INTRODUCTION: MEANING, SPACE, SCIENCE OF LEARNING

This course allows the student to explore the fine and performing arts in relation to education (Pre-K – 12 grades). The course places emphasis on experiential learning and methods of incorporating the arts in school curricula.  The course also includes a focus on the value of the arts for the individual and society.  The work published in this blog illustrates the creative process of the students participating in the Spring 2018 semester. 

After the introductions, the first meeting revolved around the concept of meaning and the use of the arts to make meaning. The creative process helps students to make sense of their time on earth by deciding to take life seriously, to make life matter.  Thus, we concluded that the reasons to create art must be personal. They realized that one's personal creed, borrowing from psychotherapist and teacher Eric Maisel, is based on one's own ethical and egoistic self, so that “the reasons one arrives at encompass one's principles as well as one's desires."  This helps the arts educator to develop  a unique sense of purpose. 

The second area explored was the space and how to create a space where there is none. The discussion addressed the inner space of the artist as well as the physical space where art making takes place. The space should serve as a lab for students to explore their own connection with the creative process. Thus, the educator becomes merely a facilitator who holds the space in order to make the creative experience safe and free for the students to take risks, to be wrong if necessary, to then find their own artistic path.  

During the third meeting the students became aware of the scientific studies published in the Final Workshop Report: Art Creativity and Learning  on the science of learning and the positive influence the arts have on learning in general. Our meeting ended with a circle in which the members of the class shared their names with each other by creating an expressive gesture. 

We invite you to witness the creative journey of this group of students as they become familiar with the challenges and rewards of arts-making, arts-advocacy and arts education.