Downs and Ups

If you've been reading this blog from a macro point of view you may have detected something of the ebb and flow of the project. In one of my earlier posts I mentioned the cycle of 'overwhelmed-ness' as a result of encountering new ideas, followed by a sense of accomplishment as a structure to incorporate the new ideas is developed, followed by the introduction of new ideas . . .

Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft describe a similar experience in their excellent book Make Space, based on their experiences with the Stanford University d.school. They outline (pg 176) an 'emotional arc' as moving through the following phases:  

Up - "A sense of excitement and limitless possibility" as the project begins
Down - "Overwhelming complexity" as the project's participants realise how much they've taken on
Up - "Unifying insights" as breakthroughs to solutions are achieved
Down - "Complete loss of confidence" during periods when it seems as if you won't achieve the goal
Down - "The brutal realities of implementation" as things take longer and cost more than you imagined
Up - "Completion"

At the end of last term we'd come to a bit of an impasse as a group, when it seemed that we had a short period of time to sell an unreasonably large amount of advertising to fund the printing of our project's magazine. Everyone (including me I have to admit) was pretty down in the mouth about it.

When we returned to school after the Easter break we took some time to review what we've achieved so far, and what we had left to complete. We also looked over the feedback that students had provided in the 'How I Learn Best' box and discussed how these suggestions could be facilitated (more structure; tasks broken down more; less things to do at once; more affirmation of successes, among other things). This morphed into a series of 'what if?' questions, which resulted in a small change of focus for the production side of the project (more web-based, less in print) and a request for some new quotes from the printers.

And now, to quote project member Jeremy Healey's in our Facebook Group

Well, everything is starting to come along. Things feel achievable now. Much better than last term.

And by the way, if you are interested in advertising in a magazine that targets young creatives (16 - 19 years) in New Zealand, please feel free to contact me (s.cunnane AT fraser.school.nz). Seriously!

Natural outsiders: Thinking about Jonah Lehrer's 'Imagine'

I've been making the most of my non-teaching time recently to get a bit of reading done, in particular Jonah Lehrer's Imagine: The science of creativity (which also seems to be sub-titled 'How creativity works'). 

The world is full of natural outsiders, except we don't call them outsiders; we refer to them as young people. The virtue of youth, after all, is that the young don't know enough to be insiders, cynical with expertise. While such ignorance has all sorts of obvious drawbacks, it also comes with creative advantages, which is why so many fields, from physics to punk rock, have been defined by their most immature members. The young know less, which is why they often invent more. - Jonah Lehrer

This issue of what young people have to offer (and in my particular case, the young people who are part of the Curriculum Integration Project) is one that I've been reflecting on a bit recently. While it's nice (well, sometimes nice, and sometimes incredibly challenging or frustrating!) for them to be part of an 'authentic learning project', if all we're doing is re-producing a 'real world' experience in an educational context is that really making the most of their potential?

Is a paper and web-based magazine about visual culture the ultimate product that 20 'natural outsiders' can produce? Or can they/we produce something that is properly innovative, that moves beyond the bounds of our current experience, and really connects the visual culture of their world with their colleagues? How can we best help them take advantage of the 'virtues of youth' to create something new rather than reproducing a version of something old?

In five years time when we look back at what they invented you'll be mentioned in the credits Jonah. And in the meantime, when we're cursing the idea of taking on such a big project, you may also get a mention!

The Impact of Kickstarter, Creative Commons & Creators Project

Here's an interesting video (from the PBS series Off Book, produced by Kornhaber Brown) that challenged my thinking about the world we're preparing our students for (and the world they're already operating in). Thanks to Idealog magazine for drawing my attention to it.

Teamwork and Target Audience

Several weeks back Charles Riddle, Mark Liu and Simon Nicholls from the Media Arts Department at Wintec (our local Media Arts School, and a strong supporter of this project) spent a Friday afternoon with us sharing some insights from their experiences working on similar projects (including Village on the Hill and The Waikato Independent).

Here's a short video with a couple of excerpts from their talk.



(Please excuse the less than ideal audio! A good interview mic that works with DSLR video is on my list of things to buy for the project. If you have any suggestion of a good brand and model for this, please leave a comment)

Authentic Authenticity

It's been another challenging week! Let's assume that means we're learning lots and being stretched!

Community Engagement
One of Fraser's goals for this year is to better engage (to use a popular educational term) with our community. While the project was not by any stretch of the imagination set up as a PR exercise, I expected that the Curriculum Integration Project would provide some opportunities for this engagement. However, I've been taken aback by just how this has played out as we have begun to engage with our wider community in an authentic way (read "went begging for help to complete our project"!).

I've already blogged about the contribution Adlite Signs made to the project following a student's suggestion. Added to this though have been visits to our studio from people like Emma from the Ministry of Done, and Margi, Simon, Mark and Charles from Wintec's Media Arts Department (the people behind the Waikato Independent and The Village on the Hill). These people have taken the time to connect with our group of budding magazine publishers and share 'real world' experiences of various parts of the publishing industry.

Further to this has been the incredible generosity of the artists and designers who have not only been willing to be interviewed by our students for the magazine, but in some cases have offered their time to come and run workshops, or be filmed for stop-motion videos of them making work, or have pointed the students in the direction of additional information and other resources that will help enhance the project.

Epitomizing all of this has been a media specialist (I'd better check with her before I say too much to identify her!) who has met twice with members of our team to share invaluable insights from her experience in the industry, and finished our last meeting with a "just call me any time you've got a question." What incredible people we're having the chance to work with! And if you're reading this, thanks to all of you!

Authenticity
It is becoming clear that one of the key challenges for the project teaching team is working out how we can provide sufficient structure for the students to give them confidence that they will have a successful product at the end of the project, while maintaining the flexibility to respond to the new learning that takes place at each step. A number of students have let us know that they were feeling pretty overwhelmed by the size of what we've bitten off, to the point where it was starting to get demoralizing. I guess that's the 'down side' of engaging with 'authentically authentic' learning in this kind of project. When the teacher moves to being at best a facilitator, and at times a fellow learner it can leave the students with a sense of 'who's steering this thing?' which has clearly been unsettling for some.

However, I'm becoming familiar with some of the cycles of our project learning process: We engage with some form of focused 'learning event' (frequently a visit to or from a guest) which opens our eyes to a series of previously unseen challenges and opportunities. This frequently leads to a bit of a down-swing as the students grapple with how to incorporate this learning into their current understandings of the project. After a day or two of unsettled-ness a plan and structure begins to emerge as they take ownership of the new element of the project. And then we invite in a new guest in and the cycle continues!

Out of this cycle is growing a greater sense of student ownership and driving of the project, which has to be a good thing!

More interviews

I've got a more reflective blog post coming, but in the meantime, here are a couple of teasers for some of the interviews that have taken place this week.

Deaan Marchioni interviewing painter Meredith Collins in her home studio

A short excerpt of David Creighton-Pester's interview with Gemma Rockliffe

Interviews

You know you're in the art project too much when you feel an emotion, and the first thing you think is "I'll blog about it!!" - Sharnae Hope

Among many other tasks (including some substantial requirements for art making) this past week has been the week of artist interviews. Students have carried out a mix of face to face, telephone, and email interviews with artists from around New Zealand. Artists interviewed have included Grahame Sydney, Robin White, Mark Hamilton, Darren Glass and Christian Pearce (whom it turns out is a Fraser old-boy).

As you may have read in my last post, the level of concern was building for some students as they waited to hear back from their chose artists. For those who did hear back there has been a great deal of smiling and celebration. For those who didn't, there has been some hasty choosing and researching about new artists.

Mark Hamilton. Photo by Sarah Crawford

Today has been the best day ever! I interviewed Mark Hamilton, an amazing local photographer who was kind, friendly, and very funny when he was talking about his photographing career and experiences. It was absolutely daunting and exciting at the same time ...    Sarah Crawford 

From a teaching point of view, one of the things I really like about Sarah's blog (http://crawford-sarah.blogspot.co.nz/) is the way she uses her writing to reflect on what she's been learning, and what she'd do differently next time.

 Boom one interview done, and wow it was cool (: i don't know why i was so nervous. My artist was so lovely and i learnt heaps! i'm so stoked i have done it, it finally feels like i'm actually getting somewhere now! i'm very happy with my progress.    Jasmine Wiltshier