I was singing One Love by Bob Marley in my mind when I started writing this post, but I didn’t mean the reference with its religious intentions. His line, “There ain't no hiding place from the power of creation,” is something I think is even more true after last Thursday's OnEdMentors show. Each week, I gather a different panel of educators to explore a topic in education, listen to and learn from each other. It is especially great PD for me as a host, but it can be a creative challenge to tweak shows that have been planned for months to ensure they are relevant to teachers during the pandemic. It’s actually been incredible how significant each one has been.
I had originally planned to do an Integrated Arts focused episode of OnEdMentors. Jilian Strombolich is someone with whom I love to collaborate, so I reached out to her to begin planning. She introduced me to her Arts Curriculum Consultant partner, Emily Burgis, and I went on to gather the panel. Then, Covid hit, and I was looking for a different angle on the episode. By pure coincidence (or serendipity), I had shared a slide deck outlining the project that I had planned for my students that I titled Living History M.E.M.E. (Memory Encapsulating Monument of my Experience). Cameron Jones saw it on Twitter, and we connected. We ended up video conferencing and finding many synergies in this work. I also figured out the angle of the episode and was eager to add Cam, Matt Dotzenroth and one of the teachers at their board, Leslie Mott, on the show to talk about how we can help our children capture this time through an integrated arts approach. Cultural Production in Quarantine was one of the titles for the episode (Stephen Hurley titled it Cultural Production in a Covid 19 World, which you will see when you click on the link to the audio).
Teachers are looking for meaningful ways to engage learners. Why not use this time to invite students to curate their living history in the ways they most want to? In YRDSB (York Region District School Board), the Arts Curriculum Consultants reached out to colleagues at the system level and in schools. Emily Burgis shared more about why they opened a Google Classroom and started having Green Room Conversations: to share ideas, listen and honour the knowledge and expertise educators bring with them. They use #SparkCreativityYRDSB to leverage creative pieces happening in the board to share and inspire more. In OCDSB (Ottawa Carleton District School Board) they wanted to find ways to make this time of learning from home meaningful, too. Cam shared that it’s cool to find intersections, and help students be whole learners. For the Digital Time Capsule (#OCDSBTimeCapsule), which is the way that Cam and Matt have created a space to invite K-12 students in their board to create. Matt added that the idea of the time capsule is experiential and I inquiry based because it, “inherently puts the teachers, parents, and students in the role of positive thinking,” while providing an audience for today and in the future. “It also builds in meaning to this time.” Cam and Matt brainstormed many cross curricular opportunities and ways to collaborate within the board and across the community
Encouraging students to capture and document this time as lived experience, using whatever mediums teachers and students choose to tell what it’s like to live through this time, is important work. It’s a powerful opportunity for students to share their learning in a way that dissolves their silos. Leslie shared that she is feeling hopeful about the work they are doing in her class. She referred to this as a way to flip the one hour learning time for her class as a way to share “their passions, their interests...and use that as a starting place instead of the teacher and the curriculum as a starting place.” Some of her students’ answers to her question, “What are you making right now?” include: board games, Minecraft games, building treehouses and chicken coops, rainbow makers, butter tarts, movies, painted rocks. She added, “Once you start that growth and blooming to become the forefront, then you can build your... programming around it, but.. The kids are connecting, wellness is at the forefront, and they are making, They are making every day in many many ways.” The transferable skills that we can be teaching and showing students that we value who they are and what they bring to a learning equation is another potentially constructive outcome of this time. We know that doesn’t dissolve access issues or inequities in home lives, but it can give purpose to students in a self directed way, and it can give students direction to keep them focused on a meaningful horizon. Another aspect that Leslie finds levelling and contributing to a feeling of equity in her class is that, through video conferencing, there is no one at the head of the room. Instead, she shared, they are all the same size face icons and feel more equalized. “Home and family are children’s first teachers.” Jilian shared this to help students give themselves permission to experiment and use their time at home to be playful in the arts to tell their story. This is also a time to remember that school is not the sole place of learning.
When using the Arts as a catalyst, it is important to inspire and not take the ideas or style of a culture or other artists. One of the questions we specifically explored was: How do you invite students to be inspired by artists from around the world or Indigenous cultures and ways of knowing without promoting cultural appropriation? Emily shared that they work closely with the First Nations, Metis and Inuit team (FNMI) on their board. They always liaise with the team before they do any related content and referred to the four R’s of Indigenous pedagogy and education: respect, relevancy, reciprocity, and responsibility. She added the fifth R- relationship, noting that, “When we ask students to create, that we are not asking them to recreate and do something that may be sacred and that they don’t have the teachings for. Our students come with rich experiences and diverse cultural backgrounds all over this province and all over this country. We need to find ways to centre their learning and their knowledge, and their families and those experiences in their ways of doing. When we don’t include these other narratives, we are telling children that they don’t belong.” Students need to be able to bring all of their social identities into their work. “It’s allowing that space for that student's voice to be centred and not asking them to recreate something that they don’t understand if they don’t have the teaching for.” Emily also referred to a wonderful document from our board called Teaching in a Good Way. Emily also shared a document from ETFO to support cultural production with appropriating.
Some of the connections that OCDSB made were with community partners and with Canadian musician and songwriter, Craig Cardiff. Matt and Cam both spoke about Craig Cardiff and how he is inviting students to become songwriters and storytellers by sharing what they miss from life before quarantine. He was amazed by his artistic process, listening to him walk students through and look for the story in what they shared, capturing their emotions and playing back through a remix of Hard Rain by Bob Dylan- a song that compliments this experience well. Cam said that, “Craig is probably one of the best educators that I’ve seen in my career, and he just happens to also write great songs. He was working with a number of students in an ASD program, and the video showed him encouraging the students to explore sound.” Cam expressed that so often, in school, we echo culture but rarely get the chance to create from a blank canvas. Craig values the students voices, literally, and uses their words in constructing songs. He draws out lyrics from students through songs and invented expressions in that moment. We can empower our students to make a record of this moment, literally and figuratively. I have seen Craig work with students, and he is magical. He can get everyone to add something and show students what is possible both individually and collectively. Cam shared that Craig has this beautiful idea to take the recording from the students and have them be captured for a larger audience, collecting songs within a classroom or from individuals and will make them available as a place where students can find them. I look forward to seeing and hearing what Craig does with the students in OCDSB.
Reaching out and bringing people together has been a theme of this time. Jilian built on to what Cam was saying noting that the creating through student voice was a primary document and, referring to a text she is reading, she alluded to bringing back the family room- and how the connectedness and harmony we want to encourage from students to give intent and to value student creation breaks down the barriers. Leslie spoke about the value of the artifact in the long term, but that there is value in making more out of the short term and using this as an opportunity to help each day look different. We can see our roles as ways to help humans to develop into their best selves. Leslie said,"That prioritizes the Arts. We are not cutting the Arts down to a small little package anymore because the making and the storytelling are why we’re here.” This time can be so much more than making it through, and we all shared the hope that what we are learning now will make an impact when we do go "back to school" (whatever that looks like).
You can’t always begin with engagement. Sometimes, engagement comes through how we personalize learning and invite each student’s voice into a learning experience. The Arts really help when they are a conduit as opposed to an end in and of themselves. Learning at home reflects many different learning experiences, but the entire panel shared the value of student well-being becoming central and having engagement and learning truly drive our teaching. Cam expressed, “People have always created beautiful things and poignant things and stunning works to capture their experience of life.” Often in education...[creating]doesn't always fit into our schedule." He hopes that so many students find a voice to say how they want to express their learning in the context of their passion as opposed to being a forced recipient of content. If we begin with learners, who they are and what matters to them, engagement will come. This time of distance learning is a sort of crisitunity to give us pause and different ways to connect with and allow learners to use their voices, exercise choice and, through an integrated arts approach, have them curate their stories by creating something in the ways that are most meaningful to them. Even in quarantine, there is no hiding place from the power of creation.
