Tag Archives: photography

Apr23

A Little Gratitude

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Vitriol. Division. Self. Tribalism. Hate.

This world can be so ugly.

This weekend I had the honor and the joy to sing with a marvelous group of musicians of all ethnicities, ages, religions, and political affiliations in a concert of unity, healing, and overcoming. I am emotionally spent in the best possible way. There is still hope for this human race.

I came to work today exhausted, but happy. I usually work from home on Mondays, but I switched days this week. I’m glad I did. I’ve been working as a prospective student advisor for three years now. I have counseled more people than I can count, but there are a few who stand out. One such standout was M, a medical doctor from Romania who could find no work in the U.S. wherein she could use her considerable skills to do good in her community. She came in frustrated and discouraged, wondering whether she had any opportunities left. Our program prove to be a perfect fit for her, and I was able to encourage her to apply for both the master’s degree and for a grant that would pay her tuition. She was accepted to both. I saw her periodically over the next months. GSU’s certification and master’s degree is a grueling program. As a result, our graduates are prepared for the classroom and our five-year retention rate is nearly double the national average. I watched M struggle with the load, but I knew she would finish what she started. Today she celebrated completion of the program and has her choice of job opportunities.

Many students I counseled have completed the degree, but M came to my office with a sweet bouquet of flowers and a few words of thanks.

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Thank you bouquet

She talked about how she had grown through the program and how her confidence was restored and how she looked forward to her future with hope. She thanked me for seeing past her frustration and disappointment and helping her get started on the journey to teaching. It was a ten minute chat and a few flowers that showed me again that there is always hope.

Yes, I was just doing my job 16 months ago when M first stepped into my office. And as jobs in academia go, this graduate assistantship is not one that requires special skills or an advanced degree. I am grateful that this position covers my tuition and allows me to pursue my PhD without accruing additional debt. But I am not special in this job. I have very little authority and I make no decisions about enrollment, curriculum, admissions, or programs of study. What I can do, and what I strive to do, is to do my job here with excellence. I want potential students to feel welcomed, supported, and valued. When M came to visit today, I saw that my attitude toward my work made a difference in her life. Her visit also demonstrated that I am in this work for a reason, and that how I approach the seemingly insignificant days affects people in ways I may never know.

In the last three days I have seen hope for humanity in big ways and small. Large gestures that include groups of people promoting unity and healing illustrate hopefulness. A little bouquet of flowers in thanks also validates my hopefulness. In both cases, I feel like a very small actor in the play of life. I am here for such a time as this.

Mar1

#walkmyworld: Dreamscape

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 “To sleep, perchance to dream…” (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1)

When I dream

When I dream

How do dreams reflect identity? How does the unconscious mind become the conscious decisions of daily life or long term plans? Who am I in my dreams and can that become reality if I so desire?

This week’s learning event afforded an opportunity to consider the power of dreams, but also reflect on which dreams are worthy of pursuit.

Dreams release us from all limitations, but also bring our fears to life. Patrick Ness’ book, A Monster Calls, brings to life an old yew tree in the dreams of a boy who must find a way to cope with his dying mother. The fear of monsters parallels the fear of the disease and how it has and will continue to affect his life.  As the protagonist faces the dual monsters (the tree and the cancer), he finds himself able to do things he never imagined.

Of course, it is a work of fiction, but in many ways, dreams can help us discern new ways to manage life’s stress because in dreams we are not limited to what is practical.  As a teacher, some of the best lessons I’ve ever written have come either in dreams or in that twilight between waking and sleeping. Once the idea is discovered, the analytical daytime mind can begin to work out the logistics of overcoming the limitations of practicality.

Some dreams can take on a real life, as Ryan Neil demonstrates as an American Shokunin. His artistic dreams manifest in Bonsai, where he has learned to balance life and design to create living sculptures that will live for hundreds of years. This is the beauty of art, no matter what the medium. I have some skills with photography and digital manipulation, and if I were to describe an impossible dream, it would include being discovered as an artist and making a living with this kind of creativity. My logical mind, however, sees the limitations (including my inability in sales and marketing), and puts my art into the category of hobbyist.

Relax and dream

Relax and dream

Still, the creativity of my dreams does find its way into the classroom. I never teach the same lesson twice–even on the same day. Every class has its own personality and requires a unique approach, a certain kind of humor, and a personal touch. I use the analysis to create goals and objectives and outlines, but once class begins, I shape my lessons in much the same way Neil shapes his Bonsai art.

One element of pursuing dreams is the freedom to do so. The arts offer that kind of freedom. Today’s educational system does not. The current obsession with standardized tests, single stream learning, and strict analysis places nearly insurmountable limits on teachers. The standards themselves are not the issue, for the most part. The application of those standards, however, puts many teachers in a bureaucratic maze with only one escape route. This devalues the creative passions of the teacher as well as minimizes the students’ ability to innovate, create, and think beyond multiple choice. What will happen to the dreamers and the visionaries if they are forced to conform to a false norm? Is there a place for the Einsteins and Edisons in our elementary schools today?

Nightmare

Nightmare

Teachers must dream bigger than ever in this day of sameness. We must find new ways to talk about literature and culture and society. We must create new ways to connect content with life in relevant ways all while ensuring our students are able to perform on state test day. It is a challenge that for me has inspired a new dream. While I once dreamed of leaving a legacy in the world of visual art, I now dream of leaving a legacy in adults who, having walked into my world classroom, are not afraid to push back, who value creative problem solving, and who are able to meet ridiculous regulations with style, panache, and enough humor to know that in the long run, life is a better teacher than textbooks anyway.

 

Jul21

Literature or Art Class?

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Why not both?

One of the unorthodox ideas I tested in the last school year was a “Through the Lens” concept. The idea was to read literature, write a short essay, create a digital art piece (based on student photography), and give a presentation that incorporated both the essay and the art. For 2011-2012, the theme was American Literature. It was an easy place to begin for me, as I had already put together a curriculum for a thematic approach to American Literature with a fellow teacher several years ago. American literature also lends itself to images that are approachable by most teenagers who have some interest in visual arts.

I began with the Transcendentalists. Who better to photograph than Whitman, Thoreau, and Emerson?  The nature element alone makes for good images. All I asked the students to do was to connect the photo to some quote or poem from the readings.

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Opening with such obvious connections allowed me to also discuss photography as storytelling and somehow reaching all five senses with imagery. I used PowerPoint to let me illustrate each point, and I encourage the students to learn PowerPoint for their own presentations. The first semester I allowed them just just share their images and discuss them, but by the end of the each all students were adept at full presentations with multiple slides.

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I will teach a similar course for the 2012-2013 school year, this time centered around the work of C.S. Lewis. If that isn’t unorthodox, I don’t know what is!

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The Logical Conclusion by T.S. Eliot

Sep16

Transcendentalists 1

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I’m developing a new approach to teaching literature by making photography/digital design an essential element. The last few sessions we’ve studied the Transcendentalists with an emphasis on Whitman and Thoreau. Emerson became the source for journaling.

The students had to choose a selection from either Thoreau’s Walden or a selection of Whitman’s poetry (Dover has a little book of them, which oddly, leaves out some of my favorites.)
I pulled a section of Thoreau called “Solitude.” It reads, in part:

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can “see the folks,” and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate himself for his day’s solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and “the blues”; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.
Thoreau was, of course, talking about the benefits of solitude. As an introvert, I identify with the idea that society can be exhausting and that a respite is refreshing. However, I also identify the idea that it is possible to be lonely in a crowd, and so I used that idea in my piece. I used a student from another class as my model and took a timed exposure (without a tripod, by the way), having her hold still while other class members walked around her. I desaturated her image and increased saturation on the background students. The digital papers are from my collection (mostly Faith Sisters and DigiDesignResort). I decided to add some word art, play with blending modes, and call it done. It captures the essence of being lonely and I think illustrates Thoreau’s concept of social fatigue.

My students have done some fantastic work with this challenge; I’ll share some eventually.