social justice activism: Insight, inquiry, imagination, embodiment, relationality. International Review of Qualitative Research, 5(1), 3-19.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JinMSLWyCOw
http://mtvexit.org/blog/mae-sot-roadshow/

Read more...

1: Critical Action Research

Action Research—the thing all my coworkers did at the end of their masters program through IWU.

I’m a little late to this masters thing. Or really, I’m just doing a different program. I started one semester later. And I didn’t go to Beijing for three weeks each summer for two consecutive summers to knock out 12 credits. So while many of my friends did their action research in Spring 2012, I’m only taking this class now. And my actual action research project, that will be Spring 2015.

My understanding of action research involves problematizing, researching, implementing something, recording results, and analyzing. A reflective process. If I am honest, it seems silly to make it a thing. Shouldn’t all teaching be like this? We look critically to identify needs, we investigate solutions, we make changes, and we reflect on if it helped. Then we start the cycle again. But life gets in the way and the best intentions aren’t always enough and focused attention and set-aside time can work wonders. Plus, it is helpful to expand my ideas about types of data and how to use them. Formalize what might be natural. Approach areas of weakness with strategic, intentional plans.

How about you? What is something that stands out from your past teaching that would have benefited from an action-research approach?

My other questions for you are—who are you? And where are you? Do we have an intro assignment anywhere?

I haven’t been in the MPS classes since Fall 2012 so maybe you were together in some classes in 2013. Or maybe you were in AED 811 or AED 812 with me. This is me. And this is me. Mostly. Except for the part where I say I'm not anxious to leave anytime soon. Because I am! I am so incredibly anxious. Because this is me.

On a related note, this statement scares the pants off of me.

Action research often involves artmaking, which can surface deeply held emotional associations to traumatic experiences. For socially responsible ethical action consider what is necessary to reveal about the focus of the study and to whom.

In this next phase of my life, I will be working with some of the most vulnerable. Orphaned (illegal) refugees. My love is huge but my training is limited. Proceed with caution.

___

The white board. I uploaded this screenshot of my object because it is already plastered around pinterest (though never trending or incredibly popular) and yet I can upload it freely because it is my writing and my shading on my (classroom) whiteboard.

As I visualized, it wasn’t hard. What is harder is to keep my mind here. I was immediately taken back to the jungles in the hill country on the Thai-Burma border. I know the place. I was there four weeks ago. My feet still bear the marks from fire ant bites. We sit on the floor and color with crayons. We sit around the table and make designs with my multicolor pen. And there’s this new space, where the flooded river knocked down a few walls last rainy season. That terrace. I want to transform the space. To make it an outdoor classroom. And I want a whiteboard.

The whiteboard. It is me. Apart from my pasty white skin, separating me from their rich brown tones, I want them to draw all over me. With excitement. And then erase. Draw some more. And with different colors. Stick things up with magnets. Rearrange. Wash, clean, repeat. And as they work, I want them to catch their reflection in the shiny white surface. Get glimpses of themselves as we interact. Over time, I’ll get scratched. Dirty. Not everything will wash off. I might even get dented. But I’ll be well-loved, and it will be about the process, not an end product. The day to day and the participation where they are free to explore, not handicapped by permanency. Where they can dare to dream big and erase as needed.

I love my girls. I know they’ve seen a lot. Am I ready to see it with them? To hold up a mirror, to allow them to peek into their past? This home, this Blessed Home, is a haven. We can run around and smile and giggle as if nothing existed before and nothing exists beyond. Frolic through the field, jump into the river, and pretend that war is not ravaging their homeland on the other side. But to really love them, I must allow them to process, and even give them opportunities, encourage them to reflect. It will come out in their artwork. At least, it usually does. So as the whiteboard catches the sun and shines in their eyes, it can be a little painful. What will it illumine? Am I prepared to go there with them? My heart breaks. They shouldn’t have to know this. But they do. So we will have joy in the art and we’ll embrace tears as they come and we’ll go deeper than we thought only to reveal a new layer later in the journey but we’ll walk through it together.

With a little action research guiding our way, at least next spring.

Read more...