Posted by Sarah vdBergThis week, we wondered about how curricular ‘provocations’ might re-frame our dilemmas as sites of creative, critical analysis and possibility. We talked about moments of excitement and resistance, coming in and out of more theoretical and more practical spaces, and the challenge of holding those two spaces alongside one another, as they always, already are. We grappled, individually, with the ethics of doing work outside of more constraining spaces, fueling our philosophical desires, and the responsibility of doing that critical work in more constraining, ‘practical’ spaces. Some shared that this space helps them to pause, and to slow down, as we try to stay with the ideas and the tensions, and some shared their efforts to resist a relationship to knowledge based in a desire for mastery. We talked about tinkering - about fathers who tinkered with cars and students who ‘tinker’ through an assignment instead of following directions. Chef’s Table: BBQ series and Seymore Papert’s Mindstorms came up, which led to Eleanor Duckworth’s The Having of Wonderful Ideas, and a story about learning how to learn through experience and observation by observing the moon and teaching oneself how to quilt. We wished it was more common for curricula to be oriented to more open outcomes, or more openness to multiple ways of arriving at an outcome (such as the BBQ, the meal), came up. Brian Eno’s “oblique strategies” - a deck of propositions might be an example.
Raquel and I then shared a card-based curriculum we’ve been working on over the summer. The curriculum came out of conversations at Curriculum Lab in the spring, in the beginning of the pandemic, about changing relationships to public spaces. You can read a bit more about that project and the prompts folks are invited to play with before our next meeting over at the Padlet (search for the post: Intimate Publics: A Card-Based Curriculum for Creative Inquiry, if it’s not near the top of the board).
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This past Thursday, we had our first meeting of the fall semester. We began by reviewing the history of Curriculum Lab, conceived as a space for curricular conversation, creations, and connections. We find ourselves inspired by art, design, and public spaces that are so often curricular, and want to bring educators and curriculum scholars together with artists and designers into those conversations. We also discussed “Black Paint” -- the name Curriculum Design Lab goes by when we go out into the world to explore arts-based events and creative spaces -- and associations with Black Paint: absorption, disappearance, surface for writing and erasing.
As we began sharing some of our current curricular projects, dilemmas we face as curriculum designers kept coming up. We wrestled with the tension between common sense expectations and practical needs surrounding curriculum and our own theoretical commitments and desires to do curriculum differently. As the conversation wrapped up, we wondered again: What does doing curriculum now mean to each of us? We have been pondering this question since our lives and work were uprooted by the pandemic. We invite you to share your reflections on this question in the continuing Padlet below and join us next week to contribute to the conversation. During our conversation, participants were asked to engage in multimodal practices as we discussed the prompt questions, how do we understand curriculum in this time? what do we need from curriculum? what don't we need from curriculum? We independently doodled, created, and took notes to activate different engagements with knowledge, to reflect on each others comments by selecting, placing and positioning words and images together. Participants were invited to share their doodles and any other ideas, images, and links to inspiration that came up during our generative and creative conversation. See the curriculum lab share wall and feel free to contribute your ideas.
As COVID-19 drastically impacts our daily lives, it may also be shifting our understandings around curriculum. What do we need from curriculum in this unprecedented moment? How have changes in our routines, necessities, and values impacted our perspectives on curriculum? And what might curriculum be able to do for us right now?
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On September 12, I led a small group of TC students and faculty through exercises that investigated Columbia’s Manhattanville campus, a re-design of a 17-acre area of buildings in Harlem. Touted as being “open to all” Manhattanville is intended to convey a city campus “for people.” Renzo Piano the architect for the project, echo’s these sentiments in the construction of the structures themselves. He describes wanting the architecture to express “openness, good citizenship, and a welcoming attitude toward the community" (Davison, 2018).
The workshop titled “the power of constructed places” asks participants to complicate these notions through observing the buildings and their architectural features to exploring the impact and intention of its construction. Through various sensory prompts and mapping exercises, participants made observations of the buildings, its features, and the surrounding area. They were encouraged to record their reflections in a padlet or on a map that was provided to them. We then came back together as a group and jotted down our thoughts in sidewalk chalk on the street. |
The conversations were rich and layered from discussions of surveillance to ideas of representation. We also reflected on how we might expand on the ideas curricular.
As a curriculum designer. I am fascinated with posing curricular questions that investigate our spatial environments—space and place. What do the features of certain buildings tell us about inclusion and exclusion? What is coded in a building’s choice of color? What makes a place feel inviting? Taken with imagination and attention, the feelings and thoughts we have about our surrounding environments tell us so much information about ourselves, our histories, and society. One participant describes it perfectly when she said:
“The cycle of acquire (land), design (a new thing), demolish (what is there already), construct (the new thing) Is compelling to me as a way to think and learn about the spaces/places we currently occupy. One idea is to create a curriculum or similar guided activity for members of the community or nearby schools where we engaged with prompts similar to the ones Raquel created for us today. Use the engagement and being in this space as a way to reflect on its histor(ies)”.
In this way, much of what we deem relevant topics of study become transfigured and we emerge on the other side more aware.
Raquel Vigil, M.A. in Curriculum and Teaching
Teachers College, Columbia University
As a curriculum designer. I am fascinated with posing curricular questions that investigate our spatial environments—space and place. What do the features of certain buildings tell us about inclusion and exclusion? What is coded in a building’s choice of color? What makes a place feel inviting? Taken with imagination and attention, the feelings and thoughts we have about our surrounding environments tell us so much information about ourselves, our histories, and society. One participant describes it perfectly when she said:
“The cycle of acquire (land), design (a new thing), demolish (what is there already), construct (the new thing) Is compelling to me as a way to think and learn about the spaces/places we currently occupy. One idea is to create a curriculum or similar guided activity for members of the community or nearby schools where we engaged with prompts similar to the ones Raquel created for us today. Use the engagement and being in this space as a way to reflect on its histor(ies)”.
In this way, much of what we deem relevant topics of study become transfigured and we emerge on the other side more aware.
Raquel Vigil, M.A. in Curriculum and Teaching
Teachers College, Columbia University
Join us for the first Curriculum Lab event of the fall 2019 semester!
Recent C&T graduate Raquel Vigil, MA, will guide us through an exploration of the Columbia Manhattanville Campus. We will engage in activities and discussions to complicate the architect Renzo Piano's vision for this re-design of Harlem space into a building that expresses “openness, good citizenship, and a welcoming attitude toward the community" (Davison, 2018). Raquel will help us in her words to "think about the power of constructed places; how the aesthetics of buildings are designed to 'welcome' however those buildings simultaneously in their construction exclude, displace, and invisibilize."
Meeting Time: 4pm - 6pm
Meeting Place: Dear Mama Coffee
611 W 129th St behind The Forum on Columbia's Manhattanville campus
Articles about Renzo Piano and the construction of Manhattanville Campus linked below:
Davison, J. (2018, November 12). Columbia University Tries to Welcome the Neighbors In — and Keeps Them at Arm’s Length. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/columbia-u-tries-to-welcome-the-neighborsat-arms-length.html
Russel, J. (2019, May 2).The Architecture Behind Columbia's Manhattanville Ambitions. Retrieved from https://www.citylab.com/design/2019/05/columbia-university-manhattanville-campus-renzo-piano/587962/
Recent C&T graduate Raquel Vigil, MA, will guide us through an exploration of the Columbia Manhattanville Campus. We will engage in activities and discussions to complicate the architect Renzo Piano's vision for this re-design of Harlem space into a building that expresses “openness, good citizenship, and a welcoming attitude toward the community" (Davison, 2018). Raquel will help us in her words to "think about the power of constructed places; how the aesthetics of buildings are designed to 'welcome' however those buildings simultaneously in their construction exclude, displace, and invisibilize."
Meeting Time: 4pm - 6pm
Meeting Place: Dear Mama Coffee
611 W 129th St behind The Forum on Columbia's Manhattanville campus
Articles about Renzo Piano and the construction of Manhattanville Campus linked below:
Davison, J. (2018, November 12). Columbia University Tries to Welcome the Neighbors In — and Keeps Them at Arm’s Length. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/columbia-u-tries-to-welcome-the-neighborsat-arms-length.html
Russel, J. (2019, May 2).The Architecture Behind Columbia's Manhattanville Ambitions. Retrieved from https://www.citylab.com/design/2019/05/columbia-university-manhattanville-campus-renzo-piano/587962/
On August 15th, a small group joined the curriculum lab at the New Museum of Contemporary Art to view an exhibit called, Mirror/ Echo/Tilt. The video installation of performances in decommissioned prison facilities were the culmination of workshops using theater games and visual storytelling to "reframe personal narratives, promote individual agency, and breaks down the myth of the criminal." A resource center provided space to explore the curriculum, see videos of prior workshops, browse a library of texts to educate visitors about the history of the criminal justice system, and finally offer alternative visions for a future without prisons.
The show offered a curriculum to generate new ways of thinking about criminalization (who is seen as a criminal and why) incarceration (what happens in prisons and why) and retribution (what are the effects of this system). The emphasis on using the mind and body and movement in tandem, created a space where participants worked with artists to examine emotions and reframe narratives and identities usually associated with these themes and engage in different conversations about whether and how prisons serve our visions for justice.
It was interesting to note that these artists and visual storytellers are doing work that is similar to the curriculum designer - asking questions about where knowledge comes from, how it is differently experienced and felt, and how reframing assumptions can change the conversations we are willing to have. Artists are developing pedagogical strategies using objects and spaces and a sense of playfulness that educators may learn from.
What would it look like if educators and curriculum designers collaborated on these sorts of projects? How might young people in and out of schools benefit from similar creative methods?
Here's an example with The Study Center for Group Work where the Mirror/ Echo/Tilt curriculum is housed: http://studycollaboration.com/
Here is a link to the Mirror/ Echo/Tilt curriculum: http://studycollaboration.com/practice/mirror-echo-tilt
Mirror/Echo/Tilt is on view at the New Museum of Contemporary Art through October 6, 2019.
The show offered a curriculum to generate new ways of thinking about criminalization (who is seen as a criminal and why) incarceration (what happens in prisons and why) and retribution (what are the effects of this system). The emphasis on using the mind and body and movement in tandem, created a space where participants worked with artists to examine emotions and reframe narratives and identities usually associated with these themes and engage in different conversations about whether and how prisons serve our visions for justice.
It was interesting to note that these artists and visual storytellers are doing work that is similar to the curriculum designer - asking questions about where knowledge comes from, how it is differently experienced and felt, and how reframing assumptions can change the conversations we are willing to have. Artists are developing pedagogical strategies using objects and spaces and a sense of playfulness that educators may learn from.
What would it look like if educators and curriculum designers collaborated on these sorts of projects? How might young people in and out of schools benefit from similar creative methods?
Here's an example with The Study Center for Group Work where the Mirror/ Echo/Tilt curriculum is housed: http://studycollaboration.com/
Here is a link to the Mirror/ Echo/Tilt curriculum: http://studycollaboration.com/practice/mirror-echo-tilt
Mirror/Echo/Tilt is on view at the New Museum of Contemporary Art through October 6, 2019.
Come join the Curriculum Lab team for a late summer hang at the New Museum!
We are excited to see this exhibit and hope you can join us on Thursday, August 15th, 4:00-6:00pm
RSVP so we know who to expect: [email protected]
Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, Sable Elyse Smith: Mirror/Echo/Tilt
New Museum | 235 Bowery | 5th Floor | NYC
Student tickets are $12 (Free admission on Thursdays 7-9pm, but expect long lines.)
Mirror/Echo/Tilt is a video, performance, and pedagogical project created by artists Melanie Crean (b. 1968, Waterbury, CT), Shaun Leonardo (b. 1979, Queens, NY), and Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986, Los Angeles, CA) in collaboration with individuals affected by the justice system. Exploring choreographies imposed on the body by the carceral state, the project is developed through intensive artist-run workshops with participants and considers the gestures and language used to define experiences of arrest and incarceration. The exhibition will premiere a multichannel video installation filmed largely in empty decommissioned prisons and courthouses and other psychically charged architectural spaces in New York City. Complicating the relationship between fiction and reality, Mirror/Echo/Tilt alludes to the magical realism and metafiction of its title’s inspiration, Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes’s famous novel from the early seventeenth century. The work also takes the form of a living curriculum practiced with court-involved youth, formerly incarcerated adults, and individuals otherwise vulnerable to the justice system. The curriculum focuses on undoing the language around culturally embedded conceptions of criminality and will serve as an open resource that lives beyond the artists and the exhibition.
Learn more here: https://mailchi.mp/71cbef5198a7/met?e=c8f8502dfb
We are excited to see this exhibit and hope you can join us on Thursday, August 15th, 4:00-6:00pm
RSVP so we know who to expect: [email protected]
Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, Sable Elyse Smith: Mirror/Echo/Tilt
New Museum | 235 Bowery | 5th Floor | NYC
Student tickets are $12 (Free admission on Thursdays 7-9pm, but expect long lines.)
Mirror/Echo/Tilt is a video, performance, and pedagogical project created by artists Melanie Crean (b. 1968, Waterbury, CT), Shaun Leonardo (b. 1979, Queens, NY), and Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986, Los Angeles, CA) in collaboration with individuals affected by the justice system. Exploring choreographies imposed on the body by the carceral state, the project is developed through intensive artist-run workshops with participants and considers the gestures and language used to define experiences of arrest and incarceration. The exhibition will premiere a multichannel video installation filmed largely in empty decommissioned prisons and courthouses and other psychically charged architectural spaces in New York City. Complicating the relationship between fiction and reality, Mirror/Echo/Tilt alludes to the magical realism and metafiction of its title’s inspiration, Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes’s famous novel from the early seventeenth century. The work also takes the form of a living curriculum practiced with court-involved youth, formerly incarcerated adults, and individuals otherwise vulnerable to the justice system. The curriculum focuses on undoing the language around culturally embedded conceptions of criminality and will serve as an open resource that lives beyond the artists and the exhibition.
Learn more here: https://mailchi.mp/71cbef5198a7/met?e=c8f8502dfb
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