Teaching

https://youtu.be/VIHTBpBbcfo

I’ve been reminded that people learn in different ways.  Did I need to be reminded?  Yep.  I get very frustrated teaching when I’m not on the same wavelength as my student.  I imagine my student is also frustrated, or at the very least, lost and too kind to say so.  

(The painting I made from this sketch was really straight forward. That began with selecting the pose, making the sketch, and transferring that pose to the canvas. Most ideas are not so easily managed.)

I am not a step by step learner, but 90% of the time my students have to be step by step learners in the very beginning.  At a certain point that changes, but until then learning can be rough going and have the potential for a LOT of anxiety, especially when the relationship between student and teacher is a close one.  

If you are a step-by-step learner it can be difficult to understand how I learn, that is, intuitively, visually, and by listening, and doing.  My way involves making a lot of mistakes that I use as reference points for future corrections, and in that way I suppose, it’s no different from the step by step method since people will make mistakes, correct, repeat, and so on until they have the success they are looking for and that they will repeat on and on to perfection.  

Just a guess, but I think that is the reason Bob Ross was so great.  He had a calming voice and created a step by step process that could easily be duplicated by anyone in the proper frame of mind.

Of course, that method can become extraordinarily boring as the product of that learning is always the same or very similar.  In the instance of Bob Ross, the product isn’t necessarily a painting.  Very likely it was the meditative experience he was promoting of which, then, the painting was a token or a pleasant reminder. 

(This painting, called "Bike Club", hangs in the Polk County Iowa Health Department. Creating it was a very messy process in comparison to "Xanadu" shown in the beginning. It also illustrates something easily overlooked and, to my mind, comical. That is, every cycle is on the exact same line as every other cycle. Obviously an impossible condition in our physical reality. Hopefully, it conveys the notion of a joyfully complex world, that without some care could easily result in injury. Injuries, by the way, that could most easily be avoided with a little dialog.)

My favorite way to teach is one student at a time and it can be really frustrating for any of my students if they aren’t prepared for it.  I call it a narrative dialog that, essentially, is built around the Socratic method.   It starts with the kernel of a story, although it could be any meaningful, or better yet useful,  idea at all.   But you need a story, or an idea so that when a dialog happens it has a place to hang its hat.   I prefer to talk about things that are important or relevant, but even a frivolous idea can work, like taking a picture and then turning it upside down while asking the question, “what do you see?”  The student then shares an observation, the teacher responds and there you have the beginning of something that leads to something larger and larger and possibly more profound understanding.

For this to work, though, neither the student nor the teacher must take anything the other says lightly.  It requires listening as well as speaking and it requires patience because it takes time.  But it is an especially useful method when a difficult, possibly unquantifiable concept needs to be shared to answer ‘towards’ that larger and larger vision of possibilities.   A fair amount of “whittling” is thus involved. 

When the dialog is less helpful, we go back to the basic things.  When the dialog is merely enjoyable, we go back to the basic things.  Even when dialog works well, we’ll eventually go back to the basic things.   Why?  Because we’ll see them in a new way.  

It is possible to do this alone using a method of drawing with an “empty mind”.  It’s just a matter of doodling, of letting your drawing instrument wander around until you see the beginning of something.  When you see that something, you give it some attention and develop it to see where it leads.   You can do the same thing with an idea you already have.   The trick is to avoid investing any expectations at all in the outcome.   Just play and keep playing.  Ideas will begin to flow more and more freely.  Still, keep your expectations low.   When the time is fully ripe, then you can either refine the idea or burn it and start again.  Or, my preference whenever possible, take a nap.