Informal Learning: Final Project

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An Informal Task

In my undergraduate degree, I was privileged to take three study trips to Europe with the Dean of Visual and Performing Arts at Kutztown University. One speech he would always give at the beginning of the trip was that he wanted us to get lost, and not just metaphorically. He wanted us to get to a place where we didn’t know where we were, then find our way back. It was informal learning—learning through life-experiences, following your interests, and problem-solving. Using any and all available resources to experiment and see what you could make of the situation (Thomas and Brown, Chapter 9).

When have you found yourself lost? What resources did you draw upon and how was experimentation a part of finding your way again? If you can’t recall a time when you’ve been lost, perhaps you can travel within the Google Art Project and get lost in learning. Explore, follow your whims, and see where it will take you. Get lost in the halls of the museums from around the world, then find your way back, perhaps through the collections feature. Then post about your wanderings.


Assignment: Post a blog task as a challenge for readers to explore the topic of informal learning.

References:
Brown, J. S. and D. Thomas. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace.
Starry Night Detail: Google Art Project

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What is the Value of Our (Informal) Learning?

I am supposed to be writing about the evaluation or assessment of informal learning or its impact on learners, but instead I'm just saddened. I opened up the course text to read the final chapter and found this intro:

When we think about what a new educational environment might look like in the twenty-first century, we can imagine a number of things. Imagine an environment that is constantly changing. Imagine an environment where the participants are building, creating, and participating in a massive network of dozens of databases, hundreds of wiki and websites, and thousands of message forums, literally creating a large-scale knowledge economy. Imagine an environment where participants are constantly measuring and evaluating their own performance, even if that requires them to build new tools to do it. Imagine an environment where user interface dashboards are individually and personally constructed by users to help them make sense of the world and their own performance in it. Imagine an environment where evaluation is based on after-action reviews not to determine rewards but to continually enhance performance. Imagine an environment where learning happens on a continuous basis because the participants are internally motivated to find, share, and filter new information on a near-constant basis.

Finding an environment like that sounds difficult, but it isn't. It already exists, and in one of the most unlikely places: a new generation of games. Massively multiplayer online games--such as World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Star War Galaxies, and Lord of the Rings Online, to name a few...


I do not argue with this postulation, that such a dynamic learning world exists in mmos, but it breaks my heart.

Why can't we create the same collectives, the same camaraderie, the same self-initiated research and skill development around things that matter?

The text says educators dismiss games as frivolous or time-wasting, but I ask, how are they making the world a better place? It sounds like a beauty pageant answer, asking for everyone to be the change (I was given the Chinese name 世宁 "World Peace"...), but have we looked beyond our flashing computer screens to see the needs across the street and around the globe? My generation is investing hours upon hours to join together in guilds and hone our digital skills to advance through raids, only to pick up an item dropped by a monster that will help us with the next challenge. What if we came together to build houses for Habitat for Humanity? What if we volunteered at a soup kitchen, read books to kids at inner-city libraries, coached a youth sports team, built community gardens, or cared for orphans and widows? There is so much crying out for attention, yearning for help, desperate for someone to bring hope, and yet we devote our time and energy into these mmos. I am sad to hear that the model for informal learning is a world that I find increasingly offensive.

To learn is not noble. To be changed by learning and to be the change through learning, that is worth pursuing.

Homelessness, world hunger, immunizations, HIV/AIDS, sex trafficking, genocide, endangered species, global warming--my heart aches that the same passion for learning would be channeled into the real world problems (collective problems that they are, Thomas and Brown, Chapter 5) that assault humankind. Am I tainted in my perspective because I am not a gamer? Two different times today with two different people, I have lamented that my peers that are too busy playing life on a screen to play life in real life. To walk the Great Wall, to dive with the fish of the Philippines, to feed the poor, hug the brokenhearted, and build into the soul and spirit of their fellow humans.

Above all these thoughts, I hear Solomon's words: vanity, vanity, all is vanity. For if I do not love, I am nothing.

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Museums as Identity Practice

Not everyone who goes to a museum is deliberately test-driving a new identity, but my first trip to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. was just that. I was in 11th grade and on a family vacation when I asked my parents if I could go to the NGA by myself while they took my elementary-school-aged siblings to the Air and Space Museum. I'd been to the Air and Space Museum with my parents when I was an elementary student. It was then that I impressed Trekkies with my recitations of "these are the voyages of the starship Enterprise...", a little 6 year old girl who was constructing her identity from the passions and pursuits of her father. Now at 16, I'd recently become invested in the art world, and that museum across the mall was calling my name. But to explore the museum, and on my own, I had to try on this new role. What would the other visitors think? Would they label me an imposter? A newbie? Or was I the real-deal?

I danced my way throughout the museum, trying to look inconspicuous, as if I belonged, but awed by the architecture and thrilled to see Matisse, Rothko, and Van Gogh in person. I made it through every room, not wanting to miss a single thing, and even managed to convince my mother to return with me the next day. I remember looking with her at Chuck Close's fingerprint picture of Fanny. It was amazing! I still had familial love of space travel, but this inspired me.

The identity work that conspired that day in November 2002 has forever endeared the museum to me; the museum is part of the fabric of myself as an art-lover. I returned the following year, organizing a trip for National Art Honor Society students to visit DC and the NGA, then again in university for our student chapter of NAEA. While I have enjoyed visits to other art museums around the world, all of which could provide the same identity work for a young adult dabbling in art, just the photo of the atrium in the East Building awakens my love of this one particular museum. It taught me that I could participate in the art world.


Assignment: Recall a personal experience within a museum that fits the definition of informal learning.

References:
Rounds, J. (2006). Doing identity work in museums. Curator, 49 (2), 133-150.
NGA East Interior: http://myfavoriteart.blogspot.com/2010/09/national-gallery-east-building.html

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Third Pedagogical Site: deviantART

deviantART is a social networking site designed for the artist. As a virtual domain, it is part of Brent Wilson’s notion of the third pedagogical site: the place “between school classrooms and kids’ self-initiated visual cultural spaces—a site where adults and kids collaborate in making connections and interpreting webs of relationships” (18). Due to the fact that the site is legally only allowed to have users 18 year of age and older, we might replace adults with the notion of the formally trained or the professional and kids with the hobbyist or student. deviantART is thus limited in its impact on K-12 art education, but a viable option for the post-secondary student (which is where I was first exposed to the site, as a roommate who was majoring in Fine Arts had/has an account).


This online literacy site is a host for the collective, a breeding ground wherein the personal is valued as it is revealed in relation to the collective. The site was founded in August 2000 to “entertain, inspire, and empower the artist in all of us.” One can upload into galleries, add captions, link to other artists, and comment—fulfilling needs of agency and identity in a space where participation is valued. It is meant to be a deviation from the norm, from formal learning, and to encourage the peer-to-peer, nodes-of-information discovery and growth characteristic of informal learning. Share ideas and inspiration in the depth of creativity and diversity flourishing within deviantART (promotional video). It is “a place where the personal can begin to meet the collective in a meaningful way” (Thomas and Brown, Ch. 5). Artwork might be self-initiated or a response to a second site assignment, but it is now a part of the collective and forming a new life beyond either of the first two sites.


Assignment: Identify a site on the web that is directly interested in one of the ideas put forth in Wilson's article (visual culture, childhood, comics, and the third pedagogical site). Review the site, making connections to Wilson's article and the concept of informal learning.

References:
Brown, J. S. and D. Thomas. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace.
Wilson, B. (2005). More lessons from the superheroes of J. C. Holz: the visual culture of childhood and the third pedagogical site. Art Education, 58 (6), 18-24, 33-34.

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Informal Learning: VoiceThread

I was in love with VoiceThread until I started recording my narration. Remember that time you first heard your voice recorded and you hated the way you sounded? Well, I forgot how different I sound in my head. Some of it was fumbled words, some of it was vanity, but I recorded and rerecorded my narration to each slide at least three times. And that last slide, well I had to take a break twice during that because I flubbed it up so many times.

But alas, I have resigned to how my voice sounds to everyone all the time and finished my VoiceThread, so much as a VoiceThread is ever done. See, VoiceThread is participatory by design. Don't just watch. Type, record, draw a comment. Add to the dialogue. My intention was to present an explanation of informal learning within the context of VoiceThread and the "Knowing, Making, and Playing" chapter of A New Culture of Learning, but what does informal learning mean to you? How have you experienced the where in learning, in contrast to the what?

Though it is not reflected in my VoiceThread, I am particularly fascinated by the notion of geographic illiteracy v. a limited definition of "Iraq on the map" (Thomas and Brown, Chapter 7). I have heard these debates in the teachers' lounge.

     What is the value of memorization?
     Do we still need to memorize anything in our wired/wireless world?
     Why are we still giving tests that only measure the lowest levels of Bloom's taxonomy?

Instead, can we teach students to evaluate and decipher information, to know where to find it, and how the where informs the what?

Despite my embarrassment with my recorded voice, I am assigning a VoiceThread tomorrow in AP Art History. I love the format wherein one can start a dialogue around a piece of art. Each student will be assigned a different time period from medieval art. After reading The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown, students will use Brown's repetitive nature to develop an outline emphasizing the most important information. To communicate this outline, student will create a VoiceThread that includes three specific works of art. The students will have one week to make the VoiceThreads, then an additional four days to add to the dialogue in the other VoiceThreads.


Assignment: Create a VoiceThread that provides a definition of informal learning and makes at least one clear connection between VoiceThread technology and one of the themes or theoretical perspectives outlined in chapters six through eight of the course text. Write a synopsis of the VoiceThread, including a statement about how Voicethread could be used in an art education setting, either by an art teacher, students, or both.

References:
Brown, J. S. and D. Thomas. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace.
Bloom's Taxonomy VoiceThread
VoiceThread Recorded Webinar by Michele Pacansky-Brock

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Second Life: Landmark Learning

I traverse the digital world of Second Life with hesitancy. As I’ve written before, I maybe be a digital native, but I am a video game immigrant. Nope, not immigrant. Unlike digital immigrants, I don’t believe I’ve entered the culture of video games, nor am I attempting to learn those skills. I have no desire to participate in role-playing games and only the occasional interest in using a Wii or Xbox Kinect to dance with friends. Yet I teleported around Second Life to visit some favorite landmarks of Metaphor Voom. Perhaps that makes me a Second Life tourist.

Second Life as a world that embraces change and a format for learning through play and imagination. My roommate, an early childhood educator, often says that play is a child’s work. She is not the first to say this, as it has been explored by child development psychologists including Jean Piaget. According to Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, play should not be abandoned as one ages. “In a world of near-constant flux, play becomes a strategy for embracing change, rather than a way for growing out of it.” (A New Culture of Learning, Chapter 3). Sandbox environments are one way Second Life facilitates playing to learn.

As a Second Life tourist, I stumbled upon a sandbox while wandering around the Brown University Media Studies landmark. Ignorant of the sandbox concept, I thought this was merely a digital version of a child’s playground. I tried to slide down a slide. I tried to dig in the sand. No success. I eventually abandoned the space and went to the next site on the list. Global Kids, Global Kids HQ, Periwinkle Infohub, ANGEL Learning Isle. As I worked my way through the list, teleporting to places that sounded interesting, I noticed the Berkman sandbox area. It was at this site that I made the connection---sandbox is a metaphor for building, exploring, creating. Like a child who sits in a sandbox, exploring the laws of nature, a digital sandbox is a place for Second Life residents to learn the laws of building in a virtual world. They are spaces where creativity and chaos go hand in hand.

It was at the Beckman Sandbox that I first found other residents. Through all my traveling, I had yet to interact with other nodes of information. Seeing other people was alarming at first. Despite the participatory nature of this collective, I was still very much in the private v. public dichotomy. (Chapter 5). I didn’t stay long because I was scared that someone might want to interact with me. Like the person who goes to Karaoke but refuses to sing, I was not ready to contribute to the collective. At the same time, I missed out on the chance to be mentored in the digital world. Instead, I teleported to Warmouth Infohub to continue exploring on my own…




Assignment: Describe the experience of visiting locations in Second Life. Make connections between one or more of the locations visited and chapters 3, 4, and 5 from A New Culture of Learning.

Reference:
Brown, J. S. and D. Thomas. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace.

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Learning for Fun: Article Response

Regardless of a visitor’s motivations for going to an educational leisure site (museum, aquarium, national park, etc.), the experience almost always results in learning. Visitors cannot help but learn, whether they realize it or not, as they interact in the setting. Jan Packer expounds on the unique aspects of these places, breeding grounds for informal learning. “Some of the characteristics that educational leisure settings provide, that seem to facilitate the process of learning for fun, include a rich sensory experience, novelty surprise, fascination, nostalgia, and the freedom to explore and to engage with information at a range of levels.…What is new is the understanding that it is these characteristics that make the process of learning fun.” Visitors find their time, and the learning that results from it, effortless. As opposed to traditional groans of students in formal learning situations, visitors generally find learning to be fun and, consciously or unconsciously, are drawn into experiences that involve learning. The discovery, choice, and engagement of senses are then coupled with an ease that removes the burden of work from learning and infuses joy.

(Digital) educational leisure (web)sites are similar in that they are interactive worlds (though notably less physical and sensory rich than real-life settings) where one has the freedom to explore and “window-shop” about learning. I recently rewatched a TED talk in the presence of a kindergartener and a first grader. The subject of the talk, the Google Art Project, led to exploration in that site, traveling to London, Florence, and New York City in a matter of moments to discover outstanding art in top museums. All from their living room in Chengdu, China. After some time had passed, the first grader asked if the speaker’s name was Ted. No, it was Amit. But then from where do we get the name TED? We returned to the TED site to seek out the answer (Technology, Entertainment, and Design, if you were curious). The first grader asked if he could watch another TED talk. Not Spongebob. Not Tom and Jerry. Could he watch another lecture from the site? Browsing about, the category of animals struck his fancy. We proceeded to watch two talks, the first about a species of snakes and crocodiles native to India and the second about leopard seals.

For this first grader and his kindergarten younger brother, learning is still fun. The joy and excitement has not been taken away by years of formal learning via rote memorization, boring lectures, and standardized testing. The world is still anxiously awaiting them, full of vast places and things they can discover. Yet for adults, few recognize, like the aquarium visitor, “that you’re learning all the time—you learn something every day of the week…” (336). Instead, we need to wander into an educational leisure site for recreation, with the intent to only be there for 10 minutes, and get lost for an hour and a half to rediscover the joy of learning (335). These sites, be it digital or real-world, awaken a love of learning that left for so many when school got boring, hard, and seemingly meaningless.



Assignment: Select a single sentence or two from the reading that is central to the essence of the reading. Reflect on this sentence or two, the content of the reading, and personal experience in similar situations or conditions.

Reference:
Packer, J. (2006). Learning for Fun: The Unique Contribution of Educational Leisure Experiences. Curator, 49 (3), 329-344.

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Art History: An AP Course with a thematic emphasis

The following syllabi serve as a mini-database for teaching art history with an emphasis on Advanced Placement and thematic units.

AP Central Syllabus 1
Students connect western and non-western artwork thematically through individual essays and a group presentation, though class content primarily progresses chronologically.

AP Central Syllabus 2
This course follows a traditional chronological structure of the western canon of art with random breaks to insert non-western chapters—no apparent emphasis on thematic learning.

AP Central Syllabus 3
Syllabus only notes a separate unit of non-western work at the end of a chronological western development, but states that it is taught in comparison with European work throughout the course and as a separate unit of study. Long essays are used to for individual thematic comparison of western and non-western, though it is unclear if these are during test or separate assignments.

AP Central Syllabus 4
Non-western cultures are inserted as units into a western canon as they relate thematically, for instance, Islam as religion and sacred space after the study of Byzantium. As a review at the end of the year, the class looks at thematic essay prompts comparing western and non-western art from previous AP exams.

Bexley High School
This course inserts many non-western units between ancient Egypt and ancient Greek in the traditional western canon. Each unit, western or non-western, includes an art organizer based on a theme that relates well to that culture (e.g. animals in art, propaganda and power in art, the figure in art)

Somerset Academy
Non-western art is compared as it relates chronologically to the western canon. In addition, specific days of study are included at the end of the year, as well as thematic graphic organizers.

George Mason University
Traditional college art history classes that take one semester to cover ancient up to the Renaissance and one semester for Renaissance to contemporary. No noted use of thematic concerns and very limited exposure to non-western art (Islamic art).

Pine Crest School
This course inserts units of non-western art between art before 1870 and art after 1870. There is no mention of thematic units and the coverage of non-western seems to only relate to the influence of art beyond the European tradition on the artists of the 1900’s, such as Japonisme, the World’s Fairs, and multiculturalism.

El Paso Independent School District
A normal chronological approach, this course inserts art of the Americas and Africa in the middle of medieval art. Art of Asia and Oceania is covered at the end of the sequence.

Walton High School
Though the course description calls this a survey of western and non-western work, the outline only references western units and makes no mention of thematic discovery.

The Art Institute of Dallas
This course inserts non-western units into the chronological western canon as they impact the development of western art, such as colonialism and the art of exploration.
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There seems to be a lack of syllabi available that truly embrace a thematic approach when structuring an art history course. Instead, the most integrated western and non-western studies make thematic comparisons while progressing through a western canon. The course I created, an AP Art History course that does justice to non-western art (at least 20% of the study, per Collegeboard requirements), would take on the same approach. This seems to be an authentic way to relate the works to their deeper role in society and tell the story of humanity, with its common themes that connect across time and throughout cultures.

In structure, I prefer to connect individual works of art to the western canon as they relate in thematically rather than insert full units of study mid-stream in the canon. Only teaching the history Asian art to show how European art changed in the late 1800’s does a disservice to Asian art; it is only valued for how it helped advance the “real” story of art. Similar to many outlines that devote the last portion of the course to non-western art, I would devote time to non-western specifically at the end of the year. Rather than tell chronological histories of those cultures in one or two class periods, I would still approach the work as part of the thematic story of humanity. This approach would serve as a review of all art for the AP exam. Specific works of non-western art would be revisited, along with new works that explore chosen themes, and previously learned western art that tells the same story.

A key teacher resource might be Exploring Art: A Global, Thematic Approach by Margaret Lazzari and Dona Scholesier, as it examines art “in the context of human needs within world cultures.” The textbook does not neglect chronology, but presents artwork thematically, chronologically, and geographically. This may be key as Collegeboard is rumored to be restructuring the content of AP Art History and embracing the same three-pronged approach that already exists in this text. Perhaps this may even serve as a student-text in the future.



Assignment: Construct a mini-database of syllabi or lessons related to a discipline, subject, or topic of interest within art education, visual culture, or museums/museum education and a synopsis of the course created from this database.

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Second Life: 美世

I've managed to avoid Second Life for more than four years, but it appears my run has come to an end. I was exposed to the program (experience? virtual world?) while studying Art Education at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, but never explored it on my own. This past spring, in my first course with the MPS program from Penn State, I thought I might be required to create an account. I finished the course without ever going to www.secondlife.com, which I considered a success. The program was also referenced in the FRONTLINE documentary digital_nation, which we watched and discussed around the same time as part of the professional development program at my school. Francoise LeGoues was interviewed for the documentary. As a vice president and chief technology officer for sales and distribution at IBM, she is one of more than 10,000 IBM employees to conduct business activities in the virtual world. But now, for AED 814, I joined the site.

I'm a panda. Because it's funny. It relates to China. And digital people freak me out. Still, I wish I could have a real panda body type. Fat and all. In the teachers' lounge, I showed a few coworkers my avatar. I'd told them I was a panda, but their reaction to my panda's "tight butt" freaked me out and sent me searching around to figure out how to add layers of insulation to my panda's frame. I've only had minimal success with this body transformation.

Thus far, I have found the world difficult to navigate. Though I consider myself a digital native, my inexperience with video games handicaps my "virtual motor skills." I have a hard time staying on the track in Mario Cart on Wii. Now I need to control my movements with keys and clicking.


I expect that Second Life will be involved in more activities in this course, perhaps involving meeting together as a class. I hope to see some advantages to using the program because currently, I don't understand the purpose of the program. When I go to the website, their intro plays, hoping to entice me, but only evokes negative feelings.

          Who will you meet in Second Life?
          Where will you explore?
          Who will you be?
          What will you discover?
          Anything is possible in Second Life.
          Fasten your seatbelts.
          Expect the unexpected.
          A whole new world is waiting.
          Escape to the internet’s largest user-created 3d virtual world community.

I meet interesting people in real life every day. On a daily basis, I interact with people with passports from a variety of countries, who have lived around the world, and have an array of life experiences.

I am exploring China daily, and traveling other places in real life.

I am daily growing in who I am and discovering the unique things this world has to offer. There's so much of real world that I have left to explore, so I have no desire to "escape" into a virtual world. It's the escape-factor that I find particularly disturbing.

While some people might use Second Life in the educational sphere, I would be cautious to use it with minors. Most of my students are 3 years old through 5th grade, so it doesn't seem like an appropriate program. Even with my high school students, I would want to be in a contained world, like IBM uses for meetings. Still, once students have been required to create an avatar, I have opened up a new world to them, with all the positive and negative implications. I can see parents blaming teachers for choices students make in Second Life during non-school related play because teachers required them to join the world. I wonder what the legal stipulations are with minors using the program and its use within K-12 schooling. Lastly, despite our 1 to 1 laptop program at our high school, our geographic location limits our ability to access internet options. Perhaps Second Life will come under the same scrutiny that has made it inconvenient to use many sites like Facebook, Blogger, and Youtube.


Assignment: Speculate on the role Second Life will/might/could play in 814 and in your own teaching.

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Informal learning, online literacies and out-of-school literacies

The popular social networking site Facebook shows little to a visitor who does not have an account. The iconic blue and white design devotes most of the page to an image of orange silhouettes connecting across the world with the title “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” Across the page, empty fields beg for you to complete them with your first name, last name, e-mail, password, gender, and birthday. The only green on the page is the button to click to “Sign up” for this account. It repeats, “Sign Up: It’s free and always will be.” (Despite any chain repost statuses announcing that Facebook will be charging starting on _______ if you don’t do this, that, or the other thing.)

Once an account in created, users navigate within a world of profiles for people and things. Users are first taken to their homepage, a constantly updating news feed, like the ticker at the bottom of CNN, but with photos, status updates, relationship changes, and links. Nearly everything is interactive, hyperlinking to the actual page, allowing you to comment or “like” the item, and using algorithms to predict what you consider “Top News.” The top blue bar allows for you to see friend requests, message, notifications (of ways others have interacted with you on Facebook), a search bar, a link to your profile, and a link to your homepage. Directly below, Facebook asks you to update your status, add a photo/video, or ask a question—again, focusing on interaction.

To be literate on Facebook is to interact. Facebook is a place to connect and share, particularly with people you already know and about the things you are already doing (though there are options to create unique online content, not merely reflect real life). Using Facebook is one of many “socially mediated ways of generating meaningful content through multiple modes of representation for dissemination into cyberspace.” (Alvernman 2008, definition of online literacies)

As the site updates, a user may choose to read new content posted by Facebook or outside writings about the site. More likely, trial and error, combined with forwarded how-to status updates, will help a user become literate. This includes ever-changing privacy settings, what types of content can be created, how to create it, and how to share it.



Facebook, as an online literacy, falls in the long line of l(IT)eracy, as described by Bill Green in 1988 and referenced by Helen Nixon in 2003. Participating in the site, being literate, involves operational and cultural dimensions, and sometimes works itself out in the critical dimension. Being able to operate in Facebook is the first level of literacy. While skills from other online sites, from hyperlinks to individual profiles, transfer into this new site, it does require some new vocabulary and skills to operate within its domain. As a modern version of the 15 year old boy's internet chatting and web authorship, it can be analyzed in the cultural dimension for how it used to make meaning in the world. Such research delves into "how people use the media for specific social purposes inside and outside schooling and in the intermediary spaces and places between them." (Nixon) The critical dimension is often seen as we repurpose Facebook for other tasks, be it within Facebook, a redesign, or an off-line retooling.

Much of the new vocabulary needed to interact with people on Facebook has become mainstream over the past 6 years. Friend someone. Like. Comment. Poke. (Yes, the poke does still exist, and I know how to do it. Just ask the three friends I poked while “researching” Facebook for this assignment.) Perhaps the prolific use of Facebook as an online literacy is what moved this language into daily conversation, giving new meaning to these English words. “According to a report released in December 2007 as part of the PEW Internet & American Life Project,” cited by Alverman, more than half of young adults surveyed who have internet access have created online profiles at sites such as Facebook and MySpace (9). Since 2007, Facebook use has grown exponentially, thus literacy in the online realm has transferred into vernacular in everyday life.

Even the composition of Facebook has affected visual culture. School bulletin boards and yearbooks make many references to the iconic blue and white layout of Facebook. Some speculate that the uniformity and clean-design of Facebook is part of its success. It appears more professional than MySpace, eliminating personalized backgrounds and songs to create a cohesive experience. The new format, Timeline, is an attempt to make Facebook more visually appearing with large pictures and events organized graphically (similar in layout to pinterest, though it only shows the content it thinks you would deem important). Timeline allows for more customization, allowing users to highlight events in their life and hide others from their profile. Still, this is a basic format for the layout and color scheme of the profiles is uniform and relates to the overall Facebook brand, an online literacy site that has worked itself out into offline iterations.





Assignment: Identify an online literacy site or out of school literacy site. Follow Terry Barrett’s three-step model of interpretation of “What do you see? What does it mean? How do you know?” to interpret the site.

References:
Alverman, D. E. (2008). Why Bother Theorizing Adolescents’ Online Literacies for Classroom Practice and Research? Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52(1), 8-19.

Nixon, H. (2003). New research literacies for contemporary research into literacy and new media? [online version]. [Supplement to Hagood, M.C., Leander, K.M., Luke, C., Mackey, M., & Nixon, H. (2003). Media and online literacy studies (New Directions in Research). Reading Research Quarterly, 38(3), 388–413.] Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.38.3.4

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Social Media and Informal Learning: Twitter

For my informal learning project, I would like to look at incorporating internet-based learning and social media as a part of the AP Art History course (including an instructor-developed Moodle site).

The following were chosen because they are about education and technology:
          InnovativeEdu
          plugusin
          THE_Journal
          GrowConnected
          TeachPaperless

The following were chosen because they relate to Moodle, a possible site for my informal learning project:
          MoodleShare
          moodlenews
          moodle

The following were chosen because they focus on art history content:
          britishmuseum
          philamuseum
          TheArtHistory
          arthistoryblog
          metmuseum
          asianartmuseum

The following were chosen because they are about art education:
          arted20
          PennStateArtEd
          bscarpenterii



Assignment: Create a Twitter account and sign up to follow at least 10 people or organizations that somehow relate to a topic you have in mind for your informal learning project or intervention final project. Conduct a search in Twitter to find groups or people you might like to follow who you think would be helpful in this respect. Share your initial list of 10 people or organizations and briefly explain why/how you believe each person or organization on your list will be helpful to you and your informal learning project or intervention final project.

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Informal Learning

Informal learning is a different way to look at education.  It reverses some long-held beliefs like the teacher as the fount of all knowledge but embraces a world-as-teacher, holistic lifestyle that engages learners in all aspects, allowing them to be in control of their learning journey.

Informal learning might be seen as anything outside of the teacher-to-student transfer of knowledge that traditionally takes place in a lecture-style classroom. This learning may be self-directed or collective, taking place outside of school or within the confines of school but outside of traditional school learning activities. Informal learning is characterized by experience and problem-solving, often occurring without the objective of learning or large degrees of structure, but while one is going about life tasks. A teacher may be involved in informal learning activities, playing facilitator and allowing the student to go down his or her own learning journey. In that situation, the teacher is not the pitcher of knowledge, pouring into the students, but a prompter, providing further stimuli for sustained learning and self-reflection. Overall, the learner is in control and everything is teacher, be it environment, life experiences, peers, other adults, social media, or formal texts chosen at the direction of the learner.

Informal learning is aerodynamic trial-and-error, playing with twirly, light-up toys with friends on the boardwalk. 

Informal learning is a friend asking a friend to help make a birthday cake, sharing a youtube tutorial,
making many alterations (out of preference and necessity), googling the recipe for a cake mix missing its instructions,
posting pictures on facebook, emailing the tutorial to friends, and sharing tips with other peers.

Assignment: Compose a 200-word statement in which you define “informal learning.”

References:
Barron, B. (2006). Interest and self-sustained learning as catalysts of development: A learning ecologies perspective. Human Development, 49, 193–224.
Jamieson, P. 2009. The Serious Matter of Informal Learning. Planning for Higher Education. 37(2): 18–25.
Zürcher, R. (2010). Teaching-learning processes between informality and formalization, the encyclopaedia of informal education.

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9: Contemporary Art as Public Pedagogy Curricula Reflection

For this lesson, I only spent two class periods working on the main ideas. I felt like it was rushed and didn’t have sufficient time finish tasks, like glue people in the environments, or investigate the work of James Mollison as a class. Ideally, one would have at least three, if not four, class periods for the lesson.

Students had insightful, and at times, surprising answers about the images from home decorating catalogs andmagazines. We began by looking at these two interiors, first separately, then comparing and contrasting. The students were quick to point out the child-friendly items in the room on the right. While students were consistently able to determine child and adult spaces, and often teenage places, gender associations were not as clear. “Appropriate” colors are not culturally universal, so many of my male first graders freely expressed interest in rooms of pinks and purples. While most chose children’s bedrooms as their favorite place, either with toys, princess dresses, or flowers, one child preferred the photo of coat hooks, a bench, and shoes (from an entryway); he loved the feeling of family.

In selecting an image (and a person who would live in the room as-is), the first class had unpredictable people, some of which seemed closer in characteristics to the child, not the room. The second class, though their discussion was a struggle, chose more predictable adults. In both classes, the students really enjoyed finding objects to alter their environment. Though the second class is not finished, they seem to do better overall at placing objects in believable space (demonstrating depth in the collage) and in switching out similar items (a lamp for another lamp). These two differences could result from the different students in the class along with better instruction from me the second time around. Additionally, it became clear in the interviews that the first class was very confused about who lived in each interior. They merged their identity with the paper person who originally liked the room. One boy was upset when I said he had to draw a new room for his person; in his world, they were married and living together in the altered space.


Click on the presentation below to hear the first class talk about their work, responding to the following:
        Tell me about the person who lived here in the beginning.
        How did you change the place to be about you?

A Place For You Responses

More PowerPoint presentations from Stephanie

After her interview, a student held up her pictures and told me “This (collage) is my room and this (drawing) is Sally’s room.” Thirty seconds later, she came back to me and said “No, this (collage) is Sally’s room; this (drawing) is my room.” Another girl seemed to reproduce her collaged room in her drawing, including the flower rug and the picture of the bird on the wall. Many students described their paper person as liking things they had placed in the altered image, instead of liking things as they were.

To help alleviate the identity confusion, I might limit the types of rooms involved. I would have students select a living room from the magazine, then a person. Instead of waiting until the following class period, I would ask students to verbalize on that day why they think that paper person lives in that space. After they altered the space, we would look at Mollison’s photographs of children and the places they sleep. The students would draw a bedroom for their paper person. I think this would help them mentally separate the people in each environment. I would also like to take more time to demonstrate depth in drawings, or have a separate adult to record students so that I could be providing immediate feedback to the students as they draw, rather than monitoring from the other side of the room.

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9: Contemporary Art as Public Pedagogy Curricula Lesson

Unit Title: Our Spaces, Our Places
Enduring Idea: We reflect our surroundings and our surroundings are a reflection of us.
        Exploring and expressing our personal, community, and environmental stories
        through recontextualization, juxtaposition, and layering.

Lesson One: A Place for You
Grade: First Grade
Time Allotment: Three 45 minute class periods
Summary: Students will analyze images of house interiors, discussing who would feel comfortable and live in a space and why. Students will then select an image, a person who would live there as is, then collage to change the space to be their own story. After drawing a new interior space for the person, students can explore layering and juxtaposition further by gluing their magazine person in the drawn environment and gluing a drawn version of themselves in the magazine environment. Students will learn that spaces are a reflection of the people that live there and that they have the power to change what they are given.

Artworks, Artists and/or Artifacts:
        Where Children Sleep by James Mollison
        what if you lived at ikea? by Christian Gideon
        home decorating catalogs and magazines

Key Concepts Addressed in This Lesson:
        --Art can tell stories of people and places.
        --Art is not limited to a painting or drawing, but includes the built-environment.
        --Meaning can be found in the altering of images within our visual culture and public pedagogy.

Essential Questions Addressed in This Lesson:
        What parts of us are visible in this art?
        What parts of our culture and community are visible in this art?
        How does art reveal our personal stories?
        How does art reveal our surroundings?

Standards:
        1a.4 Create artwork in a variety of two-dimensional (2D) media (collage and drawing)
        3a.3 Create 2D artwork from memory or imagination to tell a story or embody and idea or fantasy
        4a.1 Integrate knowledge of the visual arts and apply the arts to learning other disciplines
        4b.2 Investigate uses and meanings of examples of the arts in children’s daily lives, homes, and
                  communities
        5a.1 Understand there are different responses to specific artworks
        5a.4 Participate in classroom critiques of examples of art from themselves, the class, and art history

Interdisciplinary Connections:
        --Many factors, including communities of which you are a part, influence your personal identity.
            (Social Studies Unit: People and Places in a Community)
        --Places can be described by human and physical characteristics.
            (Social Studies Unit: People and Places in a Community)

Lesson Objectives:
        Knowledge--Students will know that places can reflect different people.
        Skills--Students will create artwork (collage and drawing) that shows a basic understanding of depth in 2D work.
        Dispositions--Students will demonstrate intentional artmaking, characterized by care and concern, through
                craftsmanship in cutting, gluing, and coloring.

Assessment:

Teacher Research and Preparation:
        cut magazine rooms and people (of various ages and ethnicities)

Teaching Resources:
        magazine images of rooms
        magazine images of people
        photography by James Mollison
        photography by Christian Gideon
        audio recording device

Student Supplies:
        scissors, glue, magazines, copy paper, pencils, black marker, colored pencils

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9: Contemporary Art as Public Pedagogy Curricula Unit

Unit Title: Our Spaces, Our Places
Enduring Idea: We reflect our surroundings and our surroundings are a reflection of us.
        Exploring and expressing our personal, community, and environmental stories
        through recontextualization, juxtaposition, and layering.

Key Concepts about the Enduring Idea:
        --Many factors, including communities of which you are a part, influence your personal identity.
            (Social Studies Unit: People and Places in a Community)
        --Places can be described by human and physical characteristics.
            (Social Studies Unit: People and Places in a Community)
        --Decisions that we make affect others.
            (Social Studies Unit: Needs and Wants in a Community)
        --There are different needs and wants in a community.
            (Social Studies Unit: Needs and Wants in a Community)
        --People make changes to their community.
            (Social Studies Unit: Changes in Communities)
        --People can protect and preserve the environment.
            (Social Studies Unit: Changes in Communities)

Key Concepts about Contemporary Art as Public Pedagogy:
        --Art can tell stories of people and places.
        --Art is not limited to a painting or drawing, but includes the built-environment.
        --Art can affect change in ourselves, others, our community, and our environment.
        --Meaning can be found in the altering of images within our visual culture and public pedagogy.
        --Murals are works of art that are part of the community; they reflect the culture and ideals of the community.

Essential Questions:
        What parts of us are visible in this art?
        What parts of our culture and community are visible in this art?
        How does art reveal our personal stories?
        How does art reveal our surroundings?
        How can our art affect others?
        How can our art protect and preserve the environment?

Rationale:
        As third culture kids, international school students form their identity from a conglomeration of the local culture, home country culture, friends' culture, and more. Though first graders, they can use art to begin to grapple with their feelings of identity and (dis)placement, seeing how wherever they are affects who they are, and vice versa. This unit helps young students to stop receiving passively and start actively confronting their environment, using art as a tool for socially and environmentally conscious living.

Social Studies Skills:
        --Accept and fulfill social responsibilities associated with global citizenship
        --Communicate own beliefs, feelings, and convictions clearly
        --Participate in delegating duties, organizing, planning, making decisions, and taking action in a group setting

Art Standards:
        1a.4 Create artwork in a variety of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) media.
        3a.3 Create 2D and 3D artwork from memory or imagination to tell a story or embody and idea or fantasy
        4a.1 Integrate knowledge of the visual arts and apply the arts to learning other disciplines
        4b.2 Investigate uses and meanings of examples of the arts in children’s daily lives, homes, and communities
        5a.4 Participate in classroom critiques of examples of art from themselves, the class, and art history

End of Unit Assessment:
        Students will select one of the pieces of art they created in the unit. They will record their explanation of how that artwork shows that we reflect our surroundings and our surroundings are a reflection of us. As a class, students will watch a slideshow of everyone’s selected artwork and their explanation. Students will be assess on if the selected artwork demonstrates the understanding and if they were able to explain it to the class.

Lesson 1:
        Students will analyze images of house interiors, discussing who would feel comfortable and live in a space and why. Students will then select an image, a person who would live there as is, then collage to change the space to be their own story. After drawing a new interior space for the person, students can explore layering and juxtaposition further by gluing their magazine person in the drawn environment and gluing a drawn version of themselves in the magazine environment. Students will learn that spaces are a reflection of the people that live there and that they have the power to change what they are given.

Lesson 2:
        Students will interact with various chairs, discussing which they like, what aspects are functional (do a job—a need) and what parts of decorative (pretty, cool, interesting, etc.—a want). Students will suggest people and places that would be appropriate for such chairs. Students will then analyze a place in their school neighborhood (elementary library, cafeteria, middle room, playground, classroom, etc.) and the jobs of a chair in that place. Students will then design and draw a new chair to fit the needs of the place but also reflect the decorative interests of the people who will use it. As an extension, students can create a new absurdist (silly) environment for a chair found in a magazine, juxtaposing function and setting. Students will learn that artists design objects for people to use and for people to see. Students will learn that meaning can be created through contrast.

Lesson 3:
        Students will look at the needs of the environment in Qingdao. What is alive other than people? How can people protect and preserve the animals, and plants to live in a harmonious Qingdao? Students will brainstorm an urban/environmental landscape to represent taking action to help the local environment, working together to unify a final vision for the scene. Students will collect clean “trash” from their classroom, the lunchroom, art room, or anywhere else on campus. Using only collected items and fasteners (glue, staples, etc.), students will work collaboratively create a relief mural of their scene on the bulletin boards outside of the art room. Students will learn that art can be created through found (reused) materials, can be made as a group effort with carefully planning and delegation, and can depict themes to inspire environmentally-responsible living among their community.

Technical Knowledge:
Lesson 1---Space/depth in 2D artwork (size and placement)
                    Craftsmanship in cutting and gluing
Lesson 2---Craftsmanship in drawing and coloring
                    What is a background
                    Space/depth in drawing a background
Lesson 3---Parts of a landscape
                    Space/depth in 2D artwork

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8: Performance Art & Performed Networks of Relations

我是青岛人。


When I first moved to China, I knew no Chinese. None. My friend had attempted to teach me some simple phrases when I visited for two weeks in 2007, but I was not able to learn to count from 1-10. After 9 months, my Chinese was making some progress. I went to Beijing with two student teachers and I was the sole Chinese speaker---great for my language development!

We went to the Pearl Market to purchase some knock-offs, souvenirs, and other things “made in China.” My strategy---for every Chinese word you drop, the price drops. I wouldn’t use the calculator to talk prices, but spoke the numbers in Chinese. I even tried to argue with a vendor that I should get a cheaper price because I was a Qingdao person! He laughed because, looking at my face, I clearly was not Chinese. But, but, but, I am a teacher. I am a Qingdao person! If only I’d known how to say I live in Qingdao. (I asked my teacher how to say that sentence in my next Chinese class---我住在青岛。)

China is not a melting pot. It is not a salad bowl. It is not any other metaphor for the mixing of nationalities that occurs in the United States. Anyone can be a native Philadelphian, regardless of their skin color. And anyone can become a Philadelphian-transplant if they spend a few years there and consider it their home.


Not so in China. The Chinese will never consider me a Qingdao-person (ren). I will always be an American person.

But in my eyes, my identity is wrapped up in this city I love, in which I live.

          I am a Qingdao-ren. 我是青岛人。

This is my city, my home, my everyday life. But like the humans in Rodney’s story, I have invaded someone else’s home. While I try to be conscious of this phenomena when I reach points of cultural frustration, I think there is an art project lurking in the midst of this confusion. Many of my little ones also think they are a China/Qingdao-ren. They were born in Beijing! They’ve spent all 7 years of their life in Qingdao. They speak Chinese. For one blonde-haired Aussie, his older brother is biologically Chinese, adopted by their Australian family.  For another student, she is the adopted Chinese, raised by American parents in the US, then China, then the US, then back to China, with an adopted bi-racial brother. Things which are quite confusing to young Third Culture Kids (TCKs).

Whose Qingdao is it? Does it matter? What makes a Qingdao-ren? Can we all be Qingdao-ren? When I (or my type) become Qingdao-ren, do I displace the native Qingdao-ren? Building my fancy restaurants puts food on the plates of the lower class construction workers who could not pay for food in my restaurants, let alone feel comfortable entering the door they built.

For an activity, I imagine taking photos of Qingdao-ren---people who consider Qingdao their home. I would print the photos in a large format, perhaps life-size. Students would navigate the images, asking questions of identity, gender, ethnicity, nationality. Assuming the role of one of the Qingdao-ren, students could write stories about how these Qingdao-ren view various parts of our city (Taidong, Wusi Guangchang, Bailiguangchang, Badaguan, construction near Xianggongzhonglu, apartment complexes in Fushanhou, etc.).

Students could create a map of Qingdao-ren, showing socio-economic (and nationality) divisions by geography. Statistics could be brought together in other graphic ways, particularly to shed light on expat entitlement---the sense of privilege some of our students feel over the local people and their ways. (You might suffer from this too if the only Chinese you interacted with functioned in servant-roles, as your driver, housekeeper, checkout person at the store, and street sweeper.)

Another project could be based on the common needs of all Qingdao-ren---food, water, shelter, clothing, relationships. Each student could photograph the breakfast, lunch, dinner, water, bed, sofa, clothing, family, and friends of a different Qingdao-ren. The images for a single Qingdao-ren could be cropped and displayed in a 3x3 grid, then grouped with other Qingdao-ren. I imagine a photo-mosaic void of faces to create a more universal Qingdao experience, displayed prominently in the school (perhaps in the library, stairwell, or cafeteria). The title of the photo-installation would be


          我是青岛人。



Assignment: Read each others’ stories posted in exploration 7 and select 3 stories to use as a springboard for an idea of creating something in your teaching site or everyday environment that calls attention to the everyday scene or routine in a new way.

References:
http://jeremytochina.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-city.html
http://thecultureblend.blogspot.com/2011/04/and-im-both-on-being-chinese-but-not.html
http://rdraughn.blogspot.com/2011/03/7-making-visible.html
http://lmp254.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-7-making-visible-story-part-2.html
http://www.personal.psu.edu/swi100/blogs/s_izzos_aed_813_blog/2011/03/blog-entry-7-making-visible.html  
 
Qingdao Coastline: Melanie VanderWal

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7: Making Visible

It’s just an average high school hallway. The walls are lined with lockers, broken up intermittently with doors to classrooms full of students.

But the floor tiles bear an extra marking. Tape lines divide, subdivide, and make paths through the hallway. My eyes visually guide my feet, weaving from left to right, just trying to make it to the end of the hallway. It slows my pace, heightens my thinking. Like a child who jumps around, refusing to “step on a crack and break your mother’s back,” I am bound by these 1 inch walls.

I didn’t stay long enough to see classes change, but I remember that experience. A similar weaving, slow from congestion, and a constant thinking, rethinking, routing, and rerouting, to effectively navigate the sea of people.

In the busy-ness of it all, are students aware of the maze, or is it trampled underfoot?

When I reached the other side, I noticed I’d actually worked my way back to the start. A bulletin board informed me that the Architecture Design Club created this installation. What a curious group of students. It reminded me of a story a professor told at one of the first KU NAEA Mishaps and Mayhem talks about a brick wall in a hallway, erected overnight by an art club, that disrupted routine and forced people to find a new route to their classes.

Interruptions have a way of making us look at the everyday,
the ordinary, with new eyes.

They challenge us to truly see. They disrupt the norm.
_

My flight was delayed. My gate was changed. I finally got in my seat and crashed. I woke up to exit the plane, drag myself to the luggage carousel, find my bag, and hail a cab. I zonked out for most of the cab ride back to my apartment, finally turning the key at 11:45. I dropped my luggage and headed for my bedroom, ready to jump into bed without brushing my teeth or washing my face.

And then the door wouldn’t open all the way.

Interrupted. Disrupted. Erupted.

Strung from behind the door, clear across the room from the built-in cabinets to the curtain rod, were six massive Chinese lanterns. I was furious for about 5 seconds, then burst out laughing. My partners-in-crime took our drama decorations from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and repurposed them in my bedroom. The red orbs did not seem large in a 400-person auditorium, but they disrupted everything in my small master bedroom.

The lanterns were a lot of mafan (a bother, nuisance, trouble), but only tonight did I cut the string from which they were hanging, and only because I needed to get into a cabinet and the string tied the handles together.

Every day, for the past week, I have contorted my body, ducking under the string, walking in the narrow path along my bed, opening my door, closing it, wiggling behind the lanterns and into my bathroom.

It is an interruption.

But each time, it reminds me of friends who love me enough to prank me. To disrupt my life, my routine (be it at 11:45 at night when I had to wake up at 5:00 the next morning for work).


Xu Bing’s work sheds light on cultural understanding by disrupting the foreign and making it more accessible than one would ever imagine. It invites the viewer to “pause to think about how we are creating the culture in which we live through our small, daily interactions—our words, glances, and actions.”



Sometimes an interruption is art for art’s sake.

          Lanterns in a bedroom
          A maze on a floor
          A brick wall in a hallway

But sometimes it’s a divine intervention.

An invitation to something better, if you can just get past the routine and see what else waits for you.

It can be a catalyst for reflecting on relationships, allow you to see what you truly value, and ask you to make space for something different, something new, something that is just waiting for you to open your heart and allow it to enter.


                    But first comes the disruption.




_

Author's Note: As I wrote this post, I was in shock over the recent news that my downstairs neighbors, a family with which I spend Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, and Sunday Night Dinner, would be moving to a sister-school in another city in China. While I was grieving the upcoming loss, and its interruption to plans for my future and theirs, our school experienced a greater interruption that no one could anticipate. On Friday, March 25, during Parent/Teacher conferences, a 5th grade student was playing near his house and had a tragic accident. The injuries from his fall were unsurvivable. He was taken to the local hospital, then medi-evaced to Hong Kong, but the doctors in Hong Kong pronounced him dead on Tuesday, March 29. He was the son of a high school teacher, the younger brother of a middle school student, the older brother of an elementary student, the son of the PTO president, the friend of the clubhouse kids who run around our apartment complexes, the classmate of the 5th graders, and the student of the elementary teachers. My student, for three years. I attended a two-week training with his family and other new staff prior to moving to China. Then on July 25, 2008, we met up in San Francisco and boarded the plane for our journey together to teaching abroad. He will forever be part of my story of teaching ARTabroad, but for now, our community weeps, wails, and draws near to support each other in this interruption.

Assignment: Find something that invites the public into a different route or routine, i.e., a pause in their typical everyday way of seeing and moving through space and time. Take a photo, sketch it, or make it visible. Create a story that contextualizes the everyday routine way of knowing and how the something that you found (or placed/did) in that everyday environment disrupts, challenges, or changes public action and knowledge.

References:
http://www.kimberlydark.com/activism_frame.html
Shirer, Priscilla (2010). Jonah: Navigating a Life Interrupted. Nashville: LifeWay Press.

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6: Critical Public Art Pedagogy

In 2005, I heard Jane Golden speak about the Mural Arts Program at the PAEA conference in State College. Having been to Philadelphia many times, I was familiar with some of the murals, particularly quick glances at the scenes along the side of the road while traveling down the Schuylkill Expressway. The mural making began in 1984 as an initiative to transform subversive street art into cross-cultural messages of hope. Twelve years later, that part of the Anti-Graffiti Network reorganized into the Mural Arts Program, supported by the Philadelphia Mural Arts Advocates.


The Mural Arts Program is about intentional, transformational public pedagogy displayed in more than 3,000 murals. Throughout the art-making process and through interacting with the complete work, the people of Philadelphia are empowered. The following is taken from the Mission page on their website.


________________________________________

Our Mission Statement
The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program unites artists and communities through a collaborative process, rooted in the traditions of mural-making, to create art that transforms public spaces and individual lives.
________________________________________

Our Golden Rule
When we create art with each other and for each other, the force of life can triumph.
________________________________________

Our Palette of Core Values

Art Ignites Change
Art heals, art unites, and art changes minds in a convincing fashion. Art drives the agenda. Great art is never silent, can't be ignored, and serves poorly the status quo.

Stories Must be Told
The sublime power of narrative drives our lives. Stories well told will shine transformative light into dark corners.

We Beats Me
It's simple. We work in conspiring teams whose goal is gestalt. Everything we do is by and for the community. There's no "I" in mural.

It Ain't About the Paint
What we do is deceptively complex. What drives us is the opportunity to help life triumph over the forces of despair. We just happen to be good at painting murals.

Make Promises and Keep Them
We're an ansty bunch, and proactively committed to the commitment to be proactive. When we walk into a room , we walk in ready to make great things happen. And when we say we will, we will.

Take Turns
There is no such thing as not my job. We expect to take on unexpected burdens when it's our turn to do so.

Think Deeply, Create Fearlessly
The surface is something to get beyond. And because we have each other's back, we go beyond in bold fashion.

Expect Permission / Ask Forgiveness
Bureaucracy has its place. Just not in our mindset.

The Biggest Risk May Be Not Taking It
Why look back on a life not lived? We see our chances and we take 'em.

Art Is An Economic Engine
This is not art for art's sake. Our institutional wisdom and intellectual property have value, add value, and are valuable. There's no shame in earning fair compensation for unique professional expertise.

Yo, This is Fun!
We're from Philly. We're for Philly. And we're having a hell of a good time.
________________________________________


The Mural Arts Program embodies many of the postmodern principles delineated in Gude’s articles. While some murals utilize appropriation, recontextualization, juxtaposition, and layering, they are all about Representin’ the people of Philadelphia through investigating community themes.


In a similar fashion, SPARC (The Social and Public Art Resource) began with a woman, some cans of paint, and a desire to break into the networks of gangs via their chosen art form—graffiti. According to Judith Francisco Baca, “I began working with gang members from different neighborhoods to establish networks between them to promote peaceful solutions to such conflicts. Redirecting gang members’ inclinations toward public expression via my own artistic training as a painter, we began painting murals as a way to create constructive cultural markers.”

The Great Wall of Los Angeles was the first project after the official establishment of the SPARC nonprofit organization. The Army Corps of Engineers asked SPARC to create a mural to line the flood control channel. The longest mural in the world, the project was completed over five summers. During the first summer, “80 youths referred by the criminal justice department, ten artists and five historians collaborated under the direction of Chicana artist Judith Francisco Baca to paint 1,000 feet of California history….”

In working with young elementary students, I would first connect students to the piece through the name. (They are familiar with a different Great Wall.) To explain mural, I would refer to a shopping district in town, Taidong, that is covered in murals. We would then discuss the length of the Great Wall, comparing it to our campus. Sheer size necessitates collaboration. We would talk about how many people were involved in making the wall. What are some of the good things that happen when so many people work together? Do you think there were any problems? What might have been a problem? How might they have worked through that problem?

Looking at sections of the wall, we would discuss the narrative through their observations and feelings. Older students (2nd grade and older) could work with a partner to make a sentence about their section(s) of the wall. Sentences could be strung together in chronological order and read as the class verbal companion to the wall. Ideally, students would be spending classroom time (in social studies or language arts) learning about the culture and history of Los Angeles.

To further connect to some of their lives, I would show images of Cheonggyecheon, a recently restored stream in the heart of Seoul. The canal, below street level, is now a park with some public art projects. We would also discuss a site outside the elementary building that could contain a short chalk mural. Rather than tell the life of a particular people-group or geographic location, we could tell the story of childhood. Even my prekindergarten students can understand a narrative from mommy’s tummy to their 4 and 5 year old bodies. To experience collaboration, we would divide the work up among pairs of students and literally chalk up our campus. (Two years ago, I did a simpler mural component. Students were free in content and lacked the depth of understanding of murals, but independently grouped together and took on some larger tasks.)

With upper elementary students, I would discuss The World Wall. We would look at metaphors in art as an extension of language arts learning of metaphors and similes (such as the picture book Owl Moon). Transferring emotions and ideas into the visual would be a challenge in abstract thinking. The students could look to the symbolism in the created panels for inspiration, along with the orientation and progression from individual to universal. For practicality, I would suggest making work on a small scale, then scanning and printing the works in a larger format for a whole-class display.

Though I do not teach high school students, I would love to use these works in a secondary setting. The World Wall would be an especially enriching experience for our expatriate students. After looking at the plans for the walls, and some of the completed panels, students might be asked:

          If The World Wall came to Qingdao, where would we display it?
          Pick one of the panels for The World Wall. Sketch your own answer to a world without fear.

In collaboration with the Model United Nations class, I would task students to envision their own “world without.” Art students could work as the clients for the MUN students, helping the MUN students by creating a visual representation for solutions to global problems: human rights violations, poverty, hunger, mistreatment of minority groups, AIDS/HIV, and other MUN topics. Completed artworks could be displayed at the MUNiSC conference, held every spring in Qingdao. The emphasis would be placed on making the possibilities visible, just as The World Wall makes peace visible. The show could be titled Envision the Change.

I would also like to engage high school students in a comparison of graffiti, street art, and mural programs such as SPARC and the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia. Some points to consider:

          Which do you find the most aesthetically appealing?
          Who created each piece?
          Who is the intended audience?
          What is the message?
          Which piece is most powerful/has the most impact on the community?
          What are the moral issues for each venue of communication
               (destruction of property v. bureaucratic censorship, etc.)?

Through creative thinking, we could find ways to create non-destructive (and administration-approved) “graffiti,” “street art,” and a semi-permanent or permanent mural on campus to test different spheres of influence.



Assignment: Continue to develop and use the glossary of contemporary art concepts and select a minimum of 3 concepts as the focus to discuss one or more of the “making visible” critical public pedagogy artworks and how you might introduce the artwork as critical public art pedagogy to your students. What would you have them learn or do with the work and in creating their own work? Brainstorm an art lesson, pedagogical approach, or curricular emphasis.

References:
www.muralarts.org
Gude, O. (2004). Postmodern principles: In search of a 21st century art education, Art Education, 57(1), 6-14.
Gude, O. (2007). Principles of possibility: Considerations for a 21st century art and culture curriculum, Art Education, 60(1), 6-17.
www.sparcmurals.org

Colors of Light: Mural Arts Program
The Great Wall of Los Angeles: SPARC Murals
Taidong: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/131692
Cheonggyecheon: NY Times

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