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4. Issues in Art Education...2

How do you grade creativity? 

This is a question I have pondered since my later years in highschool where there was much more freedom awarded with our assignments. Our teacher would demonstrate various techniques that artists throughout history have employed to teach us about the likes of watercolour painting, portraitism, abstractionism, etc. This set up enabled us to be assessed on smaller, less weighted assignments but also allowed us to show how we improved and how we could take what we learned and run with it by applying it to our own practice. 

They favoured practice and progress. 

In art and design education these two “p’s” need to have a higher place in the grading of students. They need to be considered before 

-the final product

-replication

-grasp (of material) 

Artists are not masters of every medium but students should get a “good grade” if they are able to demonstrate the two “p’s”. But even with this in mind, how is this graded? How have I been graded in any of my art classes? Is it taste? Is it mastery? What is it? How am I graded? 

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2. Issues in Art Education

How do you create a balance between process and result? 

Having been an art student all my life I have had many experiences with different educators and different teaching methods. Most of them chose to only look at the final result of my work, often sitting behind their desks barely acknowledging what we were doing until it came the day where we were to hand stuff in. 

In my final two years in highschool I switched schools and got to to experience art classes that stepped away from this. Each term we would spend focusing on one to two projects and within those larger projects we would have smaller assignments that served to teach us various techniques and about the process that we would then translate for our final assignment of that term which was often a freer work of our choosing. 

This is the type of education I value -- education that values the process as much, if not more than the result. But how is this achieved when grades are required? How do you grade process? 

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1: Finnigan

In post-secondary institutions it has often been heard that students feel like just another number amidst the masses, a feeling easily achieved when they are crowded into large lecture halls where a professor they can barely make out stands at the front. This type of education was developed to administer knowledge to military recruits. The recruits required this method of learning because it created a a singular brain. But a singular brain, a singular line of thought has no place in art and design education and this is what the Finnigan article shows.

Recognizing the failures of this method of education is but one step in changing the tide in educational teaching methods. In my experience emphasis on individualism, taking the time to allow the students to explore the assignments, to take risks and experiment without focusing on the end result. Projects that allow for students to push the boundaries, that require them to go beyond the subject matter of focus and make connections are detrimental to students being able to learn in a manner that is cohesive to their own learning.

But the individualism that needs to be afforded becomes increasingly difficult to achieve when the institutions themselves have shifted their focus away from the student experience. And in this case I think that perhaps the first step to making education more individual is to recognize the failure of the military method in the contemporary university setting.

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7: Reflection, round two

I have found myself arriving at dead-ends more and more these days. Each time I learn something new, stumble upon an event or a piece of knowledge that I had not previously acquired I find myself excited only to be disappointed a few moments later. I am disappointed because all this new knowledge does is prove to me that this world is riddled with difficulties and that there are no clear cut answers. Knowledge is both a gift and a burden, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

OCAD has taught me how to think, in a number of ways, and as a result I have gained precious knowledge that I will value for the rest of my life. But I only attained this knowledge because my professors for the most part were unique and approached their subjects in sometimes very untraditional ways. This idea has withered its way into my experience at the Art Gallery.

During our pedagogical workshops, Carrie demonstrated what we were to expect from our EO’s in the gallery. What we came to expect was the very thing I have come to expect from a number of my professors in their own classrooms. Whereas once at OCAD I played dodgeball with water balloons in a Cultural History Class, in the gallery I reacted to the art with my body, acting in the gallery in a manner I never had before, even after all the ones I’ve had the privilege of being in as a result of my major program. 

But learning about these teaching methods has resulted in a different type of roadblock than those I have previously encountered when it comes to putting to action that which I have observed. 

My first opportunity to assist left me with a lot to consider going into my next shift. While I would not consider my first tour a failure, I wouldn’t count it as a roaring success either. For my part of the tour I brought the group to Carl Beam’s mixed-media work on the second floor of the gallery in the AGO’s Canadian Collection. The tour’s focus was social justice, and this work addressed this in many ways but it also commented on themes that are at work in Canada, both historically and contemporarily. Like I had observed on my previous tours the group sat on the floor to get comfortable. I asked the group to observe the work, to identify what they could, and to try to identify what images might address themes of social justice. 

On reflection I think that although the questions weren’t either right or wrong to ask, I believe that after the first few questions were met with silence it would have been better, made more of the lasting impact, had I had a back-up plan in my pocket from my handbook. I think that when the students were asked to bring the art work back to school they were, in a way, transported back to the classroom when in reality the gallery should be more liberating than the classroom. Going forward I am going to go through the handbook to find a way in which to further engage students and to channel those methods of teaching that I have luckily been exposed to, and to not assume that everyone shares my same....enthusiasm (obsession) with art history and social justice going forward. I think I have to go back to the beginning once more.

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3: Exhibition

Exhibition: Power to the People

Location: Ryerson Image Centre 

Power to the People is a series of four exhibitions within the Ryerson Image Centre. The exhibitions series opens with a three-channel installation by Adam Pendelton which focuses upon David Hilliard, a key figure in the Black Panther Party, as well as revisiting the 1968 gun battle between California Police and the Party which draws upon eyewitness accounts to raise questions about an event that still reverberates today. It is this term alone, reverberates, that is ultimately the purpose of this exhibition series. 

Upon exiting the entrance hall of the Ryerson Image Centre, gallery-goers enter the main concourse of the gallery from which they can enter the multiple galleries that are located immediately off of it. It is from here that viewers can access both the central exhibition, “Attica, USA, 1971: Images and Sounds of a Rebellion,” and the more intimate but impactful, “Birmingham, Alabama, 1963.” 

Behind the architectural glass cube that marks the entrance to the largest of the Image Centre’s galleries, lies “Attica”. The first room that viewers enter into contains images and works that both represent and were created in response to the Vietnam War-- a war that was not well supported back on home soil. This room was dedicated to these works as a means by which to establish a larger political and social event that loomed over the moments of the Civil Rights Movement that are featured in these exhibitions. As viewers transition into the featured space they are initially introduced to a brief introduction to the Black Panther Party, its key figures, propaganda strategies and beliefs. The remainder of the exhibition’s walls are dedicated to images of the Rebellion, both during it and after it, and in both pure photographic form as well as as they were printed in publications at the time. What can perhaps be considered the most moving series of works within Attica is towards its end, in the images that show the unliveable prison and its scarce halls following the uprising. These images, originally captured by order of the government to capture the prison in a manner that would help them to maintain power over the true story of a rebellion, ended up only undermining their carefully detailed plan. 

On the opposite side of the concourse from “Attica” is “Birmingham”. “Birmingham” is located in the intimate University Gallery which is at the end of a short hallway bookended with glass doors. On either side of the hallway lies the wall vinyl labelling the exhibit as well as its central work, a series of diptychs by NY-based photographer, Dawoud Bey who sought to commemorate the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham in 1963. The gallery itself which is the only carpeted gallery in the Image Centre, with its light grey walls and dimmed lighting, gives an intimate air that seems aligned with the tragedy the images on its walls demand: pictures of MLK Jr, of the African-American community being subjected to watergunning by police, of young Sarah Jean Collins in LIFE magazine, a young girl whose own sister was one of the four girls killed in the bombing. All these images lead up to Dawoud Bey’s works that, in the end, reverberates the message of “Power to the People” in a manner that can only work to remind viewers of how little has changed between the times in which these events took place and the time in which they are being viewed now. 

The Ryerson Image Centre is extremely accessible in not only its layout but also in the way in which it is curated. The lighting as well as placement of frames on the walls makes the images accessible to all individuals as the way in which the lighting has been arranged ensures/limits the glare off of the glass of the frames. Initially walking through the galleries I felt that my experience was limited and that this exhibit was inaccessible to me because I had little to no understanding of these events, and very limited knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement beyond the basics we are exposed to in school. But when I came upon Dawoud Bey’s works it dawned on me that it was never intended for only viewers who knew what had happened. These galleries were not curated to be inaccessible. They were not curated to exclude. In fact it catered to those who didn’t. 

The exhibitions featured only black and white prints which are, in photography, more historical in look and feel, though they do have modern counterparts as well it should be acknowledged. The black and white film though works as the visible yet invisible barrier separating the moments depicted within the visual frame from those that we see now on our social media feeds and in the newspapers. It goes to show, as the exhibitions do, that the Civil Rights Movement is far from over and that white supremacy still exists though it exists in different forms, despite us wanting to believe otherwise. It breaks down the barrier between past and present that we have been content to hide behind and instead replaces it with a mirror that demands viewers to further consider whether or not these prejudices still remain and if they do, because they do, what are we going to do about it now that we can recognize it? 

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6: Reflection

Going into my internship I didn’t think that I would end up enjoying the ‘studio’ portion of the school visits nearly as much as I would enjoy the gallery tours. I’m happy to say that I am so very thankful that half/half visits exist because they go together as peanut butter and jam (though I don’t actually eat either). 

Having at this point had my first opportunity to assist on a gallery tour, but having also had countless opportunity’s to watch the EO’s do their thing both in the studio and on the gallery floor (we did end up sitting on it quite a bit), I still only have one visit in my mind that has really stood out from the rest. 

While all the EO’s have had their own spin on the group visits, it was during my second shift at the gallery that I really saw a group of students really embrace the project they were asked to complete, but also really optimize the short window of opportunity we had that day to visit the gallery. 

In my mind this particular visit was successful because of the following things: 

1. The teachers were really involved with their students and were excited for them to be engaged. They actively moved around and also actively removed any pressure from the students which helped them to be great and eager participants throughout. Also extremely kind and respectful. 

2. The EO explained the activity at the beginning and then let the students get from point A to point B in really any manner that they chose. They wrote the instructions (very simple, and could go any way the student chose) on the white board for reference and spent the rest of the time, with the interns, getting extra material, talking and engaging with the students, and supporting the process. 

3. The students were allowed to make their own connections and the EO assisted in helping them to link classroom learning with field trip learning which really saw a lot of lights go off, even in students that may have been flagged as reluctant at first. 

4. When we unexpectedly got to go into the gallery for a short bit at the end, the EO managed to squeeze in two works, with small activity’s that asked the students to connect what they had made with what was in the gallery but also with what they were learning back at school. The EO never talked down with them and didn’t let the silence last for long before looking for a new way to engage. 

5. Perhaps most importantly, the EO never imposed what they thought a work might have been about and let the students, who all had multiple and very different ideas, to create the narrative, which allowed for them to view them differently compared to if they had been told what it was about. 

... It may have also helped that they were in grade four and still wanted to listen. 

My first assist on a gallery tour was not quite what I expected, after having been hoping to channel the amazing work done by the EO as outlined above. I think I found myself asking too difficult of questions and leaving too much space and only engaging with the few students who wanted to participate. Going forward, based off of what I have seen in the gallery and what I know I want to do as an intern, I think I will be looking for ways to engage a wider audience, whether thats through more active and fun small group activities, or something else, I’m hoping to strike a better balance next time round. 

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5: Pedagogical Workshops

Despite being quite literally attached to the Art Gallery of Ontario for the past three years I have been a student at OCAD I never found myself fully using to my advantage this unique proximity, and it is perhaps this proximity and the chance to fully utilize it that most intrigued me about this course. The pedagogical workshops that we went through with Carrie opened up my eyes to not only the function that the AGO has beyond offering a place to display and view art but the function that it has when it comes to creating a community and perhaps even more than this: the function that it has when it offers this community an opportunity to consider the world in a different way. In my mind the gallery, the AGO, is like the hallway Alice first encounters when she falls down the Rabbit Hole into Wonderland. It’s a hallway with many doors that are not quite clear and do not entice everyone, and it lacks clear instructions on just what it is you are supposed to do when you are there, yet you leave just as Alice did, seeing things just a little different than you did before you entered its doors. 

While the workshops themselves exposed us to many ways to approach art education, in particularly in the gallery setting, the thing that I took away from them most was understanding the ways in which the tools used to approach art education are really quite universal in the world of education. When we had the opportunity on multiple occasions to go into the gallery and do parts of our workshops I really saw how offering students the opportunity to use their own unique set of knowledge to discuss a work offered students more opportunities to engage with the works as opposed to if they were asked to sit before them and then be simply told by the instructor just what it is they are expected to gain from seeing it. 

For instance, when we sat in front of the Munk piece on the second floor and went through the exercise aimed at students in high school I found myself wondering why these methods of teaching are not applied on a wider scale in both the high school environment and beyond? 

The pedagogical workshops offered me the opportunity to reflect on my own art education and the areas in which it has lacked. These activities made me see that students often gain more from a class, or a workshop, when they are allowed to bring their own experience with them because in allowing them to do this they are making your lesson applicable to them, but in allowing this to happen, you as an educator are also ensuring that your primary aim, your primary teaching goal, is more likely to be received by a wider audience than just a select few, which in my opinion should always be the goal.