I frequently cite Seth Godin’s blog posts because so much of what he writes is applicable to arts organizations and an observation he made last week was no exception.
He says we spend too much time teaching people technique when it is really commitment to endure failure and frustration that allows people to become skilled at something.
But most people don’t want to commit until after they’ve discovered that they can be good at something. So they say, “teach me, while I stand here on one foot, teach me while I gossip with my friends via text, teach me while I wander off to other things. And, sure, if the teaching sticks, then I’ll commit.”
We’d be a lot more successful if organized schooling was all about creating an atmosphere where we can sell commitment (and where people will buy it). A committed student with access to resources is almost unstoppable.
I think most people in the arts can identify with the feeling that they are being challenged to capture and hold people’s attention while they engage in some other activity. While distracting people from what they are doing has always been something of a function of advertising, these days arts organizations are faced with the unspoken challenge at their own events of “try to distract me back from my distraction and maybe I will pay attention.”
Teaching in the framework of commitment rather than technique would probably have profound implications for the education system because it would diminish the mindset of retaining knowledge long enough to pass the test. It might necessitate the elimination of the vast majority of tests. (I say “might” since Japan has a culture that emphasizes committed pursuit of excellence in an endeavor and they also have a lot of testing in schools.)
The people shaped by an education focused on commitment might not be any better disposed to the arts than people are today, but presumably those who did attend a performance or enter a museum would arrive with the intent of directing their attention to the experience.
Godin doesn’t really say what commitment focused education would look like. I think it would be easy default to repetition of task. But playing the piano for hours or sitting outside the kung fu master’s house in the rain is only proof of commitment, it doesn’t instill or model it as part of the education process.
I would think experiential learning would be a part of it. Witnessing people go through a process and going through a process yourself begins to give you a sense of the level of attention and commitment involved.
The arts can play a big role in this as preparing a canvas, working with clay and rehearsing for a performance are all labor intensive and time consuming. But the same can be said for preparing for a science experiment and that fact can be underscored by visiting labs or formulating your own experiments.
A slight shift in emphasis in talking about history can add a conversation about the effort someone went through to research, assemble and restore an artifact to a discussion of the history of the artifact. Again, reinforcing the importance of dedication rather than just emphasizing dates and facts.
Of course, skill of delivery will still determine whether anyone is interested in learning about history.
I just saw this over on Brainpickings in a post of commencement addresses worth reading:
“Fall in love with the process and the results will follow. You’ve got to want to act more than you want to be an actor. You’ve got to want to do whatever you want to do more than you want to be whatever you want to be, want to write more than you want to be a writer, want to heal more than you want to be a doctor, want to teach more than you want to be a teacher, want to serve more than you want to be a politician. Life is too challenging for external rewards to sustain us. The joy is in the journey.” Bradley Whitford (perhaps best-known for his role as White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman on The West Wing) http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/25/way-more-than-luck-commencement/
I read Seth’s essay and was inspired by it too. I shared his words on facebook and folks there engaged in a lively discussion. My own experience of what he is discriminating between is something I try to be sensitive to in my own teaching of pottery classes. I have known instructors who use technique as the bait for students’ interest, but then have no end game other than keeping them on the line, paying for more classes, not really helping them learn or be committed to doing what they are doing, but hooking them on the idea that doing this one thing well is its own reward.
What I prefer to teach instead is a longer term view. Not that technique is worthless, sometimes it is in fact indispensable, but that the cart needs to go before the horse. We learn technique not just as an end in itself but as the means to ends which speak more to who we are, what we are doing, and why we belong. Technique helps us get from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’, but we need to have our own reasons for moving in that direction. We can’t just be sold on the thrill of moving from ‘A’ to ‘B’, the technique that gets us there, but require the passion for what role this plays in our lives.
If we love acting, then we should love as much about it as possible, desire to become the best our ability allows for, continue to grow and explore with the mindset that there is far more worth knowing than we can see at this moment from this point of view. If we love making pottery it should be for that intrinsic reward of doing what we love, not that we did this or that one thing well enough to have earned the teacher’s praise, but that we have gained some new insight into the fundamental possibility of the world, that beauty exists in hidden places and that serendipity unveils an endless stream of wonders.
Its not wrong to fall in love with particular processes, but we should not be held captive by them. If we pay too close attention to the technique but lose sight of a greater purpose we risk the danger of mastering only the short term strategies. We learn the fixes to particular problems but not the reason those problems are interesting or how else to think about them. Technique is a self-enclosed reality. As a means to ends it is one tool among many possible. As an end in itself it presents us with limits to not only our understanding but of our curiosity. When the cart is being pulled by the horse its not a mistake to bring along our favorite passengers. Just make sure you are pulling that cart and the cart is not in fact tumbling down a hill dragging the horse after.