The changing of the guards, Naom Chomsky

This is Chomsky at his best....if you have seen this before, then maybe you should revisit it because it seems so much more important now as it was when he spoke in 2008.


The state of affairs in the United States is more evident of crisis control and the age of history has seen repeat patterns as with the symptoms of Europe and the bail outs all feeding the corporations and yet we look numbly at  the politicians in hopes they have the answers and of course they are out to fulfill the requests of the power..not the people...................................yet.

Walking in the bush

Walked into the forest out at Baloumba to the Artists Cascades and had a think.  It is wonderful to sit and listen to the water and do nothing, the walk was nice with a bit of mud and leaches, but the distance is good as it allows for contemplation and release.

Education and the element of "risk"

A Love Story, Chapter One

Author Greg Windsor   2010-10-08“

Art is risk”  

Song by Harry Manx, Something of your grace

Images are not for commercial use. This video is for educational purposes only

In Australian Education the goal to succeed at the academic level is paramount.  It is well known that most artists who are gifted in art may have more functioning of the right side of the brain as opposite to the left.  Those of logical and mathematical tendencies, usually rational thinkers succeed in this area and the irrational thinkers suffer.  Are you competent in learning or are you a successful student?

 The video clip which has text as image and text as letter and word, reads as a poetic reflection of the struggle of art and life.  In life the answers to the hard questions about success and failure arise first in school where there is a kind of rite of passage.  The mystery of career doesn’t become an issue until high school nearing the end of this required education.  In the song the question is asked what can you give that lends worth?   The answer soon follows, ‘something of your grace.’ There is a sort of softness to the answer which in art speaks of the aesthetic. But what is that something, that Je ne c’est  quoi?

 How has assessment and reporting failed our children?  What does it means to take risks in art, and why are some students apprehensive to venture out of their comfort zone?  Is it the nature of making judgements about right and wrong that is inherent in testing?

Riches ruined the foolish but some are ruined by the sound of loves own drum.

Still you believe but you can’t say why

It’s better to fail than never try

It’s better to fail than never try

And here in the eye of the hurricane

One mans lost is another mans gain

World by passions you could go blind

With just one heart torn between two minds

Watch silently by the window

All alone with what ya gotta face

Things that have no worth till ya lend them something

Something of your grace

You spoke your truth

You ignored the lies

 The broken promises and the alibis

 You been there ya ya you paid the price

You don’t try to stand in the same river twice

You stood there with your back to the world

All alone ya with what ya gotta face

Well these things have no worth till ya lend them something

Something of your grace

The song lyrics play an important role in the telling of a story.  The images unfold a meaningful visual story suggesting a leap of faith… that there is value in trying even if it may result in failure.  The video is suggestive of beating the odds and become something beyond our knowing.  The song repeats the lyrics “something of your grace” signifying the special qualities of individual effort and each one of us having a grace of our own, and without trying we may never know unless we are courageous.

Young adults are intensely curious souls often not afraid to be wrong.  Do we affect this attitude with testing?  With the confidence of encouragement and a safe environment, students take risks by discovering the making of art.  It is through failure that we realise we can overcome failure. We start to understand how resilience can be a favourable attribute for stepping up the ladder of life.  If we develop an understanding of why failure occurs then these measures of success have a greater chance of becoming.   It is the predictions then that are the challenges of life and art.  The excitement occurs with prediction because with our prior knowledge we have and the experiences in life we gain, they add to the mysterious leap of faith.

We use our courage to move closer to or away from what we may predict to happen depending on the circumstance.  We use our intuition and judge risk accordingly.  In art we must be courageous to allow failure to happen and understand there are degrees of such failure.  Art needs risk.  Only in the subject of art in the Australian Curriculum is risk part of the essential learnings.

There is a sense of wonder when we reach places that have little or no explanation to their something.  This is the mystery of art.  Do we really want to know the mystery fully?  These are questions that we encounter when we immerse ourselves in art. 

Can anyone be an artist?  Can anyone be creative?  We only need to look at the master Picasso for these insights as he is famous for saying all children are born artists until they grow up,  and when we grow up we are told to get serious. We must hold on to the child within our being where the world of mystery and unashamed self lies.

The lyrics mention “mind with two hearts” which is prompted by the words successful student and competent learner taken from Christine Johnstons book Let me Learn.  Creativity comes from both areas, however I think students lacking the self confidence, who fail academically in schools and are often too, those students that go through life never having a go at finding the artist within.  Failure is very hard for any individual to face especially a child.  Through art, building confidence in self efficacy leads to a place where it is ok to fail. 

My intention to address this video toward both parent and student is for the purpose of inspiring all of us to realise that it is better to try and fail than to never try and not know.  The purpose of choosing the song was to demonstrate the importance of humility and this notion of grace.  It is a word that suggests softness and integrity.  In a world filled with economic rationalism, there seems to be little about the rich nature of the personal expression.  We are being forced, it seems down the road of accountability; of outcome based results. The assessment criteria used by the education system is highly dismissive of the creative curriculum, in favour of the academic.  When we think about grades as an [academic] economy it is another way of understanding that in a culture of testing only a small percentage of students will have the right to celebrate success or be celebrated as successful (Kleinsasser, 1995:206). 

 There are certainly many artists in the world filling the needs of many consumers who seek entertainment and soul food in the arts. Technology has brought us the world to our doorstep and therefore we are exposed to a whole new understanding of art through multiliteracies and the multimodal connections.  We can now see all the possible ways in which students demonstrate their progress both success and failure through new media.

One thing about failure that is important to understand is the fact that when we fail at something, we must recognise why and make steps to learn from our mistakes.  I think the lyric in the song, never standing in the same river twic, has a couple of meanings. One is change is always occurring.  The concept of a river flowing will never be the same river, speaks of this change.  We cannot get away from the notion of change.  We can sometimes get caught up in a routine that seems to never change and from that we assume nothing is improving or moving forward.  Secondly, it is important to innovate and creativity is key to building new meanings.  Actually standing in the same river twice can be quite dangerous metaphorically and literally in the case of the crocodiles in the river.  

Sir Ken Robinsons suggests that “Creativity is as important in education as literacy.”  And what schools are doing with literacy and numeracy is killing creativity.

“Children are not afraid of being wrong.  Kids will take a chance …they are not frightened of being wrong.  If you’re not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original.  We are running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. The result is we are educating people out of their creative capacities (K. Robinson, 2006 Ted Talks).”

This is failure on the part of institutions not recognising that innovation and success in all areas of learning is connected to creativity.  He poses the solution that education put creativity and the arts at the top of the pyramid of achievement.  The hierarchy of academic subjects with maths is at the top, and then languages and the humanities and art is at the bottom.  This stems from the need for a work force, and what some would call economic rationalism. By limiting success to the fulfilment of criteria that excludes the craft of innovation, the education system creates a student who is capable of success, but not necessarily capable of learning in a competently and creative manner.  In this way a successful student may be a competent learner, but a competent learner is not always a successful student (Johnston, 1998).

In conclusion art is risk for those willing to renew their skin in search of new meanings.  It is important for students and parents alike to understand that art is also freedom to express with courage to seek the unknown.  It can be difficult to face the times when failure occurs however the reward for trying and finding new meaning comes with the shortcomings and the resilience to refocus and renew.  Art and failure are often side by side, and life continues to challenge those in search of the mysteriously just left of stage.  Failure is only when you stop trying.

References

Johnston C, 1998, Let me learn, Corwin Publications, Thousand Oaks, California

                    Kleinsasser  A, 1995, ‘Assessment culture and national testing’, The Clearing House, Vol.68, No 4 Mar-Apr, pp.205-210.  www.jstpr.org.ezyproxy.usc.edu.au:2048/stabsle/30195639

Robinson K, 2006, 'Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity', Ted Talks, http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Education at USC

Killing Creativity by not encouraging artists

               

          Innovation Centered... or just ticking boxes?


“A successful student may be a competent learner, but a competent learner is not always a successful student. “  Johnston, C. P.7

According to the Australian education system, a successful student fulfils prescribed criteria, whilst competent learners tend not to limit themselves, seeking far more than the fulfilment of predetermined criteria, and possibly falling short of the expectation levelled at them by the education system. The notion of success or competence creates a binary, the two components of which are either quantitative or qualitative. The desire by the state to maintain academic success is upheld at the expense of creativity, yet, as will be argued, creativity is precisely what is required for meaningful competency.   Socio economic and socio cultural factors also play a major part in deciding the ‘success’ of the student, so that despite the possibility that a student may be competent in an assortment of spheres, determined success is only possible when the student aligns with the ‘official’ requirements for success.   Assessment methods employed by the education system may also determine the attainment of success, and at the same time dismiss competencies that fall outside of the rubric.  The notion, therefore, that a successful student is necessarily competent is misleading, and veils the reality that competent learning is not always able to be acknowledged within the constraints of the system.

In discussing notions of success and competence it is important to make distinctions between the binary descriptors of 'successful student' and 'competent learner'.  A ‘successful’ student is academically motivated, proficient in recalling data for purpose, and is motivated by an individual desire for quantitative achievement.  Conversely, a competent learner often exists outside the interests of academia, may not deal well with tests nor hold the desire to please the teacher, but maintains a quest for internal knowledge. As Christine Johnson (1998:35), in referring to her theory of learning which she calls ‘Let Me Learn’ states: ‘the ‘me’ in Let Me Learn is a unique set of learning patterns that makes each learner clever in his or her own way’. The ‘successful’ student may only find his or her success within the confines of the educational system.  He or she may often be direction-oriented, acquiring specific skills for an external purpose.  The competent learner, however, may be interested in acquiring qualitative practical knowledge outside the predetermined academic curriculum, in areas such as visual art, music, dance, or manual/ industrial arts.  Knowledge leading to wisdom for the competent learner is not limited to a textbook, or written in a manual, or on the new interactive smart board. Wisdom is being on the road toward self fulfilment.  They may view themselves as undertaking a journey that often requires internal searching for meaning.  A competent student undertakes learning because 'he [or she] 'has to'; curiosity drives him on much more strongly than the carrot of promised rewards' (Evans,1999:9). There is a greater reward for the competent learner than success in school assessment; it is the courage from the internal quest; a desire for becoming. The competent learner may often function in the community outside the system of education, applying relevant knowledge to tasks. Where the competent learner’s outcomes coincide with the criteria, he or she may then be determined by the education system as ‘successful’. The successful student may, like the competent learner, seek tools of the trade, but the successful student may not always have the skills of flexibility and adaptation; the result of risking the possibility of being wrong and challenging the system of the predictable.

State controlled education is the heritage of a system fashioned by pre-colonial power, which relied on growing and maintaining standing armies to protect defend and serve for the purpose of empire-building.  The discourse of ‘success in education’ arises from government policies streamlined into a curriculum and imposed on its populists, to create a workforce for capital. The ‘successful’ student in Australian Educational Institutions is designed by the state as a square-box conformist who does not question, but is able to take their place in the standing army.  This discourse or 'hidden curriculum' (Bowles & Gintis cited Van Krieken et al, 2006:135) is non-inclusive, inflexible, and toxic to those who function in non conformist learning styles and disciplines, such as those generally found in the arts and humanities. The prescribed goal is of servant, rather than inventor or innovator.  A controlled outcome does not allow the student to risk and explore.  Sir Ken Robinson (2006) states: 'if you are not prepared to be wrong then you will never come up with anything original'.  The successful student is not so interested in finding something new, but in achieving a standard.  Alternatively, a competent learner is more likely to seek, not necessarily the right answer, but rather the more expansive, lateral answer; one that exhibits a world-connectedness:
The complex questions of the future will not be solved 'by the book', but by creative, forward-looking individuals and groups who are not afraid to question established ideas and are able to cope with the insecurity and uncertainty that this entails' (European University Association cited McWilliams & Dawson, 2008:634).
Ken Robinson (2006) adds that 'creativity is as important in education as literacy', but that we 'squander creativity in children quite ruthlessly'. In a bid to master literacy and numeracy the student is coerced into growing up, and out, of creativity, and therefore away from the attributes of true competency. Competence arises out of the courage to make mistakes, recognise, evaluate and initiate change.   The competent learner is more likely to embrace creativity, which may put them outside the tick-box of success.  Additionally, risk and courage are important and formative factors in competent learning. If not recognised at the institutional level these elements can be quashed, thereby inhibiting the competent learner’s chances of attaining the prescribed level of success.

Cultural origins and socio economic standing each have an impact on the success and/or competency of a student. Cultural differences 'can exist not only of people of different ethnic backgrounds, but also between those of different social classes and different genders' (Krause, 2007:317). Aboriginal students undertaking westernised IQ tests in 1931 were graded so low that the tester, Stanley Porteus, had to overlook their ‘substandard’ results.  These tests were carried out against the clock.  Porteus describes his subjects as having 'caused considerable delays as, again and again, the subject would pause for approval or assistance in the task' (Porteus,1931:308). Whilst at first glance the Aboriginal students could be seen to be incompetent, further investigation by Porteus revealed that the cultural norm under which the students were operating held that decisions and problem solving was, in their tribal setting, a collective enterprise, and further, that hurrying was not important.  The students were waiting for Porteus to help them collaboratively arrive at the answers. Where they were merely behaving in a fashion in keeping with their cultural background, which says nothing of their intellects, they could easily be determined as unsuccessful learners.  'The beliefs and practices of some cultural groups fit well without schooling system, while those of other groups do not' (Krause, 2007:320).  An Anglo centric education system that is not inclusive of cultural difference may make success for an otherwise competent student impossible to grasp.  IQ tests themselves have been described as 'profoundly culturally biased' (Van Krieken et al, 2006:142), because they are created by, and based on a middle class, westernised norm.  At the same time students from low socio economic areas are less likely to achieve success in academia. Studies have shown that 'working class students with the same measured IQ as their middle class counterparts... are less successful in the education system' (Van Krieken et al, 2006:143). Students from low socio economic spheres may be competent outside of the education system – for instance, they may be adept at motorbike mechanics, or deeply knowledgeable about farming practices – yet are deemed as not successful within the system, therefore, as a competent learner they are not always successful.

The assessment criteria used by the education system is highly dismissive of the creative curriculum, in favour of the academic. Assessment criteria generally dissuades students from diverging from the question in any way. Through a process of what Heidegger would term ‘radical reductionism’ the curriculum is narrowed, in a bid to standardise expected responses.  The net result of such rationalist treatment is the stifling of creativity and innovation.  Set criteria are carefully and rigidly applied to assessment, whilst students are discouraged from looking beyond the question, or of utilising creativity in venturing out toward a deeper understanding.  This dangerous reductionist theory threatens inquisitive learning and dismisses our individual celebration by setting only one prescribed goal or method of assessment. Grading of students also plays a part in the potential for success:
When we think about grades as an [academic] economy it is another way of understanding that in a culture of testing only a small percentage of students will have the right to celebrate success or be celebrated as successful (Kleinsasser, 1995:206).
We as educators should passionately desire learners to become holistically successful students. By willingly extending the definition through embracing creativity, allowing diversity, and assessing for individual improvement, we enable competency as well.  It would be foolish to limit students’ skills by excluding innovation.  The successful student of tomorrow needs tools for the future. If we are going to teach for success or competence, those tools should include creativity, and assessment should reflect its place in the curriculum. However, the current curriculum rates creativity toward the bottom of the scale in terms of necessity.   The curriculum is entrenched, like the Empire of Great Britain in the First World War, the generals unsure of what to do next, waiting for change, only to realise they have trained themselves to be galvanised in non-committal acts; slowly dying of stubbornness, afraid to challenge the system. For why the need for risk when we have soldiers to lie down and die for the crown until the last dying hour?  Under these conditions, a competent student may find success frustratingly elusive, at  the same time  the student that can stick rigidly to criteria finds themselves successful.

Furthermore successful students become so through meeting standards and expectations, the competent learner will not necessarily meet that requirement, and will instead choose a path that accords with his or her inner knowing.  Success is often defined by cultural and economic standing, and is shaped by the assessment methods applied by the education system itself. By limiting success to the fulfilment of criteria that excludes the craft of innovation, the education system creates a student who is capable of success, but not necessarily capable of learning in a competently and creative manner.  In this way a successful student may be a competent learner, but a competent learner is not always a successful student.










REFERENCES:


Johnston C, 1998, Let me learn, Corwin Publications, Thousand Oaks, California

Evans G, 1999, Calling Academia to Account, The Society for Reseach into Higher Education & Open University Press, Buckingham, UK.

Kleinsasser A, 1995, ‘Assessment culture and national testing’, The Clearing House, Vol.68, No 4 Mar-Apr, pp.205-210.  www.jstpr.org.ezyproxy.usc.edu.au:2048/stabsle/30195639?

Krause K, Bocher S & Duchesne S, 2007, Educational Psychology, Thomson, Melbourne, Australia.

McWilliams E & Dawson S, 2008, 'Teaching for creativity: towards sustainable and replicable pedagogical practice', Higher Education, Vol 56 pp.633-643. DOI10.1007/s10734-008-9115-7.

Porteus S, 1931, The Psychology of a Primitive People, Edward Arnold, London.

Robinson K, 2006, 'Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity', Ted Talks, http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Van Krieken R, Habibis D, Smith P, Hutchins B, Haralambos M & Holborn M, 2006, Sociology themes and perspectives, Pearson Education, Frenchs Forest, Australia.

How much time have we got?

The Great Distraction

We awoke from “The Great Distraction” naked.

Reflection for Teaching

by Greg Windsor

It all began in a dingy damp basement with some drawings of ideas of computers and where they might take us.  It is now the most incredible, most unbelievable far fetched concept that we would live in a world without them.  Technology…The Computer


After arriving in Australia 7 years ago,  I have spent the last year thinking about how to understand learning.  It is through reflection and collection that I see my future. I often ask myself what values are important for the future. I began to organise with the way I will teach using technology as my companion.  Questioning nearly every step of the way, “how would it be without this strange creature?”.   My nights are spent typing, searching the illusive documents for research, visual inspiration, concrete references, spanning all the reaches of the globe for snippits of information to be used by simply cutting and pasteing in such a manner that one would never know that it is simply stolen, or should I say appropriated (an art term), which gives credit in a respectful way and becomes the property of our creations.


I am continually wondering who or what I am with technology by my side.  I want to know how it would be without it.  I know how it is without it when I am alone in the dark admiring the wonder of the stars or on the beach looking as far as I can wondering what is out there.  I am in awe of nature.  It is the opposite to this “Great Distraction”  I am many times dissapointed when this electrical devise is energised, and the keys go wild with the furry of connections to the fairies, delightful whimsy, fluid creation and then nothing…loss.   I am confused most of the time.. where are my feet…in this camp of nature, or in the fast furrious fall down- let me down- it just isn’t working today, world of the illusionary production; machine machine machine.


I have reflected during the course of this semester on the importance of organisation, collating information, resourcing lesson plans, thinking hard about the content of the unit plans that harness the passion of my soul.  These are the joys that I want to share with the students.  Emerson and his circles fill my thoughts.  One, Two, Three times in the drink the rock is tossed.  I enjoy investigating how thinking laterally challenges us to become innovative; a quest for the unknown.  An educated guess.  It all comes with the experiences we have, will have, or should have.  It is the great search for knowledge, and It is courage.  It is courage to take risks and with these risks comes the possibility for failure.


If there is one thing I have had this semester it is the handshake of failure with pleasure and angst.  It may be a case of ‘know your enemy’ because he will be the one who follows in the shadows of discovery, lurking with silence, teasing with clues, syncopated and irregular.  I am uneasy to shake the hand of failure.  It may only be the hourglass which is the determinant…. for then the effort ceases with defeat.


The Senior Phase Curriculum means teaching at a level that challenges young adults to think about which possibilities are available and which decisions may lead the journey of a student to the other side toward adulthood in the arts.  I am excited to be thinking about how I can make this journey visible, or at least a gateway to the yellow brick road.  One has to wonder now doesn’t one?


Where do we want to go?  These questions are the great mystery to the youth of Australia and the globe.  It is enough to learn to take tests and become clever idiots, or  fodder for the government and their workforce to power the slaveship of capitalism, but to think and wonder outside the regime of work and bank’s credit is curiously dangerous and often deemed not worthy.  I say not.  The world of work is so incrdibly embedded in our psyche that the days of slow drifting of the mind and simple wondering of colourful fancy has all but been forgotten,  this can be learned again.  We the artists must remind the world of work that we are the lubrication in the cogs of the machine that keeps the turning, turning.  We are necessary.  We are worthy.  There is a function and it is the muse, the wonder the glory of the unknowing. In search of the queer, illustrious jester, magic maker.  We are trueth.


I have seen the difference in myself and my peers as equally the same,  we are individuals with stories and value.  The personal struggles are together acknowledge as battles to enhance learning, a coming of age in an ageless mind.  We are the role models equals in a struggle.  This struggle is life long learning.  The time of learning through theory based examples with suggestions of authentice task trench warfare soon starts shifting. Ready the red pens and packed lunch boxes with health doses of delightful cups of tea, we are about the begin the voyage to the center of the students’ world.


If one were to go through life without attempting to journey beyond the obvious three steps, we would probably wonder what it was like to see the joy of colour.  Monotones make us drones, simple workers with little to dream. Calulating the economic chance with worry of loss.  I see the world full of rainbows waiting to bounce on my chin, these are mine.  I share these with my peers and enjoy dreaming for the chance to tell another tale.  It is the story that fills the minds of our youth and they are the stories of triumph and failure, courage to say I missed the mark but not the prize.. it was only a miss. No dramas.
                                                            ‘It is only failure when you stop trying.’

Greg Windsorwrites BLOG: The Endeavour, Blown Off Discourse

THE ENDEAVOUR

BLOWN OFF DISCOURSE

The academic discourse of contemporary education is informed by the bureaucracy under which it functions, from administration by government to the curriculum delivered by teachers. This discourse is the white, colonialist, academic voice of modernity. Art is not neutral, nor prescribed―students of the discipline must be afforded freedom to encounter risk and spontaneous expression. Rigidity of the dominant educational discourse constricts expression, impacting negatively on Australian Arts students.

Art occupies an uncertain position in the curriculum, however it is not the space of the predominant discourse. Just as education is not a neutral endeavour, neither is Art. In order for Art to survive and thrive it must be somewhere 'other'. Like Foucault’s (Madness and Civilization, 1989:10) Ship of Fools:

It has become the motif of the soul as a skiff abandoned on the infinite sea of desires in the sterile field of cares and ignorance, among the mirages of knowledge amid the unreason of the world, a craft at the mercy of the sea’s great madness, unless it throws out a solid anchor, faith, or raises its spiritual sails so that the breath of God may bring it to port.

The nature of Art is less about 'shaping and moulding a student into being', and more about uncovering the truth or inner quality. A point of departure is academic writing, which favours the empirical, but excludes the post modern approach that might otherwise tear down the walls of injustice and overt dominance. Feminist theorist Mona Liveholts (2009:121) suggests a paradigm theory to include subaltern views with “a notion of ‘post/academic’ writing to refer to critical, creative and reflective interdisciplinary, cross genre academic writing practices”. The paradigm Art functions under is informed by the discourse of modern colonial academia. “Paradigms can be thought of as frameworks of understandings that guide the ways we produce knowledge” (Kincheloe et al cited Latham et al, 2006:99). Without a 'paradigm shift', Art remains excluded. Such exclusion can be interpreted as censorship. Thomas Main (1983:83), in criticising Goodman’s critique on William H Burroughs’ Naked Lunch said:

The question raised was never whether authors have “the right to discuss sex openly and explicitly in a work of literature”; it was, rather, whether literature could successfully treat sex (or any other subject) outside a moral framework.

Censorship holds a hard, fast position enthroned to deny the threat to power, implying non-neutrality―a tool of control.

The position Art occupies is fluid and dual. In Emerson's essay 'Circles' (cited Neufeldt & Barr, 1986: ) his use of multiple voices provides us a:

“possibility of both views, being both centre and contour, with unsettling results. It makes a travesty of our confidence with the speaker. Not knowing where to stand we are faced with a decision in our mind of where to go”.

Art is irrational, unpredictable; post modern. Art requires risk, challenging the self; breaking new boundaries. Queensland Department of Education, Training and the Arts (2007) states:

Students...enhance their understanding of arts practice through active engagement, both individually and collaboratively, with arts elements, techniques, skills and processes, working creatively and imaginatively, to take risks and focus on how the arts reinforce and challenge their own experience and those of other artists (added emphasis).

Art students must encounter risk as a part of the art making process. Nowhere else does risk enter into an essential learning as a requirement for success.Where teachers hold power over students using colonialist academic discourse, Art reverses the position. Post-modernism is attempting to re-shape education, and Art is at the coalface, often putting it at odds with the hegemonic discourse. Bauman (cited Seidman2007:190) speaks of post modernity as a “fully fledged, viable social system which has come to replace the 'classical' modern, capitalist society and thus needs to be theorised according to its own logic”. Contemporary students of art cannot function within the limited confines of the prescribed discourse of a modernist, academic approach, and must be released to take risks.

The rigidity of the dominant discourse impacts negatively on Art students by constricting free creative pursuit. Educational Discourses have long been ‘behind the times’. From 1903 the words of John Dewey still resonate:

the school has lagged behind the general contemporary social movement; and much that is unsatisfactory, much of conflict and of defect, comes from the discrepancy between the relatively undemocratic organisation of the school, as it affects the mind of both teacher and pupil, and the growth and extension of the democratic principle in life beyond school doors.

Theory must be congruent with its own logic (Bauman cited Seidman, 2007:190). The education system must comprehend and critique Art through Art’s own domain: the post modern paradigm. Art as a teaching area is forced into the role of a controlling mechanism, abiding by discourse-prescribed curriculum, leaving it safely in the realm of empirical distinction, but locked out of its natural abode: the realm of the uncertain and the irrational.

Leftover vestiges of colonialism, functionalism, modernity, and structuralism are voices that post modern Art does not answer to. Freedom to risk and express are central tenets of Art, yet the discourse that dominates the Australian curriculum constricts and limits students’ experience, resulting in a negative impact.

Greg Windsor, MFA, BFA, Sculpture

550 words (excluding references)

REFERENCES

Department of Education, Training and the Arts, 2007, Queensland Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Framework 2007 / Essential Learnings, Queensland Government, Australia.

Dewey J, 1903, ‘Democracy in Education’, The Elementary School Teacher, Vol. 4, No. 4 pp. 193-204.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/992653 accessed April 21, 2010.

Foucault M, 1989, Madness and Civilization, Routledge, London, UK.

Latham G, Blaise M, Dole S, Faulkner J, Lang J & Malone K, 2006, Learning to Teach: New Times, New Practices, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Australia.

Liveholts M, 2009, ‘To theorise in a more passionate way’, Feminist Theory, Vol. 10, No.1, pp.121-131.

http://fty.sagepub.com DOI:10.1177/1464700108100395. Accessed 24 April, 2010

Main T, 1983, “On ‘Naked Lunch’ and Just Desserts”, Chicago Review, Vol. 33., No. 3, pp 81-83.

http://www.jstor.org.ezyproxy.usc.edu.au:2048/stable/25305164 accessed April 22, 2010.

Neufeldt L & Barr C, 1986, “’I shall write like a Latin father’ Emerson’s circles”,The New England Quarterly, Vol.59, No.1, pp 92-108.

http://www.jstor.org.ezyproxy.usc.edu.au:2048/stable/365541 accessed April 22, 2010.

Seidman, S, 2008, Contested Knowledge: Social Theory Today, 4^th Edn., Blackwell, Carlton, Australia

"The last supper" by Greg Windsor

April, 2011

Artist’s Statement 

Greg Windsor,
MFA, BA, Fine Arts (Sculpture), Grad Dip Ed.

"The work is foremost about balance;

the co-existence of the student and the teacher...

the duality of ego and obsession and

the harmony of nature.

All these things

shape our lives."

To view the artist's work, see www.gregwindsor.com

the last supper

The poet is summonsed... We gathered for the holy feast and collected at the grand dining table. The gluttonous bounty spills over and onto the marbled floor. The robed guests are indignant and drunk....slobber runs down the faces of all the Disciples and the discourse abounds. “Who has stolen the bread?” cries the baker. “Where is this hidden thief?” The poet is intrigued, sensing mistrust she just keeps taking notes, scribing the event as it unfolds. A butcher is required, there are sheep for the slaughterhouse... Quickly, our leaders and their institutionalised heavy right hand need capital... Education, you will dispense the bounty – from the top down; hence the discourse. “Now just try to pay attention, because this is what we want you 'fools' to talk about...Judas enters the room...JESUS? What's goin’ on?”

.

...so education ( the antagonist speaks) is the guise...

Your community is varied; you have planned accordingly, but have you chosen your curriculum? White comfortable coach. 

How about your outcasts... your artists... your mental health or the native customs of your land? What about the ones slipping through the cracks who aren't consuming? 

An answer comes from the distance... Oh, but they will.

Bowles and Gintis (cited Van Krieken, 2006, p.135) argued education is heading toward the goals of the capitalist; the system as a whole will develop at the expense of society. This focus on a subservient labour force fails miserably, but the statistics will be manipulated to keep the sheep on the grass. Durkheim (Cuff et al, 2000, p 76) suggests the moral - the obligation - of education is to collectively coordinate the activities of students, thereby requiring the individual to be capable of controlling their conduct in specific ways, and in so doing, aligning it closely with others. Durkheim's view limits natural spontaneity and proposes conformity. Where is the zest for creation in this filth? Who nurtures the muse? Are we just producers of products for the consumption of our greed? .

Wow... Disciples...of...Discipline...

Get this... Your dinner is getting cold.

Bowles and Gintis (1976) argued that the measure of intelligence is flawed and IQ testing has little effect:

The intellectual abilities developed or certified in school make little causal contribution to getting ahead economically. Only a minor portion of the substantive statistical association between schooling and economic success can be accounted for by the school's role in producing or screening cognitive skills (cited Van Krieken, 2006 pp. 135-6).

..

What if the system of education started speaking 'out of turn'? “---we'd lose funding!”

In viewing the nation as an integrated collective community, fascists claim that pluralism is a dysfunctional aspect of society, one that justifies a totalitarian state as a means to represent the nation in its entirety (Wikipedia). No fractures - one view and we all work together with one voice… this is your discourse. Of course! One course. No waiver. 

Is this our forced agenda? Is this the product, Minister? 

Education is the institution handed the responsibility to deliver, according to the government, the rules its people should follow. 'The principle of insularity can be invoked to support profoundly conservative doctrines in defence of the curriculum status quo' (Young, 2003, p.100). Through bureaucratic administration the government has the power to dictate the discourse with which it will speak. 

Can we hear Nietzsche screaming?... “Zarathustra speak!”

I hear music in the room...Is that an orchestra? 

(Also sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss, 1896).

'Suck the marrow out of life,' John Keating says in Dead Poets' Society, along with the imperative “seize the day”. This teacher called on his students to find the passion, the spontaneity and energy, to stand up to the formulas of the system; to disregard the status quo, fight the path of least resistance, and seek the very thing that inspires them... to explore their youth and live their passion (Latham et al, p 144).

Those left sitting at the table, gorging themselves with the doctrines of their own discourse, vomit on society... their grotesque spectacle is messy... true to life. The current capital based system is without vision; out of control. It is a system designed for the consumers of greed and producers of capital, without creative soul, and who disregard the very health of its’ own people. “Is this our forced agenda? Is this the product you're looking for, Mr. Prime Minister?” 

REFERENCES

Cuff, E, Sharrock, W &Francis, D (2006) Perspectives in Sociology, 5th Edn., New York: Routledge.

Latham, G, Blaise, M, Dole, S, Falkner,J, Lang, J, & Malone, K (2006).Learning to teach; new times, new practices, Melboure, Victoria: Oxford University Press.

Van Krieken, R (2006). Sociology Themes and Perspectives, Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education. 

Young, M, (2003) Durkheim, Vygotsky and the curriculum of the future, London Review of Education, 1:2, pp.100-120, July, 2003.