This months Teaching Artists' Journal is supplied to us by 
Karen Fitzgerald.

Karen Fitzgerald’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States.  The Queens Museum of Art, Islip Art Museum, Rahr-West Museum, Madison Art Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, the University of Arizona – Tucson and the United Nations in NY have featured her work in their active exhibition schedules.  A recipient of two grants from the Queens Community Arts Fund, she has also received funds from the Greenwall Foundation and the Women’s Studio Workshop.  Her work is in the Spencer Collection of the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Union Gas collection, the Rienhart Collection of Germany, the Museum of New Art in Detroit and many other public and private collections.  Recently she completed a collaborative commission with the composer Charles Griffin.  Since 9/11, as project director for a new initiative, ArtistCares, she has overseen the development of the project in NYC.  As an arts-in-education specialist she continues to provide consultations for a wide range of institutions on a variety of educational issues.  She has taught at St. John’s University, Iona College and worked as education director for the Queens Symphony Orchestra.  She was awarded an MFA from Hunter College in 1985, and a M.Ed. from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1990. Karen’s work can be seen at 

http://www.mateo.net/guest/ftzgerald/KFitzgerald.htm 
 www.123soho.com and www.shinesociety.com.   She can be reached at fishart@msn.com or (718) 274-9755.

Participant-driven Learning
By Karen Fitzgerald, © 2003 

The arts offer many things to the educational process.  They shed an especially strong light on the process of learning, particularly when the focus is on who manages the learning process.

Teaching and learning have traditionally followed a hierarchy: the teacher drove the process regarding what was learned, when and how it was presented and how it was determined that the expected learning took place.  Students/learners were involved in the process as subordinate, accomplishing the learning put before them, or sometimes not.    Teaching artists, faculty, administrators and parents have come to value the arts as a teaching/learning tool for many reasons, a primary one being that it diffuses the traditional hierarchy that exists within structured learning and activates casual learning.

Shortly after 9/11, I was asked to work intensively on the development of a new project.   Grass-roots in its orientation, it was driven forward by artists as an effort to utilize the creative process to promote healing during times of crises.    As we began to organize and plan programming, ArtistCares took a hard look at why the creative process was valuable not only in the context of learning, but especially in the context of healing.  (It was obvious early on that the health care arena shared the same structure as the educational arena: services occurred in a hierarchical manner with the patient being on the receiving end.)    Because the arts have a history of effectiveness within the healthcare community, and because many teaching artists were drawn to ArtistCares early on, we explored the literature regarding the ways the creative process functioned in a healing context.

What emerged is a parallel between both education and health care regarding the role of the learner using the creative process in both of these arenas.   The creative process is dynamic and effective in these arenas because a powerful shift occurs for the learner.   We have identified it as participant driven learning.  Put simply, the teacher or healthcare provider become facilitators within the process, giving learners the power of driving the process forward.  In this learning paradigm, the learner decides what, how and when learning occurs.  The learner controls the pace, the content and the dynamic embedded in the learning process.

While designing a workshop that would enable artists to step into the facilitating process, we consulted with a CEO from the corporate world.  In her work, Yvette Hyater-Adams has developed two models that describe the learning process when it is driven not by the teacher,  but by participants.  In a linear model, the learner progresses from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence.  This four-phase process can be compared to learning how to ride a bike; each phase builds on the ability of the previous phase -- the twist being the conscious awareness that the learner has regarding progress.  If we do not know that we do not know something, questions can’t be asked that will alleviate the condition of not knowing.  If we know that we don’t know, we can actively, consciously change our unknowing.  When we “know”, we can also move to the place where we achieve an unconscious competence; deep ability within the specific skill or content.

In a second model, learning occurs in a cyclical fashion, spiraling upward through each cycle.  Beginning with experiencing the activity, the cycle includes sharing reactions, processing patterns, generalizing principles and applying the new learning.  It is also based on a conscious awareness of each phase, but unlike the more linear model, the phases of this model are often experienced in a less rigorous progression.

Each model gives facilitators ways of recognizing different stages of learning; knowledge that can support the efforts of facilitators in functioning as a guide for participants.  What we’ve found in participant-driven learning is that the focus and responsibility of motivation rest solely with participants.  We have recognized that our role as facilitators usually wanes once participants reach the stage that they know they don’t know.  Conscious incompetence has a natural forward motivation embedded within – it is the point where you let go of the bicycle and trust the rider will not crash, but find themselves in the middle of a beautiful balance.

When I work as a teaching artist (visual arts), participant driven learning is an integral part of the classroom dynamic.  As I begin a residency, I talk with the classroom teacher about the students “driving their own cars”.  I describe what participant-driven learning is.  Once we reach an agreement, I also talk to the students about this idea and suggest that for the time we work together, that will be an emphasis: giving them the opportunity to “drive their own cars” during the art-making process.  This means they make choices and key decisions regarding content, timing, pacing, process and idea.  The classroom teacher and I are available as facilitators to support and guide their process, but not to dominate it.

I generally describe art making as the relationship of process and idea.  The students, teacher and I might examine some artwork (actual or through reproduction) and notice how this relationship is embedded in the art.  Then, through their creative work, students construct and navigate a relationship between process and idea.  Each person creates a unique understanding of this relationship.  Each person navigates the relationship in his or her own way.  Helping students understand these two distinct aspects as well as providing the support they need to engage both allows them to own this process and drive it forward at will.  They also choose at what level their idea is rooted to and resonates with their intellect, personality, emotional and spiritual self.

In today’s school environment, learning is tightly structured to connect directly with statewide standards as well as accountability processes.  Motivation among learners can stagnate or shut down completely.  Art making supports the instructional process by including the whole person in the learning process.  By giving students the power to drive their own cars for a short while their motivation levels change, allowing them to reconnect to content in a meaningful way.