UNLEASH

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Tag: Art

  • Victory Over Death 2 – Colin McCahon

    Blogging Legend: Week 1

    3. Write a blog post about your favourite movie/song/piece of art including how it relates to your life as an educator.

    As an artist, musician, and movie lover, this challenge is a hard one. Having studied Art at tertiary level for three and a half years, and Art History for three, I owe it to myself to reflect on an artwork and explain how it relates to my life as an educator.

    The issue for me is finding my favourite. I have so many! Even choosing a favourite artist, I’m torn between McCahon and Hotere, J.M.W. Turner and Constable, not to mention Duchamp, Mondrian, and Pollock.

    So I’ve stayed close to home and gone with my first love; Colin McCahon. Now just to select one artwork from his ourve. Where do I even start!?

    Elias series? Otago Peninsula 1946? Urewera Mural?

    For me though, there is one expanse of a canvas that eclipses all of the rest.

    Victory Over Death 2 – 1970

    Victory Over Death 2 is a massive painting, over two metres in height, and five in length. White text scrawled across the blackened background. The words “I AM” dwarf anyone and everyone viewing the piece.

    Having stood in front of this monumental artwork myself, watching other paintings shrink into postage stamps, it leaves an impression on you; speaking a little deeper to some than others. The pixels on the screen in front of you now certainly don’t do it justice.

    Regardless, it links into how I view myself as a teacher. In particular, a male, primary school teacher.

    I can not escape the fact that in 2000 while on the lake shore of Lake Rotoiti, I heard my calling to be a primary school teacher, at a time when, as a sixth former, spending any longer in school than I had to was pure madness. Yet there it was – as clear as the shimmering lake was infront of me, the desire in my heart to become a teacher.

    You see, Victory Over Death 2 quotes a series of verses from various translations of Scripture. Regardless of my personal faith, they encapsulate my role in education at this time.

    The crowd standing by said it was thunder, while others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus replied, ‘This voice spoke for your sake, not mine.’ – John 12:29, 30;

    Quite clearly, as I’ve said, this is almost the Lake Rotoiti experience in a nutshell, just a non-audible voice…if that makes sense?

    ‘Now my soul is in turmoil and what have I to say? Father, save me from this hour. No, it was for this that I came to this hour’ – John 12:27

    Since beginning my teaching career 6 years ago, many things have changed for me. Most of all, I’ve been fighting with depression since 2012. It takes a lot of energy to get to work each day, and while the kids drive me madder, somehow, they also keep me going.

    The light is among you still, but not for long. Go on your way while you have the light, so that darkness may not overtake you. He who journeys in the dark does not know where he is going. – John 12: 35

    It is a well known fact nowadays that there are fewer and fewer male role models out there for kids growing up. Divorce and separation statistics continue to grow, and whether it’s because they’re trying to hold down two jobs, or doing night shifts, or they’ve moved away or even been locked away, the male influence for kids is limited, and for some, non existent.

    For me, that keeps me going. I am that light in the darkness for these kids – especially the boys. Because besides me, they may have no other male role models in their life. This is summed up by the next verse on the artwork:

    While you have the light, trust to the light, that you may become men of light. – John 12: 36

    I am a teacher. I am a light. I am meant to be here. I am here for those kids. I AM.

    I AM

    Hopefully that sheds some light on why I became a teacher, why I still am a teacher, and why I try my best day in and day out for the kids. Its why I work in the school I’m in, despite numerous professionals encouraging me to get out and ‘spread my wings’.

    It’s partly for their education. It’s partly for the financial security (that doesn’t always come by being an artist!). But mostly it’s to make a difference. It’s mostly to be the light in the darkness and to show the kids that they write their own futures, and that they can make of it whatever they want if they apply themselves. It’s to bring them hope. Belief in themselves. A backbone and a spine. It’s to engage them. Inspire them. And then Unleash them. And thus, my teaching motto is born, and this blog and its articles are the extension of that into the online community.

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  • Excellence

    “Why is it that we introduce painting and music to primary school students before they can read? The arts are a part of a universal human language, whether music, dance, drama or the physical fine arts.” (Education Horizons, p13)

    Screen Shot 2015-02-02 at 9.14.30 pm

    A recent article, To create or not to create; is this really the question? in Education Horizons (Daniels, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2008, pp13-14) outlined the seemingly lack of importance placed in the arts in our education system. Mirrored by the lack of funding from the Ministry (MoE) and the attitudes displayed in the schools and in the curriculum, its importance is wavering; its relevance getting lost in the political agendas of various sectors of the educational system.
    Often art (as in visual art) is ‘dumbed’ down as a subject. Its widely promoted as if anyone can take it at any time as a way to make up credits. Gone are the days where training to be an artist took years, even decades and the “fine art” has been lost with the dawn of modernism and mass production.
    The article in question raises several valid points and speaks volumes as an argument for the importance of art, especially visual art, to be better recognized in the balance of the New Zealand education system. However it overlooks various parts of artistic practice which do align with other areas of the curriculum.

    “Strive for excellence all you want. The talented students will always succeed. All I ask is that you offer the rest of us the opportunity to shine by boosting funding to the arts faculties in schools so that we can help students increase their sense of self-worth and self-esteem. We all need to lose ourselves in imagination and dreams sometimes. As wonderful as out technological world is, without human imagination and creativity, life is stilted, one dimensional and deprived of soul.” (Daniels, p14)

    What this is suggesting is exactly the point I raised before. It is promoting art as a subject for those of us who aren’t so-called “academic”. But why? Why place that stereotype on the arts and use it as an argument to validate its existence in the school environment? Why suggest that there are no “talented” students in the art department; that it’s purely made up of “the rest of us”? Whilst it is more than common that art students brains are more right sided and the “academics” in Mathematics or Science who are left sided, this does not mean that students who are more creative can’t achieve excellence in their given field. They can still strive for that excellence. Place a scientist in an art department, and that same level of excellence is unlikely to be reached, just as an art student could struggle to reach the same levels in science if the roles were to be reversed.
    The reason this type of reasoning falls apart is because art is subjective, the work produced often is a result of a process that is explored, rather than a right or wrong answer at the end of the day. The science buff is able to complete an artwork, and although it may not be highly skilled or technically accurate, the process leads to a result that is considered as art, and the level of excellence is only relevant to that student.
    In my opinion, and it is only that, is that there are students who achieve to a high degree of excellence in art. That does not mean they are mediocre students or that they aren’t talented. Students who take art are still able to succeed and produce excellent work, and can be “academics” in their own field. I think that the article itself seemed to be making an excuse for not reaching excellence, rather than outlining the fact that there is still excellence in every subject area, and art is no different.

    Daniels, R. (2008) To create or not to create; is this really the question? In Education Horizons; Journal of Excellence in Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2008.

    ‘Till next time…