Some Thoughts about Packaged Workshops

Sleep (M.A. Reilly, 2014)

I was moved when I read Identity, a wise post by J. Carey, a literacy coach (and mom) in Connecticut.  Her post prompted me to think about the interior work of writing and painting and how such work is often at odds with school structure and agency. Carey stresses the need for teachers--be it of the visual or written arts--to help learners develop authorial identity. She marks such work as a critical beginning point. I thought a lot about her post as a visual artist, knowing how hard it has been the last two years for me to even contemplate the development of a style.  I am so far from having a personal style as art technique is still a wobbly affair. Only of late, do I sense a style emerging.

Later in the day I was reading John O'Donohue's Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom and stopped after reading,

When I left home, I entered the world of thought, writing, and poetry. This work is in the invisible realm. When you work in the territory of mind, you see nothing. Only sometimes are you given the slightest little glimpse of the ripples from your effort. You need great patience and self-trust to sense the invisible harvest in the territory of the mind. You need to train the inner eye for the invisible realms where thoughts can grow, and where feelings put down their roots (pp. 134-135). 

O'Donohue seems to be saying something similar to Carey. He stresses the need for great patience by the artist. Such patience is engendered when time and focus are being controlled by the learner. When agency is limited by pre-determined curricula and allocations of time learners often do not develop identity.

I think of this when I visit schools where I consult--especially at the beginning of new work. So often these schools have bought into non-organic writing and reading workshops where a timeline has been set by an external authority and the content for a full year has been pre-determined.  Usually these schools are seeking my assistance as learning is stalled or in some cases, regressing.  When I examine the curriculum products such as packaged workshops that leave little to no room for the learner I cringe. As an artist and writer, such products are the stuff of insanity.  They also are often a major source for what has gone wrong regardless of the good intentions of the authors.

I wondered how differently we might approach learner agency, the allocation of school time, and the control and development of content if we deeply understood Carey's notion of identity and O'Donohue's discussion about the temerity of the writer. It is surely harder in some immediate ways to build a curriculum with youngsters, but without authorship it seems impossible that the harder and more profound lessons stand a chance of being articulated, let alone learned. 

The Bricoleur: Speaking through the Medium of Things

I.

During dinner, a week ago, I realized that Rob and I are raising a bricoleur. Our son makes stuff from found things.

He repurposes.

He tinkers.

He's in the process of altering a computer he built a year ago in order to make it more energy efficient and when I asked him what he planned to do with the components he's removing from the computer, he told me matter-of-factly that he would keep them on hand so he could (re)use them in new ways.

Bricoleurs make do with materials they have at hand.


II.

I've wondered about bricolage for a long time and thought about its potential as a way of being at school and owning your learning be it as student and/or teacher. Some years ago I likened bricoleurs to certain types of teachers.  I explained there:

In The Savage Mind, Lévi-Strauss (1962/1966) referred to bricolage as the make-do activities a handyperson employs while working. The bricoleur is one who tinkers with the materials at hand. Lévi-Strauss explained that “the materials of the bricoleur are elements which can be defined by two criteria: they have had a use...and they can be used again” (p. 35, italics in original)...Lévi-Strauss wrote that the bricoleur "derives his poetry from the fact that he does not confine himself to accomplishment and execution: he speaks not only with things...but through the medium of things. Throughout the year, Mr. Krantzman uses the work he and his students create as a means for further inquiry and dialogue. Resituating and transposing ideas, hunches, and products is the modus operandi in this class.” (2009, p.376).

The idea of speaking through the medium of things interests me and I wonder how often children and their teachers are afforded such permissions, especially in these days of overly scripted curricula. It's hard to teach reading or writing well when tied to someone else's language, some company's sense of pace, or another person's selection of texts.  Attending to such commitments actually pull us away from the here, the now and in their place substitute an epic sense of teaching.

One truth of an epic world is that you cannot alter the events. They are sealed. Delivered whole. Untouchable.

There is little emphasis on learning in scripted programs--as these methods tend to see the complex world of teaching and learning largely through the teacher's eyes. The teacher is being told what to say. The child is held mute.  Such schema is most often arranged within the epic world where the script an be transferred whole, untouched for others to enact.  The clash comes when we notice that the world where scripts make sense is in conflict with learners and fine teachers who reside in the present.

Less Doing, More Being

8th grade boy in Newark, looking.  (M.A. Reilly, 1998)

I. Entering

Grade 5 students from New Rochelle
engage in art conversations. (M.A. Reilly, 2006)

1st graders  in Rensselaer listening
to stories (M.A. Reilly, 2006)

I'm not sure what year it was when I finally began to realize that I was changing as a teacher in what I would later label as profound. It was a time that was uncomfortable and yet energizing. It was then I began to better notice how and what my students were almost learning and not learning. I was keen to notice what they were doing, (un)knowing, and learning that I had not taught, prepared for, or even considered.

There was delight in those days.

1st graders in Newark thinking.  (M.A. Reilly, 2012)

This was also a time when I actively began to photograph my students at work, realizing that observing them and their work was infinitely more critical, more important than the more traditional teaching roles I had worn.

In this manner, causality gave way to occasioning.

Looking through a lens allowed me quiet and the time to observe--to create the teaching in a different manner. The distance created by the lens encouraged me to reframe the classroom by opening myself to wonder.

I was finally confident enough as a teacher to slip into the skin of a learner.

This was a time of great pleasure.


II.

Newark (M.A. Reilly, 2012)

 “Do not seal off the stage.Leaning back, let the spectator be awareOf the busy preparation going onCunningly intended for him. He seesA tin moon floating down, a shingle roofBrought in. Don’t show him too much.But do show him! And, friends, let him be aware that
You are not conjurers, but workers.”         - Bertolt Brecht

Learner as worker is a critical stance--be it in the role of teacher or student or a hybrid of each.

Newark (M.A. Reilly, 2013)

It takes a certain level of confidence and commitment to make this type of shift as it requires us to stay curious,
to be vulnerable
       and wrong,
to                        open large spaces                       for wonder

and (un)knowing,

to feel the joy of being,

           and to listen to the silences

          and observe keenly.


These days there's a lot of attention placed on what and even how to teach. And perhaps this is helpful.  Nonetheless, we have to be willing to know that there is no path to follow in what is largely a wilderness.

We have to be willing to fail better.