{"id":6037,"date":"2022-08-01T03:26:20","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T03:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=6037"},"modified":"2022-09-02T22:01:44","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T22:01:44","slug":"gee-i-wonder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/01\/gee-i-wonder\/","title":{"rendered":"Gee, I Wonder"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Fare Forward <\/em>editor Sara Holston interviews her mother on the how and why of teaching art at a summer enrichment program.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Sara Holston
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When my mom, Brenda Holston, first started training to be one of the volunteer docents at the Cantor art museum on Stanford\u2019s campus, I was barely thirteen and had no idea what the word \u201cdocent\u201d even meant. But the idea of my mom learning how to lead tours on the art in Stanford\u2019s galleries nevertheless made perfect sense to me. After all, you only needed to walk through our front door to see how important art is to our family\u2014something we learned from my mom. As I sit writing, I\u2019m looking at a print of a watercolor painting of Philadelphia\u2019s boathouse row that I poached from my parents when I moved into my apartment. Across from it is a collage of our home I made out of cardboard and glitter paint in my pre-K art class\u2014Mom liked it so much she framed it, and it\u2019s remained hanging in my room through every move since. And I can\u2019t remember a family trip to any city with an art museum that didn\u2019t involve spending at least a few hours, if not half a day, in said museum.\u00a0<\/p>

Little did I realize that what started as a hobby or part-time gig would mark a shift in my mom\u2019s career that has shaped her vocation ever since. As I sit down with her on Zoom in advance of writing this profile, she\u2019s wearing a t-shirt for Horizons\u2014an academic summer program for Philadelphia school students, where she has been teaching art to elementary and middle schoolers for the last seven years.<\/p>

With how involved Brenda is in the world of studying, making, teaching, and discussing art, you would think her whole life path would have been pointed in this direction. But while she certainly sees the way the threads have come together now, her entry into the world of art was not some kind of grand plan; Brenda was an economics and sociology double major who went into sales for a while before attending law school and embarking on a career as a litigator. She left that practice when I was born and focused on raising my sister and me for a time, and though she kept herself plenty busy, during this period most of her work in the art field was concentrated in finger painting and sidewalk chalk in our driveway. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until our family moved to California,\u201d she tells me, \u201cthat I really thought to pursue it more.<\/p>

It was a cross country move for us, and meant I wasn\u2019t going to continue doing any of the things that I had been doing while I was living in Pennsylvania. It was too far for me to stay connected to a lot of those. So, I really had a clean slate, and I just said, \u2018Okay, if I\u2019m starting over, what would I like to do? What do I want to populate my calendar and my life and my time with?\u2019 And I decided I wanted to look into doing something more with art.\u201d<\/p>

The teaching component of the docent job was perhaps less of a pivot from those previous activities, although it may have seemed on the surface like just as much of a change. As Brenda describes it, though, everything she\u2019s ever done professionally has had significant teaching components. Sales, to my mom, was about educating a customer as to why her product would be the best way to address their needs. Litigation was about educating a fact finder\u2014a judge or a jury\u2014as to why and how her case was stronger than her opponent\u2019s. In that sense, learning how to guide museum visitors through a discussion to a new understanding about a piece of art was just another way of educating someone\u2014whether the job description said \u201cteacher\u201d or not.<\/p>

And the fact that the role wasn\u2019t explicitly defined that way is clearly important to her. Telling the story of joining Cantor\u2019s docent staff and going through their training, she emphasized that the museum views their guides not as teachers\u2014not as the \u201csage on the stage\u201d lecturing an audience about art history\u2014but rather as the facilitator of a conversation, helping museum-goers actively engage with the works of art themselves. \u201cIt\u2019s actually a very democratic thing,\u201d she muses. \u201cAnybody can look at a work of art and answer the questions: What do you see? What’s the first thing that gets your attention? What do you think is going on here? What do you see that makes you say that? And the next thing you know, you’re in the middle of a conversation, considering other people’s viewpoints and talking about them and marshaling evidence for what you think is going on in the picture. Young children in particular are natural storytellers. If you show them a narrative painting, they will tell you a story.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cI decided they should definitely have art, the opportunity to make art. And that maybe that was something I could learn how to teach.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Brenda repeats this notion, that \u201ceverybody can talk about art,\u201d several times over the course of the conversation. It\u2019s clear that it matters to her. And as we transition into talking about Horizons and her new role teaching students to make art, not just look at it, that ideal of art being accessible to anyone shines through. When she was first starting to get involved in Horizons and thinking about what she could bring to the program, she says, she proposed coming into the classrooms with prints of great works of art or using digital tools to show images to the students and discuss them\u2014much like guiding a tour in the Cantor, but with the artwork (in reproductions) brought to the students, rather than the other way around. But as she started preparing her coursework over the course of the year, she realized that\u2014while discussing art could be fun and a tremendously beneficial experience\u2014doing so every day for six weeks might be a bit too much for kids. But just coming in once or twice a week didn\u2019t feel right either. The answer came when Brenda learned that the schools the program partnered with didn\u2019t have art programs that gave students the opportunity to do art projects as part of their education. And, as she puts it, \u201cI decided they should definitely have art, the opportunity to make art. And that maybe that was something I could learn how to teach.\u201d<\/p>

That my mom came to that answer so readily is a testament to how strongly she believes in the importance of making art. She had always made it clear to my sister and me that she loved art, but that she didn\u2019t consider herself particularly adept as an artist herself. When she first announced she would be teaching as part of the Horizons program, I teased her about it, asking how we got from that constantly repeated disclaimer to her suddenly being prepared to teach. She shrugged and said she might not be especially good at making art, but she was good enough to teach first time learners.<\/p>

Talking about it again in our interview she said, \u201cIf you had told me 10 years ago that I would be doing this, I would’ve laughed you out of the room, because it’s like you said, I don’t know that I’ve ever considered myself particularly skilled at making art. But part of the beauty of tackling this is I have also improved. I think anybody can learn it and can get better.\u201d She added that she feels that thinking of herself as \u201cnot much of an artist\u201d is a good perspective to bring into the classroom, because it allows her to encourage her students from the level they\u2019re at. When they look at a project and say, \u201cI can’t do that,\u201d she tells them, \u201cYou’re only allowed to say that in this room if you tack on \u2018yet.\u2019 You can say, \u2018I can’t do that\u2014yet.\u2019 Because we haven’t tried yet. And if I thought you couldn\u2019t do all this, why would either one of us be here?\u201d<\/p>

When I asked her why she thought it was so important that these students experience a class where they could make art themselves\u2014important enough that she would throw herself into the steep learning curve of figuring out how to teach it\u2014she makes a face I understand, after 27 years, to mean I\u2019ve just posed a question much bigger and more complicated than I realized. \u201cOkay,\u201d she says, \u201cwhere to start…\u201d With a laugh, she dives in. \u201cSo, first of all I, I think art making\u2014in particular for younger children\u2014can just be a really pleasurable, joyful thing. Kids are naturally creative. They’re less inhibited than they are when they get older. And so, to think that there are a lot of students out there who don’t have this exposure to art in school just seemed kind of unfair to me, and sad.<\/p>

\u201cI also believe that art making, if you’re in a structured program where someone’s also teaching you a variety of techniques, exposing you to a wide variety of materials and a more complex art project, hones an awful lot of skills without the student really thinking about it\u2014skills that are transferable to a lot of different classrooms \u2013 and life. There are fine motor skills involved. Multi-step projects take planning, and there’s experimentation. Sometimes things don’t go as expected\u2014sometimes those are happy accidents and sometimes not, but then you have to use additional creativity to figure out if there\u2019s a way you can fix, incorporate, or work around it. Making art can require patience, and resilience and persistence.\u201d She laughs, remembering a project that required a lot of steps and preparation before getting to the final product: \u201cI had a second-grade student whose feet I had been holding to the fire on the preparation for different stages of a more complex project, and the next day he said to me, \u2018Mrs. H! Practice is not a waste of time!\u2019 So, I think there are definitely larger things being learned in the creation of art than just how the picture looks at the end of the day.\u201d \u00a0<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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We are hardwired to recognize and be captivated by beauty, and we are designed to delight in participating in the creative act of fostering and adding to it wherever we can.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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And Brenda is thoughtful about how she plans her art classes to serve these students\u2019 broader education, spending most of the year dreaming up projects to teach during the few weeks of the year she\u2019ll be teaching. She describes planning her curriculum as considering multiple factors: \u201cMy overarching goals are to introduce the students to a significant variety of art materials and different techniques, and to have projects that will be engaging and a little bit challenging, but at which they can succeed. But I also want projects that’ll incorporate critical thinking skills\u2014there\u2019s a certain degree of difficulty in the planning involved in the kinds of things we’re working on\u2014and I like to have both collaborative and individual projects, because I think there are important lessons and significant differences in those kinds of projects. I’m also trying to incorporate projects for all different kinds of learners and makers\u2014sometimes kids who love to paint, don’t love collage, and vice versa. Some kids love everything. So, I\u2019m trying to do a mix, but I also want kids to express themselves and have fun. It ends up being a thought process I hope covers a lot of different fronts.\u201d<\/p>

Though the chapter of the Horizons program where Brenda teaches each summer is still growing, it\u2019s clear the art class is already having a positive effect in the lives of the students\u2014and knowing that lights up her whole face. She described a conversation from a couple weeks ago with two of her students who will graduate next year, after nine years in the program, in which one student shared that he has kept every piece of art he\u2019s made in the program and they\u2019re all still hanging on the wall at his house. The other student chimed in, saying the same is true for him, except for one\u2014because that one is hanging on the fridge at his grandmother\u2019s house. Another time, when she was taking some of her students to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the first time, one student fell behind the group as they moved through the galleries. \u201cThe museum is very large and if you fall too far behind, it could be hard to find your way. When I went to check that everything was ok though he said, \u2018I just had no idea that there were this many beautiful things in the world.\u2019 He couldn\u2019t move through the galleries at the pace we were going because he was awestruck by the sheer volume and impact of so much beauty.\u201d<\/p>

It can be easy for those of us who have visited more than a few museums in our lives to lose touch with that feeling of wonder; we might be intrigued or touched by a particular work of art, but we don\u2019t often stand in the middle of a gallery and take in the majesty of so many works of art side by side. But the truth is that there is something profoundly human about loving and appreciating art. We are hardwired to recognize and be captivated by beauty, and we are designed to delight in participating in the creative act of fostering and adding to it wherever we can. The more we immerse ourselves in the beauty around us, the more it opens us up to further discovery. Reflecting on how fifteen years of studying art\u2014and a lifetime of loving it\u2014have changed her, my mom describes herself as \u201cfar more observant than I perhaps once was before I started focusing so much on slowing down and spending a lot of time with the work of art. A really great work of art will truly just continue to reveal things to you. And part of being more observant, not just when I’m looking at art, but in general, is that it changes the way I move through the world. I notice more things than I did before. And I think that actually it enhances your curiosity, if you’re looking slowly and carefully at something. It raises more questions than you can answer just by looking at it. That\u2019s also why I think it’s good for students to engage with art\u2014there\u2019s that whole \u2018gee, I wonder\u2019 element of looking at art.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sara Holston<\/strong>\u00a0is an editor on an interactive story game in San Francisco<\/em>, CA.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fare Forward editor Sara Holston interviews her mother on the how and why of teaching art at a summer enrichment 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