An atypical post: Empathy and the act of Artistic Creation

Last week I had two encounters with artists that expressed an empathetic link to exceptional students. Last thursday I went to listen to my son performing as part if the Lincoln High Slam Poetry team. Before they performed we had the pleasure of listening to Chris August Slamming. His most potent poetry seems to have emerged from his interaction with students with disabilities when he was a special education teacher. An example is in this selection that reminds me at times of Taylor Mali. That night I started thinking about ways this experience with students makes us more empathetic in a way that finds its way into an artistic outlet OR maybe it is a shared sensitivity that manifests itself in teaching and caring as well as for creating.

Later in the week I read Kurt Knecht's (a friend and fellow blogger) post about deciding to become a composer. In it he concludes with: "After that morning, I knew two things. I didn’t want to play in places with non-union stagehands, and I wanted to learn how to write music that could make mentally handicapped children clap."

I do not really think that all artists have more empathy. I think there are too many examples to the contrary, but I think that in the act of creating for an audience there is at times a sense of audience (and both my examples are from performance art) that makes us more empathetic. To do that successfully an artist must achieve at least a limited sense of empathy.

The interesting piece in this empathy sense is that empathy is a "pay it forward" idea. I think that when an audience is privy to this empathy they are automatically more empathetic towards the person (think Teebo). In Chris's case it makes his word choice and other choices easier to swallow because he did show us a different side as well. 

I think that the same can hold for kids- performance and artistic creation can foster their sense of empathy as well.

Where does art integration reside?

Art integration happens on many levels. From the federal grants and policies all the way into the water color brush in the student's hand. But, the work we've done over the last eight years, the research, the observations in classrooms and assessment of student performance all point in one direction. Arts integration is a classroom phenomena and it resides in the details- the how of that classroom practice.
All art educators and most writing ones have for decades focused on process. Our conclusion is very much the same- process is at the heart of what we do. We work with our teachers on transforming their practice- the processes that they use to enable student learning, the processes they use to teach. This is not a one way street because every time we interact with a teacher thinking about their process we learn something ourselves that changes the way we work with that teacher but also with the ones that come after her.
At the same I do not want to imply that we must be present and understand everything about the process to understand the product. In many ways the analysis of products: writing, visual art, and music over the past eight years have confirmed the fact that the products correspond to the process. That is you can judge the quality of classroom practice by the products.
Without an understanding of the process, however, you cannot pin down the reasons for the outcomes. As a result a good evaluation and research must include a clear look at both.
As this administration focuses, and rightly so, on teacher performance and development it is useful to remember that it is the details that count.

Peace

We have a class of practicing and future teachers who are all learning about arts integration into the elementary classroom right now. The focus is the prairie and its' enveloping sense of place. As they are composing their narratives I am writing for the blog. As I/we teach this class I have this uncomfortable feeling. I am not as much in control as I'd like to be. It is a disconcerting feeling but in many ways it is good for me, for this is what I ask the teachers around me to do- get out of your comfort zone and try something else. Stay in this place where you are not in total control and be ok with it. We plan the lessons around the big ideas of integration but the truth is we do not know how it will come out, what will fall flat and will succeed.

This morning we stepped into the prairie in Spring Creek right outside Denton. We spent close to two hours walking around taking photographs. Slowly as time progressed we hushed fanned out and spent time connecting with the surroundings- with photographs as the focal lens. The mood was muted and perfect for sensing and focusing on emotions. We took the risk and the time... Still there is a lot to do to help these practicing and future teachers as well as ourselves make connections and link all of this to actual classroom instruction.

It would be great to examine these experiences as they develop, my guess is that my concerns and feelings are not unique.