Renee's Practicum

It’s an old-fashioned term, I know, often tossed to the side with the idea of connoisseurship, yet I understand and teach art history as an approach to the aesthetic.  Here I am appropriating French philosopher Jacques Rancière’s definition of the aesthetic as the “ability to think contradiction.”  Each day I ask my students to look for, and think in, contradiction. 

On the first day of class, my students look at an unfamiliar, abstract work of art and describe what they see, first in writing, then in pairs, and finally as a class.  Throughout the process, students aren’t shocked to discover that others see the work differently, but they are often surprised that we cannot come to a class consensus.

Immediately, students begin to recognize that active participants in the classroom (and in visual culture at large) can understand art objects differently and oftentimes come to multiple, equally correct interpretations of the same work.  I develop lessons that challenge students to accept this important premise and then manage these multiple understandings.  These lessons range from simple call and answer strategies during a lecture to jigsaw lessons that ask students to move in groups to assess both primary source readings and art objects, often requiring them to negotiate evolving and shifting interpretations without my guidance or mediation.  Often, these group lessons end in students accepting ideas they first perceived as radical or implausible as equally valid and valuable.

Of course, in asking students to make meaning of art objects, I am often asking them to grapple with what they perceive as the ineffable, the essence of a work of art.  Students may be uncomfortable with this at first, and many have expressed the belief that they cannot be wrong in their own interpretations.  This seeming contradiction, that there may be diverse understandings of problems, questions, and objects and that some may simply be wrong, challenges us to create a classroom environment where students are unafraid to be vulnerable and take risks in making meaning.  Together, we wrestle with the nuances and codes of the discipline of art history and discover how we can come to best understand these conventions together.  Recently, I have asked students to consider this concept in relation to public art in New York City, completing projects on specific objects near their homes or school.  After observing the work on several occasions, students then compile a written response of how people interacted with the work, its history and purpose, ultimately considering the nature of art in our daily lives.

As a specialist in Pre-Columbian art, I have found myself limited by the need to cram thousands of years of distinct and varied histories into a short amount of class time.  This is particularly true in art history survey classrooms that tend to focus on the history of western art.  It can be frustrating to engage with a canon, and an evolving discipline, which seeks to include what has traditionally been excluded but has not yet learned to do so effectively.  In an effort to best serve my students and my own field, I experiment with fitting non-western art into our linear timeline, at times asking students to use primary sources to better understand unfamiliar works of art.  While I maintain an attachment to the conventional art historical narrative in my survey classroom, I recognize that art of the non-west requires us to step outside of that construct, and we, as a discipline, are still struggling with the best way to do so.

My students regularly discover new and exciting ways to understand the discipline of art history, play with images that I have seen for many years, and break away from the traditions and conventions that bind us as a field.  As they leave my classroom bombarded by the visual culture of everyday life, I hope they take away a skill set that allows them not just to think in contradiction but to see in contradiction as well.

The Personal is Pedagogical

Yesterday night, I went to the Creative Time "Eroticism of Pedagogy" event I sent around. 

The first work was an artist and an artist curator reading a series of essays written from their curatorial studies students addressing the subject, specifically in relation to, obviously, curating, which is not as frequently addressed as another means of educating as one would wish.  I was interested in the notion of how challenging it is to address such a wide audience with such varied levels of education, and to have to do so with so few words.  As museum exhibits become wordier we can see that curators are wrestling with this issue on a level that they haven't in the past.
And, anyhow, anything that ends with a break up letter addressed "Dear Post-Colonial Theory," has to be a winner.

The final piece of the night was the only one in the female voice (I guess in a series called "Exhibiting the Voice" women's voices would naturally be underrepresented?) And, finally, she was the only artist who directly addressed the problems of teaching.  Stark confronted the lecture format directly, telling a story about attending an art opening and happening on a group of artists, women, one of whom was a very famous contemporary artist, discussing how they never felt comfortable taking on the (perceived) maleness of the lecture format.  Here they were, all of them famous artists, solo shows, lots of press, uncomfortable with this notion and unsure what to do with it.  Many of them were so put off by it that they regularly went in with their resignation letters, only to be unable to turn them in.
She read from a couple of letters and essays, one of which riffed on/responded to the Steiner question about the problem with education with "the problem with education is, well, teaching people."
Stark really captured the occasional(?) imposter syndrome of standing up in front of classroom (with, in her case, a degree she feels she bought) trying to sell (or teach) students a series of information, a skill set, a set of practices.  "I teach drawing and painting," she said "but I can't draw or paint."
Where does the authority to teach come from?  How do we address the days (or weeks or months or years) where we feel that authority is lacking?  Is it somehow intellectual capability or actual power or pedagogical aptitude?  And how do we create communities open for these discussions?

I walked away from the night very interested in how all but one artist was unable to work in the erotic in any way -- or were they all working it in in every way?  Of course, the erotic doesn't have to be about the (insert euphemistic tone here) erotic, but taking it on the most essential level it is frequently about the body.
As I was sitting in my classroom the other day, I became painfully aware of my body, very insecure about the gaze of my students, thinking I should cover my tattoos, remove a few piercings, generally look like a more normal and somehow less deviant individual.  There's always a moment of disconnect for me when I become aware of my body in front of a classroom, discussing the male gaze (or in the case of Mary Cassat's Woman at the Opera, us looking at her looking.)
I told a couple friends once about how this time a student asked me to take him to see Run, Fat Boy, Run (the whole reversal of this cracks me up) and my friend said "Well, what were you wearing?"

I was wearing a female body, of course.

I can't check my body at the door -- and I like that Creative Time even addressed that.

As I read Gee's piece, I desperately wanted to situate him in a larger discourse about this topic.  I realized early on that there isn't much discourse on video games and learning, and that, in fact, it's more of a monologue.  When I finished and Googled everything I could think of involving James Gee, including "James Gee" and "critique" virtually everything I came up with was written by Gee himself.  Could he be that right?

And I began to realize that's what irked me about this piece.  Gee is making this monolithic, driving argument about the value of interactive, active learning in opposition to his idea of passive learning.  While I agreed with many of the ideas in it, really, I did, I chafed at his tone despite the strong desire going in to really love his work.  As someone for whom school worked, and who has played lots of video games for a really long time, the connection seemed rather lost on me in a lot of ways.  I always liked video games because they were different from school -- would I still want to play them if the activities were similar, even at the level I am at now?  And can't we take the same principles away from Battleship or Boggle on some level?   

Setting that aside, I was troubled by his initial premise that "Lots of young people pay lots of money to engage in an activity that is long, hard, and complex."  Sure, lots of them do.  But I'd like to see some statistical breakdown of the number of people out there gaming, something that includes class status, racial/ethnic breakdown, and at least some mention of gender.  Who prefers what kinds of games?  Does that even matter?  And why is this man lumping children's games together with games that are intended for young adults and up?
More importantly, what about the kids who don't spend a lot of time and money playing video games?   Why aren't they?  That must mean that something, somewhere in those games doesn't appeal to them.  So, what do we do with them when implementing these strategies? Should we assume that there is a reason beyond sheer economics that they aren't playing these games?
Okay, this article just a cursory summary of what I am sure are greater findings and analysis where I can assume he put that information, I hope.

I also want to interrogate his notion of creating identity -- his idea that we, as educators, need to create both high buy-in and easy entry into our fields (both of which create very different experiences and classrooms), allowing our students to create an identity as, well, what I wasn't sure.  He was arguing, I think, for an identity as something very specific, like my students should identify as art historians and create a strong commitment/attachment to that identity.   Sometimes, though, when approaching my class I feel as if the buy-in needs to start lower; my students need to create an identity as a student first and foremost.  Many many students in classrooms have such severe imposter syndrome that inhibits them from ever feeling fully engaged.  I know, I know, that's his point.  I just don't know what to do with it.

Finally, I was troubled by the equation of a capitalist marketing tool, video games, with education.  I want to hire the awesome graphic designers for my class too.  I am oversimplifying, obviously.  Obviously.  But this notion of taking something that sells, is created to be marketed and sold, and thinking that the ideas are somehow applicable to the classroom, which to me is something we should strive for equal access to, is problematic.  Video games appeal to us because they are sold to us, not only because of the strategies that are used in them.  Your desires aren't your desires and all anarchist manifesto stuff.

I often feel like I walk into my own streak of educational conservatism when faced with premises like Gee's.  We are just waiting for technology to be the answer (even theoretically) -- and maybe it isn't.

Teaching Statement, one more time!

I understand and teach art history as an approach to the aesthetic.  It’s an old-fashioned term, I know, often tossed to the side with the idea of connoisseurship.  Here I am appropriating French philosopher Jacques Rancière’s definition of the aesthetic as the “ability to think contradiction.”  Each day I ask my students to look for, and think in, contradictions.  Students become active lookers and participants in the discipline of art history as soon as they enter my classroom, using the power of their gaze to stare down objects and develop challenging, sometimes contradictory, interpretations.

Immediately, students are made aware that active participants in the classroom (and in visual culture at large) can understand art objects differently and oftentimes come to multiple, equally correct interpretations of the same work.  I develop lessons that challenge students to accept this important premise and then manage these multiple understandings.  These lessons range from simple call and answer strategies during a lecture to jigsaw lessons that ask students to move in groups to assess both primary source readings and art objects, often requiring them to manage evolving and shifting interpretations without my guidance or mediation.  Often, these group lessons end in students accepting ideas they first perceived as radical or implausible as equally valid and valuable.

Of course, in asking students to make meaning of art objects, I am often asking them to grapple with what they perceive as the ineffable, the essence of a work of art.  Students may be uncomfortable with this at first, and many have expressed the belief that they cannot be wrong in their own interpretations.  This dichotomy, that there may be diverse understandings of problems, questions, and objects and that some may simply be wrong, challenges us to create a classroom environment where students are unafraid to be vulnerable and take risks in making meaning.  Together, we wrestle with the nuances of the discipline of art history, discuss the ways in which information has been traditionally conveyed visually, and how we can come to best understand these conventions.  Recently, I have asked students to consider this concept in relation to public art in New York City, completing projects on specific objects near their homes or school and considering the nature of art in our daily lives.

As a specialist in Pre-Columbian art, I have found myself limited by the need to cram thousands of years of distinct and varied histories into a short amount of class time.  This is particularly true in art history survey classrooms that tend to focus on the history of western art.  It can be frustrating to engage with a canon, and an evolving discipline, that seeks to include what has traditionally been excluded but has not yet learned to do so effectively.   In an effort to best serve my students, and my own field, I radically engage with and shift traditional pedagogical practices, particularly when teaching beyond the West.  While I maintain an attachment to the conventional art historical narrative in my survey classroom, I recognize that art of the non-west requires us to step outside of that construct, and we, as a discipline, are still struggling with the best way to do so.

In each and every class my students offer me new and exciting ways to understand the discipline of art history, to play with images that I have seen for many years, and to break away from the traditions and conventions that bind us as a field.  As they leave my classroom bombarded by the visual culture of everyday life, I hope they take away a skill set that allows them not just to think in contradiction but to see in contradiction as well.

Today was a particularly frustrating class for me.  First of all, my attendance is down the toilet.  My past 3 classes have has 12-17 students in attendance -- today it was so bad that one of the students even noticed.  Also, many students have missed several classes (we only meet once per week) and I only signed 1 withdrawal card last week.
The students who come to class are particularly resistant.  For example, today I had a group activity planned that involved (hypothetically) students breaking into 5 groups of 5 (of course, there were only 15 students there) and writing up a slide discussion, switching groups and going over it, then regrouping as a class.  The students acted as if they were just so perplexed by this whole activity, none of them remembered the image (even though it was the Merode Altarpiece, to which Belle can attest we spent half a class discussing), and they just kept complaining about how much work it was.  I was not in a good zone today and wasn't really prepared for this level of resistance.
I abandoned the second half of the activity and we did it as a class, which was fine, but I felt like they just wanted me to spoonfeed them some material and call it a day.  I forgot my spoons at home, so I just couldn't do it.
Plus, today was a surprise! observation from my department head, and I think my students felt just kind of agitated by it.  Or they read my agitation.  Either way, it made their resistance extra-special!
And...my final complaint of the day!  We're working on a group project, or should I say "working on a group project"?  Attendance is so bad that they can't get anything done in class.  The students who are there are resentful.  I am resentful.  I can't communicate with the class as a whole since they pick and choose when to come; I can't get any of this across to them.
Overall, I am just really frustrated and I don't know when this all happened.  Attendance was all right until about 3 weeks ago and then it's been all downhill since then.

I have a couple of things going on right now in terms of planning for the rest of the semester.  First, of course, I am trying to determine how many times I can use the phrase "if it ain't Baroque, don't fix it" during the Baroque class on Wednesday.
Then, I am also trying to organize this whole group project assignment and I feel a little overwhelmed, like I should have written down what I said I was going to do when I decided it.  I also am having a hard time figuring out how many of the expectations we should set as a class and how many I should set.  I am alway apprehensive the first time I do an assignment.

Also, I have an extra class!  I sort of had some calendaring issues on my syllabus and this means I can teach a Pre-Columbian class, which I always love to do.  I am going to use this opportunity to test out a paper I had planned to present about using the primary source in the art history classroom and see how viable the idea of approaching a major idea through a very specific lens works out.  When I've taught non-western classes in the past, I've tried to cram everything into a really long and loaded lecture.   We'd start somewhere around 2500 BCE and power through to the 20th century (or 1600, depending on my mood.)
This time I want to use a 16th century source to look at and understand a few key pieces of art.  I'm curious to see how it goes.

I had my students draw this week, which I haven't done in the past.  I don't ask them to do it because my artistic skills are so tragic that I always think of the one kid it will alienate in the classroom rather than the 25 it will empower.
They had such great insights after sketching, so I may revisit this.

I felt really good about the class I had on Monday.  I was sort of moping about all weekend trying to think of an activity, especially after I gave them an assessment for the first hour.  I wanted them to do something where the students could interact and take part in presenting the information.

Because the Rome class involves discussing a transition from republican to imperial art (and government) I went over those ideas and then passed out images that represented either republican or imperial art and made them figure out what they got and why they thought that (I am sure this makes no sense right now, as describing classes never makes sense.)  Over the weekend, I had the aha moment of realizing possible the most disempowering thing in art history classes is that each student can't access the image on her own.  I mean, in English classes (correct me if I am wrong here) the instructor doesn't just put up text on a screen and say "Good luck!"
The students figured it out pretty well and then we moved on to a contemporary example of this (I used the Vietnam Wall as republican vs. the Lincoln Memorial as imperial -- see Sarah Vowell for irony) which they resisted a little, but it was the only moment of resistance.  I thought that wasn't bad considering the first hour was a exam.

I called on a student in class last week and she didn't answer.  Not like she said "I don't know" or looked at me blankly.  She just sat looking straight ahead not acknowledging me.  I felt like I was in some sort of Ghandian workshop on non-confrontational resistance, just misapplied.  I have never had this happen before.  Usually there's some sort of exchange that lets me know that this just isn't the right moment for the student to answer a question.  I'm all for letting students pass on questions within reason, but I kept calling on her thinking she must have been asleep or listening to an iPod.  But she wasn't.
Finally I said "I don't know everything either" and someone else answered the question.  It was, of course, a really vocal student in the class (I was off my game -- I should have called on someone else) and I felt defeated caving to his aggressive participation.
All of this brought me back to the participation rubrics and how they seemed kind of crazy, but might prove a worthwhile exercise to determine my own values in the classroom.

Since we last met, I've been trying to sort out some things about class discussions and what makes them successful or unsuccessful.  I don't feel too much like defining success right now so feel free to use your imaginations.
I keep coming back to the set up of my classroom, which seems corny* (and ultimately the thing that has less to do with me than other possibilities I could look into) but I hate having a classroom set up in rows.  It's so limiting to the free flow of conversaton; I'd gladly have them move their desks  but then they won't all be able to see the slides.  They all are free to move around during group/paired/individual work and do so at will, but conversation just doesn't flow right when people have to swivel their heads to see others.  It's so much easier to text message!

Do you all have your classes in rows?  Does that work out okay for discussions?  And do any of you use alternative strategies to calling on people or having your students just speak?  I used to try a variety of strategies to moderate discussion, like having them call on each other, doing a round robin, and other things that were more student-directed but I've lost site of doing that lately.

*I didn't want to steal Nichole's thunder.