Importance of pushing forward

At this time of the year, graduating class Art pupils are having individual consultation sessions with me to clarify their approach to finish up their coursework. To my surprise, one of the weakest pupils told me last week that she has the intention of dropping the subject. Perhaps in the environment which I have built around the value of candor and transparency in feedback, she has found the regular comparisons of work to her peers who are performing much better, to be a bitter and painful reality to swallow.

Comparisons in the standards of work (using visual references) are critical in understanding differentiation, for without it, pupils will be even more lost in this seemingly impressionistic subject where benchmarks are difficult to comprehend. So how do you carry out comparisons without letting those who are not at the glorified end to be accepting of the feedback? This would require an earnest and effective communication with the intention of the exercise rationalised, that knowing the differences in performance would benefit the group collectively. In fact, it would benefit those who are not scoring well with a better idea of what their friends did that made a difference.

Well, those are the intentions and I still feel that it is the right thing to do. The focus now is to sharpen my persuasive ability to not let those who are doing poorly feel dejected. This is a skill which I need to continually build up. If an educator is able to sustainably let his pupils feel the hunger for success and be always positive in living their lives, much can be achieved.

After having a lengthy talk with that pupil of mine, she told me that she will let me know if she is still keen on continuing with her coursework this week. Doing Art in 'O' Level, or not, is just a small step in one's education, deciding to quit and just exit when times get tough is the attitude one cannot afford to adopt in life.

Attention. Interest. Recall.

There is plenty that our art pupils can learn from the advertising industry. The latter's conviction to resolve problems, to always create relevant and authentic content that intrigues prospective buyers, in certain ways is consistent with our candidates approach to doing well in their exams. Both are sales pitches to drive impressions, but to different ends of course.

I read this somewhere a while ago about an approach a certain famed ad agency adopted to focus their attention on delivering good ads. 3 simple questions that designers or art directors will ask themselves to keep delivering on the edge. They call it the AIR approach.

1. Attention

A good ad must have the ability to grab attention. If it is able to stop you even for a few seconds before turning the page of a magazine, there is a much better chance that you will want to find out a little more about the content.

2. Interest

The content has got to be of interest to the viewer upon getting their attention. What is the meaning of the work? Is it conceptually relevant?

3. Recall

Only the very best will be able to be remembered in the world we live in which is constantly bombarded with all kinds of visuals. This will be the so-called 'stickiness' of the idea.

I had introduced this AIR idea to my upper secondary pupils when they were first doing their coursework and after many repeated attempts to link the relevance of this approach to well known art pieces during our discussions, the value of it is sinking into some of them.

It is not that pupils are having an easier time to create highly interesting work with an approach like this in mind, but at least there are familiar points of reference during discussions that brings up certain areas that they should be more mindful of.

Preparing our pupils for their future

First of a series of scenes around school captured using iPhone 3G and Camerabag App

There is some discussion recently about how schools are able to prepare our pupils for their future. Have we not been doing that all this while? Sure we have, but always in our more traditional manners, mostly catered to preparing our pupils for their next stage in education. The landscape or lives in which our pupils are living have changed so much in the last 5 years that the roles of schools and teachers need a re-examination to keep ourselves relevant.

When such discussions went on, I was asking myself what the main difference is? As in the lives pupils live. Much of me was thinking about the digital divide and the cultural manifestation technology plays on our society, it intervenes directly into how we perceive our realities and how we experience our lives. It is a cultural thing, it is immersive and will surely continue to evolve rapidly. If we do not stay relevant, coming to school will just be pure distraction for many pupils, for they are able to equip themselves with far more knowledge when they are connected to the internet than we can ever imagine providing them.

So how bad is the gap here? I think it is a huge one. Someone I was talking to over dinner mentioned wisely that we are 'teaching our pupils for our past, and not for their future'. I cannot agree more.

It seems that there are plenty of content on the internet in this area of preparing our pupils for the challenges of the 21st century. When I saw the 3 Steps video which highlighted the importance of Collaboration, Competition (Self), Environment, Global Awareness, etc, it provided some really simple but totally relevant things we can surely work on. We just have to focus on which one to start with.

The picture which you see in the beginning of the post is a creativity exercise I set for myself to document some interesting perspectives of our school using purely my iPhone 3G and a local phone app. There will be no other processing like Photoshop done outside these tools. Just a fun thing to keep me doing Art which I will try to keep doing alongside this reflection blog.

On motivation

Once again, a new school term had started and we are back in business. The Sec 4s coursework deadline (internal) was up last Thursday and nobody had finished their entire set of coursework ready for the actual submission. Well, the whole class understood that the real, external deadline is still a few months down the road and that the internal deadline is merely for feedback purposes, so hardly feeling the pain of not completing.

This is not the first year that we are asking our graduating pupils to submit their coursework much earlier, and although we tried to tweak our approach each year with the hope of improving things, the results are mixed and still leaves much to be desired. Are there pupils who are able to cope with the demands of time and quality on their coursework? Certainly, and they exist in each batch. The problem lies with the others who are not coping that well. And the more I see it, the more I think the difference lies in each individual's belief.

What are the differences between those pupils who are motivated, proactive and always seeking ways to improve themselves compared to their less confident counterparts who are always procrastinating, slow and general less 'hungry'? It is their belief, and both groups have in a sense already decided whether they are going to excel or to trail behind.

Pupils have no problems understanding the consequences of procrastination, or should I say that they understand it at an intellectual level, but not necessarily be able to realise it at an emotional level that prompts for action to be taken. It would be great if as educators, we are able to have this skill of effectively changing our pupils' belief about themselves so that they can make good decisions for what exactly they want to succeed in.

After showing my Sec 4 class Anthony Robbin's TED talk during the Art Camp, I got interested in the Neuro-linguistic programming that he is associated with and is currently reading one of his books. Hopefully I can pick up some skills to better motivate my pupils.