architecture and teaching

The past week I spent wandering through my thoughts on the bridge between the art of architecture and the art of teaching. I have had a hard time narrowing down the ideas to one main point so I will instead list out the several thoughts I had on the topic. 

1) Art history - I have had a whole series of Art history courses in which architecture is not only closely related to teaching but it is the topic of the course. I enjoyed these courses so much that I almost switched my major to art history in hope of focusing on architecture of the past. 

2) Classroom design - The classroom is where learning takes place. Who designs them? I spent last term teaching at the University of Oregon and the four classrooms I had to teach in were all uniquely different. Thinking back to those rooms I couldn't help focus on my first classroom being the most traditional with the chalk board/white board at the front of the rectangular room, desks in nice straight rows and students facing the front with focus on the subject. On the other side of the spectrum was my afternoon classroom. This room was a newer room in one of the newest buildings on campus. Who designed this room? The tables (not desks) were polygon shaped putting some students facing one wall or the other instead of the front of the room. The classroom was still a rectangle, but instead of the front being at one of the short ends the front of the room was one of the long sides with white boards stretching from one end to the other. The teacher's position was not at the center, but the podium was set all the way to one side of the front. This made going back and forth to teach my classes with power point while not standing behind my computer all of the time very difficult.  

The point to this topic was the question of who designs the classroom? Does that person or person's discuss the possible design ideas with educators? The architecture of the room can have a great effect on the students in the room. Some rooms give students a place to hide in the way back, or to face the window rather than the front where attention needs to be given. What thought goes into this design?

3) Walking tours - I have been fully educated within the state of Oregon (minus my current time at MSU) and noticed something as I thought back to my experience with architecture vs. education. At each level of school there was a point in time in which the classroom moved outside. In those experiences I found I had an entirely different learning day. Outside bought the experience of the exterior of the building. Within the "walking tour" as I am going to label it, were beautiful and hideous exteriors of buildings. I felt like the connection between a beautiful building and the subject we were discussing was a great bond. In fact those subjects stuck with me longer and stronger than the topics discussed while standing in front of an ugly building. 

At the end of this week I hope to be able to connect Susanka with my experiences in architecture as of late. I will hopefully be able to bring my teaching experience into the retail realm and think about how I can then take it back to the classroom. There is a bond, but it is a strange bond between the art of architecture and the art of teaching...

Bridges

This week I wanted to talk about the bridges between a "work of art" and teaching, flimmaking, photography. It is easy to see a bridge between film and photography and art. Those things are already considered works of art. Why? Goodman (2004) uses the film Spellbound to discuss the connections between the film and art. The film, like art is pulling the viewer into the picture. It gives an emotional tie to the characters of the film just like a painting would pull someone into it. The creation of the film or painting or photograph is a journey, it is a journey for the artist/producer/photographer as they are creating the piece of art then it becomes a journey for the viewer. As you sit and stare at a painting or photograph or watch a movie you are going on a journey of understanding that follows the path that the creator took to get to the end product.

Teaching is no different that that of creating a film. There is an artist - the teacher - who has to go through a journey of learning the subjects, then learning to teach the subjects, and learning about themselves as a teacher. Each of those steps are the same steps that the students will take and although the path may not be the same as the teachers' the end result should be: an education. Of course a piece of art does not always get the same result from every audience member, as such will be with teaching. There will always be a student or two that does not make it at the same rate to the end, or may never make it to the end of the journey. These are students that need a different type of art to progress them, maybe a few years of personal development and then back to the classroom to gain the knowledge that surpassed them previously. In these ways teaching is a work of art.

Teaching is also a work of art because it takes creativity, enjoyment, excitement and a desire to pass on a feeling to an audience. There are teachers that forget these things, and those teachers are no longer creating art. Those teachers that forget what teaching is about are the ones that quit or do not produce healthy students any longer. It is necessary for a teacher to remain creative, and excited about teaching in order to continually produce quality students.

Goodman, P. (2004). Filmmaking and research: an intersection. Journal of management inquiry. 13(4) 324-335.