Ray Aldridge on sun 5 dec 99
At 10:37 AM 12/4/99 EST, mel wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>at no time in my life have i ever thought that teaching ideas or concept to
>be anything but important.
I hesitate to disagree with mel (and I don't think I really am) but in my
opinion, the *least* important job of a teacher is teaching "ideas" in the
sense of design ideas, or what constitutes a good stylistic direction for a
student to follow.
This is because in my opinion, we all have far more ideas than we will ever
be able to exploit in even the longest of lifetimes. Ideas are the
cheapest commodity. If anyone's personal experience leads them to disagree
with this notion, then it's because they've put up some sort of artificial
barrier to winnow out the flow of ideas, I believe. To an extent this is
necessary. We all have some mental mechanism to winnow out the least
practical and least relevant ideas, else we would all sit around all day
doing nothing but having ideas and never actually get up and do anything.
(I speak from tragic personal experience here-- too many ideas can be as
limiting as too few.) But we can get carried away, and let our mental
gatekeepers keep out so many of the ideas clamoring to get into the light
of consciousness that we believe we don't have enough of them.
Someone else mentioned the concept of memes, which is one that I find
fascinating. In particular, I've spent a lot of time thinking about evil
memes, because they can do so much damage. There are large evil memes:
"The Jews are subverting the Fatherland" or "We can't let the colored folk
get too uppity." But there are also small evil memes, like "Blue pots are
always banal" or "Functional pots cannot be Art."
And these are the ideas that teachers must be very careful not to teach.
I've mentioned a well-known potter from the SE United States, who taught
his design memes so powerfully that many of his students and apprentices
seemed to be unable to shake off the influence for the rest of their
careers. They were always immediately identifiable, and I always found
this terribly sad. It seemed they were never going to be able to use their
own ideas except in the most superficial sense, as tiny timid elaborations
of their master's basic concepts. I'm sure there were exceptions, but it's
the nature of this sort of observation that I never saw them.
Anyway, I think that teachers in general should strive *not* to teach
ideas, at least in terms of style. That's not to say they should never
say, "This is good," or "this stinks," but I believe they should make these
judgements in the context of technique or basic design principles, not in
the context of "I don't approve of that style or object." In other words,
"I don't think this is a good bowl, because the bottom is too thick and the
rim is too thin and the foot is out of proportion to the height of the
piece," instead of "Why are you wasting your time throwing blue popcorn
bowls? Don't you know the world already has too many blue popcorn bowls?"
When it comes to ideas, the best thing teachers can do for their students
is to teach them techniques for accessing their own ideas. But again,
these are learnable techniques, just like centering.
Finally, I want to make a distinction between "ideas" and "facts." Here's
an idea: "Hey I think I'll make a mug with a little press-molded frog in
the bottom! It'll be funny, and I'm sure no one has ever thought of this
before." Here are facts: "High relief on the inside of functional ware is
unsanitary. And a zillion other potters beat you to the idea."
Teach facts and techniques, not ideas. This will lead to greater range and
diversity in the wares potters make, because as students they will form the
early attitude that they must rely on their own inner voices to make
stylistic decisions.
Ray
Aldridge Porcelain and Stoneware
http://www.goodpots.com
Marcia Selsor on mon 6 dec 99
Dear Ray,
I am winding up a semester with General education students many from
business majors. If they had an idea , any idea, I'd be thrilled. I have
spent the best part of the semester trying to get them to think up an
idea. Many sit there as you say, doing nothing. Finally they have been
working doing sculpture or throwing pots. I do not practise "memes" of
how to make something like what I make. We have gone through historical
pieces, to pieces made for specific functions of their choice.
But, geez, some students even art majors don't have ideas. This is the
most challenging to teach to students. I don't think Mel disagrees with
that either.
Marcia in Montana
Ray Aldridge wrote:
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> At 10:37 AM 12/4/99 EST, mel wrote:
> >----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> >at no time in my life have i ever thought that teaching ideas or concept to
> >be anything but important.
>
> I hesitate to disagree with mel (and I don't think I really am) but in my
> opinion, the *least* important job of a teacher is teaching "ideas" in the
> sense of design ideas, or what constitutes a good stylistic direction for a
> student to follow.
>
>
SNIP
>
> When it comes to ideas, the best thing teachers can do for their students
> is to teach them techniques for accessing their own ideas. But again,
> these are learnable techniques, just like centering.
>
> Finally, I want to make a distinction between "ideas" and "facts." Here's
> an idea: "Hey I think I'll make a mug with a little press-molded frog in
> the bottom! It'll be funny, and I'm sure no one has ever thought of this
> before." Here are facts: "High relief on the inside of functional ware is
> unsanitary. And a zillion other potters beat you to the idea."
>
> Teach facts and techniques, not ideas. This will lead to greater range and
> diversity in the wares potters make, because as students they will form the
> early attitude that they must rely on their own inner voices to make
> stylistic decisions.
>
> Ray
>
> Aldridge Porcelain and Stoneware
> http://www.goodpots.com
--
Marcia Selsor
selsor@imt.net
http://www.imt.net/~mjbmls
http://www.imt.net/~mjbmls/spain99.html
http://www.silverhawk.com/ex99/selsor/welcome.html
Ray Aldridge on wed 8 dec 99
At 03:54 PM 12/6/99 EST, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Dear Ray,
>I am winding up a semester with General education students many from
>business majors. If they had an idea , any idea, I'd be thrilled. I have
>spent the best part of the semester trying to get them to think up an
>idea. Many sit there as you say, doing nothing. Finally they have been
>working doing sculpture or throwing pots. I do not practise "memes" of
>how to make something like what I make. We have gone through historical
>pieces, to pieces made for specific functions of their choice.
>But, geez, some students even art majors don't have ideas. This is the
>most challenging to teach to students. I don't think Mel disagrees with
>that either.
I hear you. It must be very frustrating for someone who has a surplus of
ideas to deal with students who seem so needy when it comes to ideas. As
you say, the solution is not to give them some of yours... but this is the
approach many teachers seem to resort to in the end.
It's a shame that those who devise curricula don't include a course on
developing ideas, or "creativity." I really don't believe that there are
people who can't be creative-- I think they just haven't been given the
tools they need. There are brainstorming techniques that can be taught--
for example, there's Gabrielle Rico's "clustering" technique, and there are
others.
I think one of the problems is that the creative people who are attracted
to teaching the arts find it difficult to imagine that other people have
repressed their creativity, and conclude that these people have some
essential lack. It's not that way, in my opinion. Some children are
musical prodigies who toddle over to the piano one day and start pounding
out show tunes. But almost anyone can be taught to make music of some
sort, if they're willing to try, and if only prodigies were encouraged to
make music, it would be a quiet world. In the same way, some young people
have a natural ability to evolve ideas, without any training, but most of
us can learn to be creative.
It's my opinion that many teachers who profess to teach ideas are teaching
their own ideas, which is a much more limited category. I think the
evidence for this is the remarkable consistency in the stylistic directions
taken by each year's crop of MFA candidates. When I used to read CM
regularly, I was frequently appalled by the sameness and ineptitude of
graduate exhibits, and I can only attribute this common observation to the
teaching of pet ideas.
I don't know what the solution is, unless teachers are willing to devote
some portion of class time to the ways that ideas can be generated. In the
case Marcia cites above, involving business students taking electives, I'd
be tempted to teach them technique and not worry much about forcing them to
be creative. It probably can't be done. Give them lots of technical
exercises and wait. Those who were seduced by the touch of clay (and I'd
guess there's always one or two) I'd try to give creative exercises to, to
make the point that ideas are there all the time. We just need to learn
how to mine them from the deeper layers of the mind where the motherlodes
lurk.
Ray
Aldridge Porcelain and Stoneware
http://www.goodpots.com
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