The Hugo Boss Prize 2018: Simone Leigh, Loophole of Retreat

4/14/19 Gene’s comments on Dahlia’s and Lamar’s posts for this week.

Hello all:

Robert Shreefter emailed me a few days ago to tell me that, due to a family emergency, he had to cancel his visit to our class tomorrow. I am, obviously, saddened by the news. There is a chance Robert may be able to join us before the semester ends, but at this point the chances are, at best, 50-50. There is much to talk about, however, in relationship to the articles that Robert suggested we read (as Dahlia’s post makes abundantly clear). Additionally, Noor – who couldn’t be with us last week because she was at AERA – has agreed to talk about her project. I’m also hoping Gregory, who didn’t get much time to talk about his project last week, can talk a bit more about where he’s at with his project – I’m particularly interested in how his subjects want their work to be shown and what they say about it.

I thought Dahlia’s comments and reservations about the articles that Robert suggested we read were sharp and poignant. I think they bring up many theoretical concerns, and that it is time, now that we only have a few sessions left, to think about how theory frames our own work and goals. We may not have talked about this enough in our class. When you write, Dahlia, about how the children’s art was used not to “just document experience” but to “help process and construct the understandings the kids had of themselves and their surroundings” is that a comment about art as a visual methodology with a specific purpose or intention? How does that relate to arts-based research? Thinking about the article by Wang et al that we read a while ago, are the children’s drawings and collages featured by Robert and some of the other authors for this week an example of “art as research” or “art in research?” And what did you all think about the relationship between the artists and the children in Robert’s articles and the others (that weren’t on the syllabus but available on our Common’s site). I also am curious about Dahlia’s comments of collage as a “stance,” and hope to hear more about it tomorrow.

Putting aside for the moment Lamar’s startling and joyful comment about preparing for his “grandchild,” – something I definitely want to hear more about – I am excited about the progress he is making with his project. Are you moving from “documentation” to “a process of “constructing understanding” (using Dahlia’s phrase) and how do the collective collages and interviews fit into that process? Unfortunately, the link Lamar provided hasn’t yet worked for me, but I know we will all hear the interviews before the semester is over. I also wondered, Lamar, if your Black male students decided, after all, to join the collage-making and how the felt about their drawings after speaking with you.

I need to apologize for this late and brief set of comments. I had an odd day today and am just now getting the time to review the posts.

I have to admit that I had so many feelings pop up while reading the pieces for this week.

I was excited to see how a range of different art forms from poetry to photography to collage to pop up books were used to help showcase the knowledge that kids already brought with them to school.  From Paule Marshall’s love letter to the women in her life, to her childhood and to language to the Club Kids crafting magazines, there was a sense of love and honoring of kids.  I loved the project where kids created pop up books that connected their own lives to those of famous changemakers because this idea of understanding the dialogue between now and then, between us and them, between what lives in history books and the ordinary moments of our lives is so crucial and yet so rarely touched upon.

But there were a few moments that made me pause. For example, in the piece Learning to Swim in Michigan, Craig Hinshaw writes, ” After reading their books I saw these immigrants to Hiller School in a new and more understanding way.  It became clear to me how much all parents want the best for their children.”  Part of me wanted to scream.  Scratch that.  All of me wanted to scream!

Why wasn’t this the assumption of the teacher before starting the project?  Why did it take a whole bookmaking project for them to see immigrant parents as holding the same love and hopes for their kids?  How could he possibly not recognize that when parents immigrate and sacrifice so much to come to another country, the well-being of their kids is what is on their minds?  Why did they need to prove their worth to this teacher?  Why wasn’t there the presumption of being a parent who cared?

Clearly the attitude of this teacher – Craig Hinshaw – infuriated me.  But then I paused again and realized that maybe I was living in an idealistic lala-land where people actually valued other human beings and gave them the same benefit of the doubt they gave people “like them.”  Craig Hinshaw is not unlike many teachers with whom I have worked in NYC – teachers who need evidence of their students’ (and their families’) humanity.

So…since we do live in this world…the importance of combining the arts with the lived experiences of our students feels so much more important.  I take this for granted because I have been (oh so) privileged to have attended and taught in schools that saw the diversity of their students as a source of wealth for the schools.  That used personal narratives and family histories as a way to create lessons and murals and celebrations.  That brought in families as partners.

But I know that this is not the norm, as Robert Shreefter points out in the Borders/Fronteras piece.  After all, the big project of American public schools, from the beginning, was to erase the language and culture and heritage of the students who came in in order to Americanize them.  So, of course, kids are often taught that school is not a place where their stories belong.  What intrigued me about this article was the sense of honor that both the students and the art was given.  Their stories were taken seriously and lifted and honored.  And art was a way to slow down, to really think through different elements of their experiences from the landscapes of Mexico to their interior landscapes.  And then to think through the different artistic elements that could help convey the depth of these emotions.  Art was not relegated to the role of just documenting experiences, but was, instead, used to help process and construct the understandings the kids had of themselves and their surroundings.

This is an idea I want to continue thinking through – and playing with…how do we think of art was a way to see things?  I am starting to now see that the way I understand collage (thanks to scholar-artists like Gene and Victoria) is not just as a product or even a process but as a stance.  As a way of being intentional about the messiness, the layers, the overlaps of life.

My partner and I have been super busy this week preparing for our grandchild (yes, grandchild- no typo) that is entering the world by April 18th and preparing for Canada, so here is my low quality post, sorry!

On Friday, my 30  third grade students split into groups of 3 and made a collage of Hope collectively using 90 different hope drawings and writings from third graders at my school.  My co-teacher recorded some of the process in the classroom while I was in the hallway interviewing  and recording students one at a time  (30 sec or less) share their hopes and drawings.  This was strictly voluntarily for the students BUT then I realized that none of my Black boys did NOT want to share their hopes and drawings, so I spoke to them off camera and asked what was up. They said they thought their drawings wasn’t great and elaborate like the others and that they didn’t think what they wrote was important to show to whoever is going to watch the interviews. I hugged them, thanked them for their honesty and vulnerability then affirmed and assured them that what they have to say and what they drew is beautiful, worthy and necessary for the world to hear and know!

Not sure how to exactly  present the collages and videos to our class. But I will present them whenever the syllabus says to present them.

Thanks for reading and listening!

Here is a sneak peek of one of the interviews:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YrEJwbL_M_Zr6KEdLqoLYlax6w-We3Mm/view?usp=sharing

Jade Boyd (2017) (Re)visualizing women who use drugs, Visual Studies, 32:1, 70-80, DOI: 10.1080/1472586X.2017.1286948

Goodfellow, A. (2012). Looking through the learning disability lens: inclusive education and the learning disability embodiment. Children’s Geographies Vol. 10, No. 1, February 2012, 67–81

Boyd expresses quite directly the importance of the ethical commitment in conducting personal visual ethnography with participants, despite the obvious value such research may have to researchers and organizations like VANDU.  In particular, researchers must not only have the right motivations, they must also become supporters and allies of the social justice mission, a subjective action that may be the antithesis to the conventional norms for objective research.  As Boyd states:

“The VANDU guideline, ‘Research and Drug User Liberation’, states that ‘researchers can play a positive role when they act as supporters, allies and partners of this movement for liberation’ (VANDU 2014). However, they note that ‘research is political. . . The relationship between the researcher and the researched is not in and of itself empowering or liberating. . .’ (VANDU 2014).(71)

Several ideas that “popped” for me from this piece:  Although I am not sure I agree in every case, Boyd recounts that participants should be invited to explain the “visual images they create,” which may not always be understandable to researchers or to readers (72).  However, I would qualify this to apply in those cases where, to the best judgment of the researcher, such a practice would benefit the creator of the work, not the reader or researcher.  I think such work should never be shared for the benefit of anyone else, unless the participant/creator explicitly wills it.  Yet,  I may raise this possibility with my students’ work–I expect some of my students would like to speak about the meaning or intention expressed in their work, but some may very well not ever want to nor need they do so.

p.s. The article raises the nefarious consequences of even well-intentioned laws of prohibition (as against drug use).  It may be true that drug addiction is not good for your health, and that we should prohibit it, but such prohibitions at the same time not only marginalize those who succumb to drug use but also disincentivize the legitimate need for investment in harm reduction initiatives for those who do not abstain.  The law may very well aspire to an ideal, but it may be far from the experience of many in reality.  I felt this research methodology acted as an important component in therapy and recovery…in reality.

I have problems with Athena Goodfellow’s article, although she brings up interesting possibilities.  For instance, it is interesting to consider….Can special education spaces create nonjudgmental “places,” as suggested by the students themselves, where they can experience no alienation in the special learning methods and accommodations they desire and embrace in their learning, and yet fend off the disabling social stigma that isolates them as alien to the general education classroom?  Students indicated that they were aware of both realities, but that they fully embrace the former and suffer the latter.  It is also interesting that the students expressed enthusiastically their desire to have adults as teachers who have themselves experienced learning disabilities.

Despite the interesting insights Goodfellow uncovers, what I found most troubling in the piece was the use of probing questions by the researcher to uncover perceptions and feelings of alienation in the student participants.  I did not like that.  Furthermore, I think very few people would argue against the need at times for precisely these very types of services, including self-contained special education classes.  But the arts-based research in this case, though well-intentioned, was I think misapplied in not embracing the need for special education. But rather than directing students to locate their obvious source of pain, perhaps the methodology can direct students through photographs and drawing to identify what it is that gives them power in that experience, what it is that they possess that others never will….  Of course, this is much easier said than done.

I wanted my students to direct the next step of the visual self-reflections practice we began this semester.  Thus, students were given the choice today (Thursday, 4/4/19) to either:

a)  free-draw/write a second visual reflection which was based on two new prompts Visual Self-reflection #2 (this would be the second in-class visual self-reflection we scheduled this semester)

OR

b) view and give comments on the first visual reflection #1 Visual Self-Reflection Prompt #1, created by students two weeks ago, provided each student gives permission for us to share their reflection.

They chose the latter:  I had placed yellow stickies on each desk in anticipation of this so that students could give permission privately to share their work publicly with classmates–on the sticky, they wrote yes/no to share, answered a few other unrelated routine questions I asked, folded the sticky, and dropped at my front desk.  I quickly scanned the responses…

They unanimously chose to do a gallery walk, and seemed enthusiastic about doing so.  I reminded students that their work was laid out with the visual drawing face up (hence, anonymous).

Attached are copies of the student feedback/comments on their peers’ visual art, the comment sheet attached in the order following the original student visual self-reflection: Visual Self-reflections StudentGalleryWalkCommentaryonThur4.4.19

PROCESS:

In the adjoining empty classroom, I had set each student’s visual reflection on a separate desktop, together with two blank sheets stapled together (the drawing and the feedback sheet were coded). Students were told they could circulate and respond anonymously in writing as they wish to the drawings they viewed at each desk, sharing their impressions, what they would like to say, if they agree, understand, not agree, have advice, etc. etc.   I stated that I would like to share their comments with the author of the visual self-reflection, “so be sincere, etc. etc.”

Afterward, we met back in our regular classroom for quick debrief , and then continued on in our lesson.

Some of my reflections of today’s practice:

The primary sentiment that was voiced by many students in writing about others’ work was that they could relate to the feelings of challenge and frustration expressed visually in the work. Others offered some advice, some encouragement, and even some solutions to math problems alluded to.

In the classroom debrief afterward,  students volunteered to publicly share their experience of the gallery walk with the class.  What was most pronounced with many students who volunteered to speak was their sense of relaxation in knowing that they were not the only ones who were struggling or facing significant challenge.  Most sympathized with this , stating in as much the same way that the first two students E and L unequivocally did, that ” …I just felt comforted to find out that I am not the only one feeling like this in the class.”  A closing comment made by student S in obvious humor cracked up the class: “I can understand the few happy drawings I saw–when you lose all hope, a sense of euphoria can take over…”

Although I am cautiously optimistic in the benefits of this exercise for my students, I am certain that there was some level of cathartic benefit for students in this sharing with one another.  In the climate of a  highly competitive college, students can easily presume everyone else is strong academically and thus not feel welcome to share their own struggles or perceived weaknesses.

I also was inspired, perhaps reassured by some students, and it surprised me that it often was the result of seeing some very subtle passing detail in a student’s work…a reticent student’s image of a bulging boundary that is “almost breaking through,”  or another student’s images of “the cascading/snowballing effect of one tiny unaddressed question.”  I also felt that I saw glimpses of contrary evidence to what I had presumed to be true about students, truths which were not apparent previously from student behavior observed in the classroom:  for instance, I was moved by student P’s work reflecting strength and resolve, which was not apparent in the behavior nor in the limited commitment and work I had seen from him previously.

I will want to think about ways I can continue to improve this experience for students:

-to better build upon what we have started (so that it does not become just a “one-shot” fun exercise),

-to establish a momentum so that subsequent exercises naturally evolve in the practice of visual self-reflection,

-to deepen or extend student reflection, perhaps to their study habits and habits of mind that impact performance (perhaps through visual reflection engendered by focused attention on images I submit to them…?)

-to assess possible refinements and/or modifications for implementing this in other first year community college developmental math classes in the coming weeks.  For instance, I know I would now plan and set better expectations for sufficient time for gallery walk and commentary, so that students can feel free to reflect and comment more extensively on the work of others.  I think I gave the impression that it was a quick scan of the works of others rather than a potential second reflection…..leaving some students to think that perhaps they should only make quick comments.