How To Make Learning Come Alive

Courtesy of Ada Leaphart Integrated Arts Academy at H.O. Wheeler

Sir Ken Robinson understands very well how children learn through creativity, and how essential it is to learning. His presentations about the education system being in such disparate need of a paradigm shift, clarifies how educational institutions must be about the kind of creative learning, that's not serving consumerism, bound up in a society more concerned with employment, over creativity, and doesn't consider the kind of economics that Dr. David Suzuki references as a priority, who also speaks of a need for an economic paradigm shift.

 “Eco” comes from the Greek word oikos, meaning home. Ecology is the study of home, while economics is the management of home. Ecologists attempt to define the conditions and principles that govern life’s ability to flourish through time and change. Societies and our constructs, like economics, must adapt to those fundamentals defined by ecology. " The challenge today is to put the “eco” back into economics and every aspect of our lives."
― David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature

 I believe there are great parallels found between these two very high calibered, proactive thinkers. Sir Ken Robinson encourages and urges us to have new ways of thinking about education. Scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki, promotes the re-connection between school and nature. These two points of view compliment and converge with one another, enabling learning to come alive, through direct integration and interaction with others, and with the environment. 

Early on in my art education as a student art teacher, I very vividly remember certain books that were required reading. One book was, Teaching as a Subversive Activity. Although it's a book that was published in 1969, it's still very relevant today. The most poignant thing I read in the pages of this book, will  forever be imprinted into my thinking about learning. Authors Neil Postman, and Charles Weingartner express in their book, that each and every subject taken by each student is related, and should be integrated. Creativity is what can, and does connect each subject, acting as a powerful conduit to academic learning.
  

 
One of my first great art education teachers I had, who taught me about the importance of philosophy and spontaneity, was Harold Pearse. He knew how integrating art into all subjects was so vital to learning, and he made sure all of his students knew it as well. Last week he posted this wonderful article from the online site, Mind/Shift called, How Integrating Arts Into Other Subjects Makes Learning Come Alive. I hope you'll be sure to read it!

My Brain On Art

According to a research study that indicates artist's brains are structured differently is interesting for further investigation. The study suggests that the artist is born with innate talent. However it is still very unclear what part of nature or nurture is responsible for the making of the artist brain.

I was about ten when I realized I had a great desire to draw. My parents were creative, and always encouraged me. Fortunately, I also had two art teachers in elementary school, which made a great deal of difference in fostering my creativity.

 As an art educator of children in the past, I have learned that children are born creative. They naturally are inclined to mark making and drawing. Sir Ken Robinson explains this much more succinctly and eloquently than I.

" Every child is born an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. "
                                                                                              -  Pablo Picasso

 Unfortunately adults and our education system seem to find ways and means to pound creativity out of us by the time we leave school, and we have been educated generally in a stream lined fashion, reducing every one down to the lowest common denominator. It has been often referred as "dumbing down ".
Generally speaking, schools and in many Universities, having an education  means that it revolves around becoming employable, and perpetuating a consumer oriented  society, instead of enabling students to have a creative passion, a thirst  for knowledge and learning in creative ways, and taught by creative teachers.

Victor Lowenfeld, considered the father of Art Education states in his book, Creative and Mental Growth.

"  The values that are meaningful in an art program are those which may be basic to the development of a new image, a new philosophy, even a totally new structure to our educational system. More and more people are recognizing that the ability to learn differs from age to age and from individual to individual, and that this ability to learn involves not only intellectual capacity, but also social, emotional, perceptual, physical, and psychological factors. Altogether learning is very complex. Therefore, there may be no single best teaching method. Our tendency to develop the capacity to regurgitate bits of information may be putting undue emphasis on but one factor in human development, that which is now measured by the intelligence tests. Intelligence as we now know it does not encompass the wide range of thinking abilities that are necessary to the survival of man-kind. The ability to question, to seek answers, to find form and order, to rethink and restructure and find new relationships, are qualities that are generally not taught; and in fact these seem to be frowned upon in our present educational system. "

We don't all develop into artists regardless of our innate capabilities, or how we have been exposed to art and creativity. It is however crucial I believe that our educational system need a major overhaul, and a paradigm shift in how our children are encouraged to think creatively and to reflect values that can develop fully developed human beings, in all aspects of their personalities whether or not they have been born with an artist brain.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

Pablo Picasso

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