As someone who spent nearly 40 years as an art educator, and a consultant on interdisciplinary curriculum design, this feels very familiar. One hopes that artists will bring a more creative approach to education and what that means, but in point of fact, curators and museum people are not invested in education, no matter what their mission statements say. Museums typically are invested in fostering the culture of connoisseurship that underlies their existence. Mobs of schoolchildren, trailing a docent through a museum, is all too familiar a sight. The divide between seeing/appreciating art and making it seems to widen. like you, I wanted to believe that a more progressive future lay ahead. I discovered some years ago, when colleagues had a chance to radically reconsider the curriculum, they chose instead to retreat to a “traditional” model, arguing it would be “understood” better by potential students. in other words, teach as we were taught. The road to other solutions to education seems to get longer and wider each day.
What a frustrating experience you had, I hope this is not symptomatic of these kinds of environments. As I read your article, I also reflected on my teaching practice and what I sense currently passes for education in our cultural institutions.
How does an educator know the public/students have learned something? In my classroom students explain their understanding of the subject or process in their own words. They ask questions, make connections and recreate new information. In conversation, they justify their decisions or explain their thinking. Depending on time, they talk to one another or produce something with this learned knowledge. And finally, they reflect, offering analogies, revisions, and rethinking. If there is a deliverable, they adjust or edit their material.
These methods afford the instructor the knowledge that the material and its learning objectives are being met and understood. There is rigor to all this, as it's not a Ted-Talk or a one-sided PowerPoint presentation. After I teach a lesson, there is also reflection and self-assessment. Did I do what I set out to do? Were my methods, approaches, interpretation, pacing, and language clear, and if not, where could I improve delivery? If that's not enough, I can also torture myself with rubrics.
I like to think that what goes on in some of the curated exhibitions I've recently visited is education lite, closer to edutainment, or hybrid infotainment, as there are many constituencies, interests, and attention spans that contemporary art curation seems to and wants to appeal to. Those that seek knowledge in such environments will actively participate and engage with panels, symposiums, lectures, studio visits, etc. They understand that knowledge is an investment in time and effort and that there is learning reciprocity between the instructor and the student. How we've arrived at countless wall texts explaining artistic intention on every work of art is another story. I wonder, can there be a learning objective when ushering a cattle call of humanity through endless exhibition halls?
As someone who spent nearly 40 years as an art educator, and a consultant on interdisciplinary curriculum design, this feels very familiar. One hopes that artists will bring a more creative approach to education and what that means, but in point of fact, curators and museum people are not invested in education, no matter what their mission statements say. Museums typically are invested in fostering the culture of connoisseurship that underlies their existence. Mobs of schoolchildren, trailing a docent through a museum, is all too familiar a sight. The divide between seeing/appreciating art and making it seems to widen. like you, I wanted to believe that a more progressive future lay ahead. I discovered some years ago, when colleagues had a chance to radically reconsider the curriculum, they chose instead to retreat to a “traditional” model, arguing it would be “understood” better by potential students. in other words, teach as we were taught. The road to other solutions to education seems to get longer and wider each day.
What a frustrating experience you had, I hope this is not symptomatic of these kinds of environments. As I read your article, I also reflected on my teaching practice and what I sense currently passes for education in our cultural institutions.
How does an educator know the public/students have learned something? In my classroom students explain their understanding of the subject or process in their own words. They ask questions, make connections and recreate new information. In conversation, they justify their decisions or explain their thinking. Depending on time, they talk to one another or produce something with this learned knowledge. And finally, they reflect, offering analogies, revisions, and rethinking. If there is a deliverable, they adjust or edit their material.
These methods afford the instructor the knowledge that the material and its learning objectives are being met and understood. There is rigor to all this, as it's not a Ted-Talk or a one-sided PowerPoint presentation. After I teach a lesson, there is also reflection and self-assessment. Did I do what I set out to do? Were my methods, approaches, interpretation, pacing, and language clear, and if not, where could I improve delivery? If that's not enough, I can also torture myself with rubrics.
I like to think that what goes on in some of the curated exhibitions I've recently visited is education lite, closer to edutainment, or hybrid infotainment, as there are many constituencies, interests, and attention spans that contemporary art curation seems to and wants to appeal to. Those that seek knowledge in such environments will actively participate and engage with panels, symposiums, lectures, studio visits, etc. They understand that knowledge is an investment in time and effort and that there is learning reciprocity between the instructor and the student. How we've arrived at countless wall texts explaining artistic intention on every work of art is another story. I wonder, can there be a learning objective when ushering a cattle call of humanity through endless exhibition halls?