The Art of Teaching.

Compelled…

A fresh haircut…
Clean shaven and bathed…

The dogs walked… sunset observed stood in field; purple orange cloud, framed by clear emerald blue as front moves away revealing clear, star studded newness… dusk descends… ghost mist rising from the cooling land…

Cold, crisp air… a new image forms…

The girls and partner delivered safely to the neighbours…
Festivities begun…

The ritual begins…

D’yo’know… Many moons ago, as one of my rites of passage, this night gave excuse to party and revel. One of my favourite nights of the year, I’d plan in advance… weeks ahead… the venue, the drink, the friends, the family… only to reach midnight and miss the chimes… the community… the celebration…

Waking next morning… wondering… hungover… bleary eyed… vowing never to do again… until same time next year!

No way to start any day…

No way to start any New Year…

So I decided… to start the year as I intended to live it… to set the agenda… to ensure the practice…

The scene is set…

A portfolio review booked at The National Centre for Craft and Design in early February, ensuring I have to make work…

Another years project having booked my place on TEA @ Sketchbook Circle… another collaboration… my starting point already secured… sketchbook sorted and begun…

Application form for The Design Factory downloaded and ready to fill out…

Advice on new artists sort on NSEAD online, ready to be fitted into new schemes of work for school… never teach the same module twice…

Blog in process… commitment to write at least each second week…

New Year… new start…

16 years ago this year, I decided that on New Year’s Eve I would lock myself away and set the agenda for the coming year… I am compelled to see the New Year in making a painting or image to ensure my practice for the year ahead. Without fail, this is now how I start my year… fearing that should I not do so, my practice will follow example…

Exemplar…

Stretched canvas… quality paper… paints… pens… pencils… iPads… the work has varied over the years from surreal portrait of cat to spiritual dot painting and abstract musings… I never know what will come out… only that it will…

I love this evening…

First the silence…

Then…

Playlist ready… Sacred Spirit… David Lynch… Anthony &The Johnson’s… Agnes Obel… Enigma… my creator companions…

Zen… my meditation… I shall drift and float…

I hope for…

You ever get that?

Living in the image… timeless… the process of making… purpose… reason… oneness… meaning…

Art – the craft of making – is my drug. I can’t think of a better farewell and entrance to the year… feed the elixir… the buzz and slow comedown of the reveal after the passion of exertion… I’m ready for my fix…

A wise old man once told me that I’d been given a gift; that failing to use it was criminal…

I’m ready to be that which my creator made me…

I hope to be…

Artist…

I wish you all, however you choose to see it in, a very peaceful and creative New Year…

Now, where was I?

You don’t learn from what you know… you learn from what you don’t know! Obvious really, but oft forgotten me thinks…

I forgot… took for granted… thought I was safe… secure with the knowledge of a lifetimes gathering…

Complacency.

I love learning… seeing the new… discussion… debate… others opinions… researching… exploring – driving around aimlessly for hours watching the changing landscape – gathering those next images, or new versions to add to something already thought complete…

… but I can get lost in it… drift away… forget…

…. awakening to realize that what I thought I knew is dated… defunct… not as clever or relevant as it was…

The world moved on. I stood still.

How long?

So I’ve decided… already started…

It’s that time of year isn’t it? Nearly anyway… New Year resolutions… time for change… time to re-evaluate… time to be honest about those flaws… create change… take charge of ones own destiny again… evolve… wash away the 16 years staleness of the classroom… re-generate… revive… re-energize…

Get pro active…

I’m not really one for social media. I do have Tumblr, Flickr and Twitter (faceless) accounts; I withdrew from Facebook over five years ago, as I really didn’t understand why people wouldn’t want to converse face to face…

There’s my problem… my vanity again… an excuse to do the opposite… hide away… “these social media sites” I told myself, “encourage you to appear social whilst really you communicate box to box, screen to screen…dehumanized” – whilst I sat alone thinking I was better… more human because I didn’t subscribe! Pah!

I don’t learn… discover… unearth alone…

It doesn’t work…

I’ve loved being a one-man department… no boss to tell me what to do… no overseer… no recrimination…

…

No need to change… communicate… ask… seek out new… compare… evaluate… alter… re-visit…

And then it struck me! If this was my art practice?..

I wouldn’t; of course I wouldn’t.

I don’t just want to talk about teaching and art. I want to learn, view, compare, consider, consult… and not just with the voices in my head. I want my pupils to be challenged, inspired and up to date… relevant…

I don’t want to be found wanting again.

I need to make more effort with people. I need to ask for help, seek advice and opinion. I need to step out of my comfort zone and try and do that which feels alien to me… I need to stop thinking I can do this by myself.

First step accomplished.

I rejoined Facebook on the advice of my good friend Elena Thomas; in particular so that I could access NSEAD online and all the wonderful resources, critique, conversation and support that a one-man department lacks.

Initially I dipped my toe in by commenting on other peoples posts… no adverse reaction… no one laughing at me… good… so I got braver and posted 8 images created by my GCSE pupils on iPads…

Again, no laughter… no ridicule…

In fact; fantastic response… so grateful… nice comments, lots of interest… again no laughter… Thank you.

I’m feeling good to be a part of a community. I enjoy thinking about others requests for help and it gives me the courage to want to ask myself. It’s a community of ideas and solutions and has made me realize that this one-man department must seek further help and inspiration from outside. I need to do the same here on an, join networks and share and seek new ideas and inspirations.

I guess the truth is I’ve missed the work ethic and stimulation the Masters degree gave me over the two years of that study. Alone again this past year except for the encouragement and cajoling from Elena, I didn’t realize just how much I missed the conversation.

New years resolution; must make more effort.

At some stage I guess I need to explain my absence?… That’s not easy, because self-esteem gets in the way… I don’t want to be ill thought of… but I have to be honest… I am the example…

Exemplar again.

I don’t want to write this… is why I’ve put off for so long… No one likes to admit his or her own shortcomings… besides; I have the excuse – I have to keep this professional… not place myself at risk.

This is a result of self examination… not OFSTED inspection… its taken time… to admit…

Confessional.

Pride cometh before the fall…

Me… all over…

I worry that I am turning into a miserable old git, my humour and zest abandoned. I’ve always been the optimist… lived life to the full and tried to pass on my enthusiasm. A series of unfortunate, recent incidents have placed a huge dent in that… yet on the good days they remain insignificant… or maybe more realistically – manageable.

Self-pity manifests easily when the impression is negative.

Self-pity. Self-indulgence!

But the negatives are positives. Attitude and perception can alter their form, but reality, when accepted is far simpler… everything is exactly as it is… it is I, me, that sits wrong within.

Acceptance clears the path for progress. Denial hinders.

Did I take my eye off of the ball?

Did I put myself first?

My Art first?

Is that permissible?

Which takes precedence? Illness? Family? Education? Self? Others?

There are things that education can never teach us – that’s Experiences job…

Yet…

My life is spent in judgement!… you, me, them, that…

Try turning it off…

Is the “Art of Teaching” simply not to judge? Is the “Art of Teaching” simply not to judge others? Where does that lead? What does that leave?

16 years into my teaching career, for the first time 7 months ago, OFSTED found me wanting… “Needs improvement”.

Brought to the school after two previous, consecutive outstanding judgements by a single anomaly in figures relating to the discrepancy of attainment between male and female pupils, (both still well ahead of the national average), and 2 days before my GCSE moderation visit that gave me my best set of results to date; observed for twenty minutes by a non specialist inspector whilst I taught one of my Year 9 show lessons; found wanting for lack of writing in their sketchbooks, my initial reaction was to tell myself, arrogantly, they were wrong!

I can still feel the burning residue of that resentment now…

But were they?

Honestly?

Its not their findings that count… its my judgement of myself… and if they stirred that… good for them. Would it have hurt if they were wrong?… Only the truth hurts!

I knew things were wrong… we all did… just not with me! Funny thing denial… easier to point the finger… your fault, their failing, weakness…

God it hurt!

My daughter decided to come to us rather than go to the Grammar… her choice had to be supported…

…So I had to look honestly…

I’m not saying this is the only reason… hindsight… but a key factor?

I want my daughters to have the best possible education available to them in the schools that they are in. As a parent that is my right of expectation… as an educator it is criminal neglect if I am not offering it… but truly… I’m the only person who will ever know if that’s the case or not…

Relevant evaluations…

… filter into every aspect of my thinking. There is real danger here that I start making the case for institutions that I disagree with. A borderline I can easily topple over…

So lets compare to artwork… bring it back to what I know…

Honest subjectivity?

What makes a great painting?

Taste? Preference? Price? Medium? Effervescence?

Art reflects life… is life – so perhaps the same criteria apply? Does that make me art? Is that the moment I seek… hung on the wall… complete acceptance?… Just being… being at peace with myself and the world around me?

No verdicts?

It’s been a while…

And I know as I sit here and type this, come the end, this might be a futile effort that just ends up in the trash… unpublished yet exorcised… we shall see what courage remains…

I lost my confidence writing.

I lost my confidence full stop. Echoes yet remain… doubts about the intelligence of my frustrations, education and right to voice opinions…

“It all needs supporting with evidence or it becomes a rant”…

I’m of the conclusion now that I am the evidence… I live this… have recorded this… feel this…

Like the images we create… records of our passing time…

It may well be unsubstantiated, but for me is real and relevant…

I make no apologies to the academia.

I’ve spent my time contemplating… observing… considering…

My head is full… needs release, create a vacuum so I can start again…

Tangled inconsistencies may well spill out… bare with me please… let me heal the jigsaw…

In his first film as director and actor “The Man Without a Face”, Mel Gibson’s character Justin Mcleod who is portrayed as gifted and inspiring teacher, is questioned by the authorities, and in response to a certain set of questions questioning his professionalism alongside accusations of pedophilia, retorts with the shrewd statement “You just simply don’t get it”…

In these times of Mr Gove’s educational reforms, I find this fictional testimony extremely profound and relevant…

Mr Gove; You simply don’t get it!

Education parallels and constructs society – though politicians would have us believe otherwise – politicians aren’t the “Kingmakers”… yet at present the de-professionalizing of this once well-respected vocation is crippling the moral and very fabric of what it offers. The relentless pressure to measure, assess and compete is not fixed by removing or demoting subjects that offer respite. “ Non academic” now describes this subject we work so hard to promote…

I sat this morning with my Year 11 pupils… mock exam… 5 hours off timetable to start work on their final piece of their final course work… an admitted luxury… but real life… as professional artists work…

Their ideas evaporating from the worked pages of their sketchbooks, vying for position to be constructed onto their once blank canvases… those creative threads teased directly out of their heads, made magically to appear for me like a conjurers trick… the culmination of a seasons work.

I sat and considered their futures… tomorrows visionaries, designers and curators of planet home…

I considered my part in their arrival at this point… the worth-whileness of it… the privilege of formation… instruction…

…and I looked into a blank, possible future where this ceased to exist or was conditioned to be marginal…

…and I wondered…

Why don’t we ask them?

Why presume we know best?

In Year 9 we have something called options… where Year 9 pupils decide what they wish to choose to study for GCSE for their final two years of secondary education. Historically the presumption is then, that 14 year olds are capable of doing this – with the guidance of their parents – but ultimately (for the sake of argument) their choice…

So the precedent is that they are capable…

I don’t have to sell Art to my pupils. My numbers stack up. My Year 10 GCSE cohort this year is just below half of the year group and at present next years numbers are looking equally as good…

But there is an undercurrent…

What would you do if your school were to be judged on the outcomes in 8 (academic) selected subjects? As an educator? As a parent? Is there an inevitability here that the most able will be syphoned off for those 8? Pressurized? The “non academic’s” serving as holding pens?

The Chambers Dictionary has as one of its definitions for academic as: – “Theoretical only, of no practical importance or consequence”!

Do you read this in the same way as I do?

That’s a bit umm… unfortunate… isn’t it?

I repeat…

Mr Gove; You simply don’t get it!