Bridge to Mosaic

So much of my life has been spent feeling pulled in different directions. This winter was a defining experience illustrating this internal push and pull. My teaching job had me pulled in two very different directions serving my department as chair and teaching a full load. My MSU course had me pulled in personal and intellectual directions that felt even more sub defined and different. I would like to take a moment to reflect and think about the various art topics and modules I worked on during CEP 882 to get a better idea of what I have learned in this journey.

Photography

There is some kind of artist deep within me that longs to get out and play. I have never tried to take good pictures before and found the process intriguing. Whether the subject is a landscape, a person or an event, the process is both thoughtful and intuitive. I can say the exact same thing about my better moments in the classroom. I need to be prepared and ready for class, just as to take good pictures, I need to have my camera charged and with me ready for action. Yet, in the moment, I may need to improvise and follow something other than the plan to really reach my students and have a great class session. Similarly, great photography is improvisational depending on the light that day and the flow of activity and all of the many variables that come into play. I see many similarities between taking great pictures and pulling off a great class session. Be thoughtful and intuitive.

Movie Making

For a variety of reasons, I would have never in a million years considered putting together little movies. Now, I am having inspirations on a regular basis for personal and professional applications for the program Windows Movie Maker. While the storytelling and artistic is of utmost important, the piece of this that was so critical for me was simply being exposed to and learning how to sue the technology. It would seem that there is no limit to the creativity that can be unleashed when planning and producing a mini movie project. There is the thesis, the music, the files, the text, the narration and on and on. My lesson here was to be creative and techy. I have been teaching accounting online for many years now. Accounting is probably not the best subject for the online world, but students are depending online occupational programs, and so I give it my best shot from one year to the next. Windows Movie Maker opens up a whole new world of online teaching possibilities for me. This is a tool that will greatly and very positively impact my teaching. Be creative and embrace technology.

Interior Design

I have considered interior design before, but I have never studied it in a serious manner. I am still fired up from this module. I have checked out interior design books from the library and started an idea book on my home. It is a sort of sketch book for ideas on everything from moving walls and making major transformational changes to ideas on paint colors and furniture rearrangement ideas that can be quickly and immediately implemented. Some of the big ideas that really stuck with me in this module are that silence can be powerful and complexity is not necessarily better than simplicity. I can really relate to the author’s point of view that as Americans our motto that “Bigger is Better” has gotten quite out of hand. We are spending and borrowing ourselves into oblivion. We live in huge houses and spend nearly all of our time away from each other. When I consider my teaching, it is not the physical space that matters. In my circumstance in teaching at a community college, it is not possible for me to design and decorate my own classroom. I rotate and teach in a variety of room assignments, which constantly change from one semester to the next. What inspires me about interior design concepts is the idea of space and simplicity. Keep it simple. Allow time for silence and pauses. Encourage students to have their own precious moments to think and analyze and develop their own thoughts unspoiled by a know-it-all, talks-a-lot student or even by an instructor that just won’t shut up. I have been playing with this idea in my morning Principles of Accounting I class. I set up short periods of time when the students think individually in silence to process and take us to the next level. I was afraid of silence. I was afraid that they would shut down. My experience has been quite to the contrary. This group is progressing at a faster and deeper rate than other similar groups. They are also quite talkative and engaged. These short bits of time for thinking have not dampened their engagement at all. Use silence and be simple.

Music

I adore music and have studied and performed for years. I was really looking forward to this module. Looking at music this time from a different perspective helped me to see that practice and variety are so important. Effective, powerful, inspired teaching requires many years of practice, preparation, study and improvisation. There is no one formula for becoming a great teacher. It takes a lot of time and willingness to experiment. The same could be said of becoming a great musician. It takes a lot of practice! Compelling music and compelling teaching include lots of variety. There are big moments and small moments, individual applications and group applications, and all sorts of flavors and moods and colors. In summary: practice and mix it up.

Fashion

Now this was a concept I had never given any thought to at all. After allowing this to sink in a bit and settle, I have more ideas on the subject than I did while going through the module. Most folks develop a wardrobe of clothes over the years. It is an accumulation of practical items, items on sale, special items and gifted items. This collection of clothes becomes our face to the world. Similarly in teaching, we pick up a certain way to work a lesson plan, a certain way to start a class, and end a class, and certain ways of doing things. It is our teaching wardrobe and how we present ourselves officially and outwardly to the world in our profession. The trouble is…it doesn’t take any time at all for our clothes and our ideas to become outdated. We regularly need to let go and take on the new, and this is a very hard thing to do. Be open to change and growth.

My mosaic is the composite of what I have learned in CEP 882 about how to live life well, create good art, and become a great teacher. My mosaic includes these key concepts:
 Be thoughtful and intuitive.
 Be creative and embrace technology.
 Use silence and be simple.
 Practice well and mix it up.
 Be open to change and growth.
 Never stop learning & growing!

What does it feel like when art is compelling?

Let me take a moment to focus on what it feels like for me when I experience compelling art. It is a deeply emotional, interior feeling. It is overwhelming and even embarrassing to feel that much. Sometimes I wonder if others feel what I feel. It could be compared to a deep religious experience. It takes over all aspects of my being.

Having studied yoga and the chakra system, it is a similar, complete mind-body experience. It effects all of my chakras at once. From my root chakra up through the sacral, naval, heart, throat, third eye, up and out through my crown chakra. The most recent compelling experience I had with an art form was my attendance at a rehearsal of the african drum ensemble, which is the focus of my WOA project for CEP 882. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor observing the rehearsal and letting myself go and be in the moment. As the drumming crescendoed, I felt the music throughout all of my being. The room was literally shaking from all of the movement and action, my root chakra was engaged and stirred up. There is a sensuality about drumming. The drum is secured between the players legs and becomes an extension of the person. Seeing this intimacy between player and drum engaged my sacral chakra. The players are thinking and playing and singing and chanting and playing. They are breathing and really sweating up a storm. Feeling this heat in the room from this exercise engaged my naval, deep breathing chakra. My heart was full. I felt alive and grateful and full of joy. My heart chakra may have been the most engaged of all. Throughout the drumming is lots of chanting and calling and singing back and forth from leader to players and back again. My throat chakra was also engaged sensing this communication. I had a lump in my throat as if I might cry at any moment. I was so full of emotion, I was ready to burst. I started having moments of insights into my life. My thoughts wandered from the meaning of life, to the goals of education, to how this particular leader was teaching and guiding without teaching, to what I really want to do with life, and on and on and around and around. My third eye was engaged and inspired to high levels of thought. My spirit was also stirred. Like a top note of a fine perfume, my thoughts wafted to ideas of sacred significance in this music. Surely there must be a god in this inspiring, captivating music. These thoughts and thankfulness about God indicate that even my crown chakra was in play.

For me, a truly compelling experience with the arts is a complete mind-body experience that moves my soul to higher places not at all a part of my common everyday experience. These moments affirm my humanity and thankfulness for being alive.

http://www.vnyoga.com/_/rsrc/1239121658927/about-chakras/chakras.jpg

Feeling Quite Poorly

Fashion is for skinny people with money. I am neither. It is profoundly discouraging to think and consider how I should be dressing when I have no available income for such purchases and when I do go out to purchase something simple like a dinner dress or a pair of jeans, I can't find anything that suits my shape and size. I am acutely aware of my appearance and clothing. I do the best that I can with what I have knowing that it really isn't all that great. There are only so many affordable jeans and dresses at Kohls and Penneys and they don't do it for me.

I find the hosts of the show "What Not To Wear" rude, condescending and arrogant. If I was the subject being humiliated and taunted by them for the purposes of cable entertainment, I would be devastated. My reaction to seeing this show was strong, emotional and enduring. I find myself still processing negative feelings a day later.

How then could fashion and education somehow be linked? Deep breath. Well, impressions are important. There is something to dressing the part and portraying a certain image in the classroom. Some female teachers look like "the mommy", others look like "the boss", others try to look like "the cool guy" but they really look like slobs or ridiculous or both, etc. For my particular teaching area with community college accounting students, I think it is important for me to look professional but also approachable. The whole point of the community college environment is to focus on teaching and reach students.

Looks and image are very important and do play a part in establishing tone in the classroom. I do the best I can with that.