Education

Teaching During the Pandemic with an Artist’s Mindset

By Sarah MacWright

Destroying, abandoning, and repurposing are essential parts of making art. In 1970, the conceptual artist John Baldessari burned 12 years of his paintings and baked the ashes into cookies. He called the new work Cremation Project with Corpus Wafers, which is now part of the Hirschhorn Museum’s collection. Not all artists destroy their work with such flair, but they all use the foundation of discarded art to build work that is stronger: more curious, more focused, or more complicated. Artists who teach understand the importance of letting go and starting again. They champion drafts and abandoned starts, and they show students that the essence of discarded work is never lost. A student once asked my ceramicist colleague how long it takes him to throw a large vessel. He counted up the time since he learned how to throw on the wheel and responded: “13 years.”

When my colleagues and I pivoted to online teaching this spring, we spent little time grieving our old lessons or trying to mimic them through Zoom. We abandoned many of our plans for the spring, knowing that we would stand on their foundation to create a new set of projects and lessons. Make no mistake, adapting art classes for a socially distanced world was at least as hard for art teachers as it was for teachers in other disciplines, and perhaps it was uniquely difficult, given the importance of tactility and presence in the arts. Still, the practice of destroying work and starting again as artists gave art teachers special insight into the task. As we created new lessons, my colleagues and I asked ourselves four fundamental questions.

What are we really teaching?

When a ceramics teacher has to teach without clay, she must ask herself what she is really teaching. In other words, what she has been teaching all this time through clay? For example, her core lessons may be (1) materials awareness, (2) community, and (3) critical thinking. In rebuilding curriculum for distance learning, my art colleagues pursued these goals rather than trying to mimic pre-pandemic lessons. It is better for ceramics students to experiment with a material unlike clay if it engages their connections to community or their critical thinking. For instance, my colleague eschewed teaching salt dough, a mixture of salt and flour that can be fired like clay, in favor of teaching edible doughs, which better facilitate community-building conversations about family, nourishment, and food.

Why do students show up?

Understanding students’ motivations is an essential component in creating effective curricula at a distance. Art teachers know why students show up, and it’s not about grades. Students may come to class to express their perspectives and experiences, or they may show up for the opportunity to imagine other worlds. Art teachers have always responded to these needs by making sure that students’ work is seen and shared, and by giving students assignments that provide respite from real-life struggles. If coursework in other disciplines is responsive to the class’s needs and motivations, students will be likely to show up—and get what they need.

What is the medium now?

Singing on Zoom is not the same as singing. As teaching shifted from one new format to another, it seemed like some students were regressing. A confident singer didn’t feel as confident on Zoom. His singing ability hadn’t changed, but the medium had. Art teachers helped by turning off (or down) the anxieties of a new medium. The music teachers I know gave students focused advice on camera position, eye contact, and white balance to help students feel like the unfamiliar parts of a new situation were taken care of. Similarly, English, history or math teachers probably found that students needed help to develop confidence in new formats for discussion, workshops, or partnered and group work.

How can teachers test and deploy at the same time?

Art teachers are masters of iteration, constantly reflecting and wondering how to improve next year. This past spring, many art teachers taught more new lessons in eight weeks than they do in a typical school year. Time for reflection was hard to come by, and time to adjust or refine didn’t exist yet. Art teachers coped by focusing on teacher samples, taking note of how long projects took to complete, and how easy or difficult they were to do, especially when they required materials of any kind that were not provided by the school. Art teachers built empathy in a hurry by being the first “students” to complete the work. This is a good practice for teachers in all disciplines, and even more so now.

Ask an art teacher

As school administrators wrap up this period of emergency remote learning, they now have to immediately apply themselves to the task of planning for the unknowns of the fall, once again building new paradigms for teaching and learning in a socially distanced and/or remote and/or hybrid school. Art teachers can be valuable participants and leaders in this process, ready to create new paths forward. Sarah MacWright is a photography teacher and arts department chair at Millbrook School, a coed boarding high school. MacWright participated in the virtual Chronogram Conversation “Arts Education During COVID-19” in late June.

Arts Education During COVID-19: The Transition to a Digital Environment Once COVID-19 hit in mid-March, schools and arts organizations across the region shifted from in-person classes to digital instruction. As the Hudson Valley continues the reopening process throughout the summer, art education remains a predominately virtual experience. While schools and educators continue to grapple with how to possibly bring students back into classrooms in the fall, we wanted to understand how the pivot to digital instruction has affected the learning experience in arts instruction.

On June 30, Chronogram hosted a virtual conversation on arts education during the coronavirus pandemic with a panel of distinguished arts educators and administrators, sponsored by Cornell Creative Arts Center. Panelists included Bryant “Drew” Andrews, executive director of Center for Creative Education; Nicole Fenichel-Hewitt, executive director of The Art Effect; Emily Dykeman, technical director at Hudson Valley Performing Arts Lab; Rachel Jacob, art director at Cornell Creative Arts Center; and Sarah MacWright, a photography teacher and arts department chair at Millbrook School. (MacWright has written an essay for Chronogram on teaching during the pandemic with an artist’s mindset, which appears on page 43.) What emerged from the conversation about the digital teaching experience was a sense of something lost (as Bard President Leon Botstein told Chronogram recently: “We’re going to have to face the fact that there’s no technological solution to the complexity of education in the classroom.”), and something found. One teacher noted that digital learning allowed her to have more one-on-one time with her students and also allowed the shy kids more of a chance to speak up in the nonsocial setting. Another stated: “I think online learning simply doesn’t work for some kids. My students (dance) were super enthused initially, then just started dropping off. We did scavenger hunts, dress up, pet parades, everything I could think of, but some of these kids (and adults) just really seemed to struggle with online learning. I think all the video/online stuff is great, but we need other solutions as well.” Fenichel-Hewitt said that moving The Art Effect’s annual teen film festival online allowed for greater participation from a wider geographic reach. MacWright of Millbrook School suggested that arts educators were especially well equipped, as artists themselves, to help their organizations to think flexibly, expansively, and optimistically as they create new models for teaching during an ongoing crisis. Andrews of the Center for Creative Education noted that his organization was prepared for remote learning as it had been teaching via video to students across the country and overseas for the last five years. Another topic on the minds of many was access to the internet. One schoolteacher said that she did not realize how poor her own home bandwidth was until she started doing Zoom calls with her students. This access problem extends to students as well, many of whom lack connectivity. Tens of millions of Americans cannot access or cannot afford home broadband connections. This digital divide, exacerbated by the pandemic, saw some students just “drop out” as they did not have the tools required to keep up. Instructors shared war stories as well as tips and best practices for online learning. Innovative ideas were floated: Art teachers in Beacon have created art kits with guided, site-specific experiences around the city. These are accompanied by videos talking about the project of the week with questions and prompts to inspire students and parents. Because the experiences are site-specific, the hope is that mini installations will appear around town, giving a sense of connectivity. While instructors lamented not being able to be physically in front of their students, all found silver linings in various forms. Educators are nimble and adaptable by training and practice, it’s no surprise that a pandemic did not throw these folks off track. A full video of the entire conversation can be found online at Chronogram.com/ArtEdCovid.

Sponsored by Cornell Creative Arts Center.