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When I was sitting in the ceramics classroom at an art center for children, one of the kids approached me and asked me what should he do for his hero’s journey project?  Instead of telling him what he should do.  I asked him who his hero was?  He then replied the comic book character “Iron Man.”  I then asked him what about Iron Man he found fascinating? He explained that he thought the man behind the suit was really smart to create a suit that was able to fly.  In response to his answer, I then asked him how could he incorporate the Iron Man in his project?  The youngster then explained that he could make a plated surface out of the vessel.  After the student found a vision, of what he wanted his project to be, I began to think about the experience that Esiner wrote about in his book.  In his text he stated that art was an experience of all the senses, a conscious experience.  Nao even wrote about consciousness and experience.  From this, I thought about mental contact, in relation to experience that we encounter from within and out and that is my hero.

              In response to this idea about contact experience, I created a vessel symbolizing the mind of the teacher and the paints symbolizes the student.  In this piece I had many people paint their mark on the teacher vessel, to symbolize the conscious changes that occur to an instructor when they become a listener instead of a full fledged instructor.  This progressive idea has it’s roots in the progressive movement.  Educators like John Dewey, Fraision Shaw and Florence Cane, embraced this model and this emphasis on contacting the students by listening to their individual needs. It was Shaw’s contact by listening to  what the student had to say and what they were doing that led to finger painting in the classroom and it was Cane’s contact by listening to the individual students needs that led to the development of art therapy.  Their careers as educators were successful because of such experiences of contact.  The teacher’s position was redefined as not just teacher but as student interwoven into one entity.

              We find the experience or the experience finds us, and this was something observed by the wonderful instructor at the art center, and something experienced by myself.  The vessel mind of the teacher was able to change for the better by encountering various contacts in the surrounding environment, and it should be able to continue to change with new contacts in new settings. In the words of Joe Kincheloe, “Humans, Brigham maintains, are not isolated agents in their efforts to acquire knowledge—they must receive help from others to engage in learning  (Kincheloe, Joe. Critical Pedagogy, Second Edition, New York, Peter Lang,37).  And in order to do that a teacher has to make contact by listening and witness for themselves the transformations that can occur within themselves and others and a teacher’s ability to make reach out to students and provide them with assistance to reach their vision is my hero.

Kincheloe, Joe. (2003) Critical Pedagogy, Second Edition, New York, Peter Lang,37

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Glaciers are large forms of ice the size of mountains and these large masses of ice, reshape the land they encounter. New glaciers are like new models of education, shifting and reshaping the mental landscape of the mind.   There are limitless possibilities for how big glaciers can grow, and there are limitless possibilities to changes that can occur to the mental landscape.  The integration of Holistic education combined with postmodernist research methods could create one of the many shifts that could usher in a conscious change in the hearts and minds of students and teachers alike.

 Throughout many of my classes and this class, my mind encountered many holistic glaciers and from these ice masses, they have led me to believe that progressive opposed to essentialist education is the way to push our world, our society and many others forward.  Throughout my life I had essentialist education, and as a result, I became very much a conformer to whatever rule or structure that was thrown at me and it was not surprising to learn from Arthor D. Efland that essentialist education was originally created to control behavior, gearing it for industrialized society (Efland, 1990).  Holistic existential education is everything but essentialist.  According to Lowenfeld, and more recent Seymour Simmons, existentialist education involves, a teacher’s sensitivity to the child’s feelings, the individual students intelligences, their relation to their communities, etc.  With this sort of education the child can express their own originality, their own expressions, and their own personalized autonomy.  This would be the glacier that alters the mental land so it can flourish and change. 

The second glacier that altered my mental landscape was the postmodern research method.  This method  can usher in a very innovative change in education, and this  was realization was encountered by taking part in the meta-cognitive inquiry project.  Postmodernist research method according to Sullivan, goes beyond the generalization of inductive, reductive reasoning of science.  It incorporates the questioning of society, and deconstructing it through the critical theory push.  This research considers various aspects of the research of the artist or student.  It attempts to consider the different creative processes of individuals and how they are affected by culture, Geographic’s and, politics, through creative art project making (Sullivan, 47).  I had the privilege of participating in such a research project, aside from learning that science is not absolute, what was revealed was a mental universe in myself that was influenced by different hegemonic forces from various realms of my culture.  From this, I acquired a deeper understanding of the network relationships in myself.  I also learned the networking relationships I had with everyone else in my culture and with other cultures.  Most importantly, I also learned that all my art processes of art making are naturally guided by a question, which is where critical theory comes into play.  Postmodern push research through creative projects would be the largest glacier that could redefine us as human beings, and transform our flat landscape of  research via scientific generalization, into a land of curves with a multiplicity of perspectives  and dimensions . 

My landscape was once flat and through encountering the value of holistic education, and postmodern research, these glaciers has created curves on my mental landscape.  I feel each bar of the internal prison disappear, and the more I encounter these innovative concepts, the more I know who I am, and what I need to do to help progress others so they could reach their own inner freedom.   I have consciously moved forward as a result of these encounters, and so maybe the world’s landscape in a wider sense could change with these new glaciers of education through me and through the other amazing teachers being creating here by amazing progressive educators at the University of Cincinnati DAAP and the University of Indiana State. 

     Seymour Simmons III: (2006). Visual Arts Research, Living the Questions: Existential Intelligence in the Context of Holistic Art Education Vol. 32, No. 1(62), p. 41-52

  Efland, A. (1990). Art Education: Intellectual and Social Currents in Teaching the Visual Arts, New York, Columbia University, Teachers College Press. P 190-200.

  Sullivan, G. (2010). Art practice as research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Part 3 & 4.

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These are part of the CAT center portfolio.

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These projects are different and inspiring and wouldn't have been possible with out giving the creators freedom to express themselves.  Like many of the progressive educators, I believe to much instruction inhibits creativity.  Imagine what would have  happened to these pieces if students were forced to create them.

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The wishing tree of knowledge.  What is your wish for an ideal school?

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For hours my eyes stared at this chalk drawing created in an Saturday art class. This picture is the closest thing to capturing the universe of all the children's imagination exposed on one sheet of paper.  My compliments  to the instructors for encouraging such a noble collaboration. 

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Beyond Method

There are obvious similarities in the way humans are shaped in part by their  neural architecture and their interactions in social cultural settings.  But to focus on causes seems unnecessarily reductive when the more interesting question center on the kind of decision people and cultures make that lead them to do the things they do ( Sullivan,  47).

  Each mind  should be treated as a miniature universe complete with its own planets with it's own planetary structures because each planet is diverse in so many ways. Until we integrate cross-cultural comparison; the individual and the general, creative arts, emotion and self, we will remain as the Mars planet.   

Through the postmodernist push, however;  in methodological research perhaps we will be able to capture images of the mental universe like the Hubble telescope.

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I see an eye in this photograph, what do you see? and what do you feel?  What do you hear? What do you smell? 

Art is very much a life style in which  extends itself outside of the classroom. It involves not just the visual, but the entire somatic system.  Synesthesia is when the senses over lap each other- bringing forth multiple sensations in different sensory systems that occur simultaneously.  From this photograph, the visual is recognized, as well as the underlining sensations from the image throughout the body and mind.     

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Erid Zimmerman

"The notion of play, that incorporates participants  being willing to fail and try again as a means of solving problems,  can result in their minds being freed through play to function creatively"  Zimmerman and Salen...

By the way, that is Zimmerman in the middle.....

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Interesting suggestion from an actual scholar.

"It would be interesting to try  critiques in which instructors made their own versions of students  works since that is the analogue to the maestro humming or playing his own version of what the student had just played (187)."  James Elkins

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Comment from Clarence

I have become stark mute while observing these pictures below.  Perhaps this has to do with my worry about the future of this planet.

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The grass figures remind me  of the ash burned victims of Pompeii.  

Human like sculptures made of grass by Mathilde Rousell. 

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Definitely a metaphor for the current system of society.  

brilliant. why didn’t I think of this?!

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Taking Angelou's quote one step further

In relating to the most recent reading,  I like to take  Angelou's quote one step further : "How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our effeminate and masculine qualities in our own minds."  

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Quote by World renown poet and novelist, Maya Angelou

“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!”  ― Maya Angelou

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reflection 4, by Clarence

  The ideology that touches me the most is Seymour Simmons idea of bringing forth an existential approach with pedagogy. 

  On page 50, there was a quote pertaining to inquiry, based lessons around questions: Inquiry based lessons around existential questions explicitly involve multiple intelligences. They will obviously engage existential intelligence as students thoughtfully pursue the object of concern, while intrapersonal intelligence will come into play as students reflect on the personal significance combined with logical and linguistic intelligences will enter in as teacher and students pose questions to prompt deeper reflections.  Finally, spatial intelligence along with several others will required for creative art projects (50).”   I feel strongly that asking deep questions such as “Who are you?” “Where do you come from?” and “Where do you want to go in life?” invoke power emotions and invoke an understanding of one self.   After reading this I thought about teachers who’ve asked the forbidden questions such as Socrates.  When the author was talking about Socrates I couldn’t help thinking about a quote once said by him who in my opinion was a devote existentialist who blended it with his teaching: “  I cannot teach anybody anything. I could only make them think.” The way the greatest teacher who ever lived made people think was saying meaningful things like this: The unexamined life is not worth living.” After when Socrates was murdered, his memory lived on in the new progressive movement in the minds of Plato, and Aristotle, who both channeled ideas given by Socrates, laying  the foundation for education 2400 years ago.   Simmons picked a perfect example for her paper promoting existentialist intelligence, because it truly transforms  experience and the knowing of who you are and where you come from as a student and as a teacher. 

                        As for my personal experience with learning through existentialism, knowledge about myself in relation with my surrounding environment and within, my insights continues to expand even with pain. For example, for a short while, I have been some what chastised by those of the insecure realm who claim to do that for good reasons, and it is by my own internal and external examination of myself along with their intentions, I have concluded the following quote by existentialist describing the falsehoods of people: “From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.”  I often learn from those teacher’s who are truly existentialists, and because of them, I have a stronger sense of who I am, my professionalism, my imagination, my will to with stand even the most bombastic of entities.  The more I’m confronted by people proclaiming what norm is, the more I internally question it and transcend the mediocre minded.  After reading the article and hearing about Socrates, I truly understand what Christ said while he was being crucified: “for give them father, for they do not know what they do.”  Existentialism is truly a wonderful thing to fuse with education, and the inner growth that could come from that is limitless.   It provides a means of knowing what we do, and why we do it. 

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Nature and Art Connection

I believe that art has the ability to not just connect children and nature, but all of mankind, and I have history on my side to back me up.  If one looks back in ancient art history one will see that many of the artists were inspired by their surrounding natural environments.  The ancient Greeks for example, were inspired by the human form, which to them embodied beauty and perfection. Also like the Greeks, all ancient cultures all over the world, created gods from the natural forces of nature and thus influenced their ideas on what art was.    Since the ancient cultures, the contemporary ones of today continue to find new ways to connect with nature and not just artists, but scientists, zoologists, biologists, so on, and so forth. Furthermore, there are global art movements appearing everywhere inspired by nature, such as the Zeitgeist movement. Nature has the ability to bring people together and create unity through the arts.  If nature didn't exist then art would not exist and there would be no way to connect with anything.  As a teacher, it would be absolutely fundamental to use the beauty of nature as a means to promote children's innate artistic creativity and promote an awareness to help the world.