I apologize in advance for
the length. I was going to tease out a
short-attention-span version from the full I-like-the-sound-of-my-voice
version, but I don’t have that time. Most
blog-advice columns tell you to keep it short and sweet. Alas, I like to read my own words, so I think
it’s all pretty interesting. I hope I’m
not the only one. I don’t think I’m
soap-boxing, but I do have a genetic propensity for it. If you have a short attention span, I included
section breaks in case you want to skip ahead.
What Is Art? – Part I, The Setup
There is a famous line from a
Supreme Court ruling regarding obscenity.
It goes something like this (I’ll paraphrase):
“I won’t try to
define it and maybe I never could, but I know it when I see it.”
Is art any different from
obscenity in this regard? Like many of
the untrained masses, I appreciate traditional art as art but there are some
ridiculous examples of squiggles and paint splotches that look more like the “artist”
had a drug-induced tantrum and, by random happenstance, splattered a piece of canvas
a few times as he hurled objects around the studio. Stand beside an aficionado, however, and you are
like to hear an enraptured treatise on the bold statement the artist made in
his unwillingness to conform to the establishment. The same could be said for the family dog dry-humping
a seat cushion, but who am I to judge?
In some of these cases, the
artiste, or maybe the entire snooty art establishment, is having a laugh at our
expense. Either maybe they’ve simply cloistered
themselves within their own rarefied circles for so long, exchanging the same
stale air, that they now exist in some Michael Jacksonian bubble-world
completely cut off from the reality the rest of us occupy.
I submit into evidence Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, which is currently taking up wall space in Russia’s State Tretyakov Gallery, a prominent art house in Moscow.
This is widely regarded as
one of the most famous pieces of Russian artwork. I kid you not. It has been exhibited at The Hermitage, one
of the greatest repositories of artwork on the planet. Tell me, what statement does Black Square make? What innovative new movement does it
represent? I can buy fifty sheets of
black construction paper at the local office supply store for a couple bucks
and I’d be hard-pressed to find any significant differences. But, again, who am I to judge?
So why did I choose this
subject for today? My oldest son has
been introduced to blogging this year in 5th grade language arts. There is a current movement in education that
has swept the United States the last few years to replace the ill-conceived No
Child Left Behind program. It is
referred to as the Common Core and affects curricula from primary school
through undergraduate degree programs.
Common Core Education
One aspect of the Common Core
is a heavy emphasis on depth of understanding in reading/language arts. When most of us were in school, we were expected
to simply recall and retell events in a book to show “mastery” in book reports
or on tests. More recently, students
have been encouraged to connect experiences on the page to their own life.
Questions that call for facts
do little to stimulate independent consideration or deep thought. Not so with the Core. Paranoics who believe all that needs to be
known is already known may view this as another effort by the illusory liberal conspiracy
to spread relativistic thought throughout America rather than forcing us all to
adhere to a single accepted, absolutist truth, but whatever. There are plenty of other blogs where those
folks can receive their daily dose of dogma.
I have my concerns about a
possible reduced emphasis on fiction as curricula include more works of
non-fiction, but that’s another blog post in itself. I welcome the shift in focus. How could America not be made better if it is
people with citizens who consider what they believe before they decide to
believe it?
The Common Core expectations
involve much deeper exploration and analysis.
Students are now encouraged to ask themselves questions about what they
are reading, synthesize that with other facts they know, and in so doing come
to a richer understanding of the world they live in.
Teachers Teach, Learners Learn
Teachers will tell you that
they can teach until they’re blue in the face but they cannot make a student
learn. I see the Common Core approach as
directly addressing that reality. It shifts
the emphasis toward teaching students how
to question, explore, integrate, and extrapolate rather than transmitting
simple facts. It is the difference
between teaching a child how to fish
rather than simply giving him a fish.
But I digress.
My 5th-grader has been doing
a couple reading responses each week and entering them into a blog format that
is restricted to just their class. I
really enjoy writing myself and hope to develop a consistent routine with my
own blogging, so this sounded like a shovel-ready project for the two of us to
share in common.
The reading responses only
need to be one paragraph, but are supposed to go beyond a simple retelling of
plot details - no summary, no recap, no synopsis. The teacher wants personal reactions,
predictions, and evaluations regarding what the student just read - connecting specific
passages or development on the page to their own personal experiences or
thoughts in some way.
Squeezing Blood From A Turnip
Aidan is both creative and a
solid reader, but this has posed an unexpected challenge for us. He has needed a lot of support from to go
beyond a basic recount and find some meaningful, higher level reflection on the
work.
His first draft of one
response came off pretty much like this - "[The Protagonist] and I are alike in some ways, but not in every way. [Protagonist] likes X and I like X, too. [Protagonist] likes Y and I like Y, too." And so on.
His response technically met the basic, literal requirement of the
assignment, but I thought it was overly simplistic and, frankly, beneath
him.
I try to work with his
initial idea rather than making him begin again from scratch. And his initial approach here was fine, I
just thought it could use more personalization.
So, I tried to get more out of him with questions rather than by giving
him direct suggestions.
"So, tell me what you like about doing X." Truth is, I didn't think he particularly
liked this activity he mentioned but merely saw the I-like-he-likes format as a quick way to put the job behind him.
"I don't know, I just like it," is all he came up with.
"Okay, then how does it make you feel?” … “How is that similar or different to how the protagonist feels about it?”
… “What did it mean to the protagonist in
the story?” …
“Describe a time you
felt that way in your own life?"
We went around like this for
awhile - me trying to elicit anything more from him and him stubbornly
refusing. It was frustrating for the
both of us. Definitely not the bonding
experience I hoped it would be.
I took a breath and
changed direction. Rather than asking
him to describe feeling for something I think he hastily jotted down just to
get the job done, I decided to focus on something I knew for certain has been a
recent passion. I still wanted to work
with his approach - to value his original ideas - and simply help him beef up
the execution.
So I asked, "You like drawing, right? You like graphic novels?"
"Oh, yeah. Graphic novels are
cool."
"They are cool. What do you think
is cool about them?"
"I don't know, I like the pictures."
"Me, too. Can you tell me some things
you like about the pictures?"
"I don't know, they're just cool.
What do you want me to say, Dad?"
Sheesh. Blood from a turnip, I thought. You may notice that many of my questions have
concrete or yes/no answers. I don’t have
a teaching degree.
"Okay, how about this,” I said. “Would
you like to be a comic artist?"
"Oh, yeah. I really wish I could
draw better."
"Great. Why would you like draw
better? And don't tell me just because
it would be cool."
"Ugh," he sighed. "I just... I just..." Another sigh and a pause. "I
don't know. I just like that an artist can
sit down with a pencil and a blank piece of paper and create something
beautiful that wasn't there before. And
I don’t care what you say, I think that’s cool!"
Ho-lee crow! You could've knocked me over with a
feather.
What Is Art? – Part II, The Punchline
“An
artist can sit down with a pencil and a blank piece of paper
and create
something beautiful that wasn’t there before.”
I struggled to
evoke something, anything, just a wee bit deeper about why my son likes what he
likes and - boom - like a bolt from the blue, he sums up the marvel of
human creativity in one simple sentence.
There's blood in that turnip after all.
Age and fatherhood has made
me somewhat more emotional than I was in the past. Laugh if you like. But I was so completely moved in that moment
that all I could manage to respond was, "Wow! That IS cool, Kiddo"
before my voice cracked.
I feel like I know art when I
see it, though I cannot define it and see little point in trying. My 10-year-old can’t define art either, but
he made a good start of it. As a writer and a proud father, it bears repeating:
Art
is sitting down with a blank piece of paper
and making something beautiful
that
wasn’t there before.
