Teaching Tools: English, Language, and Expression

The teaching aids for reading and writing has come a long way since the simple vocabulary drill programs were introduced. But in many cases, the programs that most useful to teachers lock schools into proprietary tracks that force yearly subscriptions to be renewed over and over again for little more than cosmetic effect.

In this post, I want to enumerate a number of open source alternative applications that cash-strapped teachers and schools can consider.

Digital Comic Strips

Digital comic strips satisfy a whole range of student interests - creating their own short narratives (micro-stories), writing dialog (how does what one character respond to another), and so on. All of this is reading and writing fundamentals with a whole lot of creativity sprinkled in.

The first program is called strip generator and it allows students to add pre-defined characters to comic strip panels and add their own dialog. I've used it in this blog on a number of occasions and its both easy to learn and fun to use.

Another program that's web-based is from ReadWriteThink. And it allows students to choose fixed numbers of panels, drag and drop characters, word balloons and objects into the panels and print out their cartoons. This program is considerably more constrained and elementary than Strip Generator but nonetheless useful.

Open Source Screenwriting Application

I recently discovered Celtx, a program that is intended to be used by professional screenwriters and movie producers. It offers the ability to create storyboards, comics, and more. It has a set of very useful videos to introduce teachers and students to what's available.

It goes without saying that this program is a high school and college level application (this doesn't preclude gifted teachers and students in lower grades giving it a go).

Now, this is a rich product suite that has school pricing options that can be purchased. However, the beauty of this product is that every student can download a free version at home and it works on Windows, OSX, and Linux!

The other feature that English teachers in particular will like is that the characters that students write into their stories can be assigned voices that will play back the dialog. This is often a critically missing component of writing - that is, hearing what your writing sounds like.

Your Brain on Jazz

An older article in Science Daily called This Is Your Brain On Jazz: Researchers Use MRI To Study Spontaneity, Creativity caught my attention for a number of reasons.

The article provides a layman's interpretation of how the creative act affects the operation of the brain.

The scientists found that a region of the brain known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a broad portion of the front of the brain that extends to the sides, showed a slowdown in activity during improvisation. This area has been linked to planned actions and self-censoring, such as carefully deciding what words you might say at a job interview. Shutting down this area could lead to lowered inhibitions, Limb suggests.

The researchers also saw increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, which sits in the center of the brain’s frontal lobe. This area has been linked with self-expression and activities that convey individuality, such as telling a story about yourself.

“Jazz is often described as being an extremely individualistic art form. You can figure out which jazz musician is playing because one person’s improvisation sounds only like him or her,” says Limb. “What we think is happening is when you’re telling your own musical story, you’re shutting down impulses that might impede the flow of novel ideas.”

Limb notes that this type of brain activity may also be present during other types of improvisational behavior that are integral parts of life for artists and non-artists alike. For example, he notes, people are continually improvising words in conversations and improvising solutions to problems on the spot. “Without this type of creativity, humans wouldn’t have advanced as a species. It’s an integral part of who we are,” Limb says.

He and Braun plan to use similar techniques to see whether the improvisational brain activity they identified matches that in other types of artists, such as poets or visual artists, as well as non-artists asked to improvise.

The study is published in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) One. http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0001679

What's interesting here is that the very thing that enables the creative juices to flow are the very thing that we in this society must consciously attempt to suppress.

In school, in job interviews, and in the presence of individuals who interpret everything literally, a creative or intelligent individual must be on guard. These days an over-active imagination gets even elementary schoolchildren in trouble. Pictures of guns in art class, fictional stories about murder, or free-association dialogs can and are misinterpreted these days of sure evidence that the individual who drew, imagined, or exercised the speech is crazy, dangerous, or deranged.

For artists this is nothing new. An artist who turns off inhibitions must be high or psychologically imbalanced. Yet, we are told, this is the essential feature of creativity.

So, whenever I hear about the government or parents, or some degree-certified expert assert that creativity can and should be taught I'm amused. Public schools are dangerous places for teachers and students to be creative.

And even businesses who claim to recruit out-of-the-box employees would fire one on the spot because they don't fit the ever-fearful, careerist, don't-rock-the-boat lemmings.

Creativity is a lonely exercise and best practiced in private unless you're in a niche like jazz that celebrates with appreciation the altered state that art demands. And the gifted student must learn early to hide their gift because it can be misunderstood or snuffed out by institutions that have no use for the one that sticks out or fails standardized memorization tests.

The education industrial complex (EIC) has some tried and true formulas. Household income = superior intelligence = entitlement to superior EIC destination that confers official diplomas of intelligence. It's a closed society and the creative need not apply.

Why Art Matters

The New York Times has published a very interesting article called, How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect by Benedict Carey.

The article discusses scientific speculation that people exposed to disruptive information are capable of recognizing a broader range of patterns when problem-solving. The author uses the term nonsense to describe disruptive information and then uses many examples of art to illustrate the theory.

As far as I can tell, the use of the term nonsense is, well, nonsense. It seems to me that this theory is reinforcing the idea that exposure to art broadens the mind in ways that schools and the public care little about (probably because you can't test it ad nausea).

In the most recent paper, published last month, Dr. Proulx and Dr. Heine described having 20 college students read an absurd short story based on “The Country Doctor,” by Franz Kafka. The doctor of the title has to make a house call on a boy with a terrible toothache. He makes the journey and finds that the boy has no teeth at all. The horses who have pulled his carriage begin to act up; the boy’s family becomes annoyed; then the doctor discovers the boy has teeth after all. And so on. The story is urgent, vivid and nonsensical — Kafkaesque.

After the story, the students studied a series of 45 strings of 6 to 9 letters, like “X, M, X, R, T, V.” They later took a test on the letter strings, choosing those they thought they had seen before from a list of 60 such strings. In fact the letters were related, in a very subtle way, with some more likely to appear before or after others.

The test is a standard measure of what researchers call implicit learning: knowledge gained without awareness. The students had no idea what patterns their brain was sensing or how well they were performing.

But perform they did. They chose about 30 percent more of the letter strings, and were almost twice as accurate in their choices, than a comparison group of 20 students who had read a different short story, a coherent one.

“The fact that the group who read the absurd story identified more letter strings suggests that they were more motivated to look for patterns than the others,” Dr. Heine said. “And the fact that they were more accurate means, we think, that they’re forming new patterns they wouldn’t be able to form otherwise.”

Brain-imaging studies of people evaluating anomalies, or working out unsettling dilemmas, show that activity in an area called the anterior cingulate cortex spikes significantly. The more activation is recorded, the greater the motivation or ability to seek and correct errors in the real world, a recent study suggests. “The idea that we may be able to increase that motivation,” said Dr. Inzlicht, a co-author, “is very much worth investigating.”

Researchers familiar with the new work say it would be premature to incorporate film shorts by David Lynch, say, or compositions by John Cage into school curriculums. For one thing, no one knows whether exposure to the absurd can help people with explicit learning, like memorizing French. For another, studies have found that people in the grip of the uncanny tend to see patterns where none exist — becoming more prone to conspiracy theories, for example. The urge for order satisfies itself, it seems, regardless of the quality of the evidence.

Still, the new research supports what many experimental artists, habitual travelers and other novel seekers have always insisted: at least some of the time, disorientation begets creative thinking.

The author's conclusions are an intellectual cop-out. A broader teaching of art is neither premature nor radical nor is it a touchy-feely appeasement.

The study of art and the participation in art exercises broadens the mind in significant and important ways and experiments like those described in this argument are beginning to quantify and formalize just how.

The Spring Art Show

I had the opportunity to visit the EO Smith Art show last Tuesday evening and it is a big hit.

Paintings, drawing, ceramics, jewelry and computer art are featured by dozens of young craftsmen and artists and the work is fabulous.

Anne Lorch, Tammy Glaeser, and Steve Marks-Hamilton deserve a virtual round of applause for both inspiring and guiding these students.

Anne is retiring and will be fondly remembered by all.

As I was making the rounds however, I was informed by her peers that Tammy Glaeser, our newest art faculty member, had made a very good impression for her contributions in computer art, painting, and fresh ideas.

Unknown Artist: Star Simpson

Star Simpson is the MIT student who was picking up her boyfriend at Logan Airport in Boston when her hoodie which was adorned with an LED breadboard art piece was mistaken as a potential threat by airport officials. The mistake almost cost Simpson her life as this Tech article by Angeline Wang reported;

Simpson (a former Tech photographer) was wearing the device, which included green light-emitting diodes arranged in the shape of a star, during yesterday’s MIT Career Fair. Her defense attorney said she was at the airport to pick up her boyfriend who arrived at Logan this morning.

Simpson approached an information booth in Logan’s Terminal C wearing the light-up device, Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Wayne Margolis said during Simpson’s arraignment today. Margolis also said that Simpson had been wearing the art for at least a few days.

She “said it was a piece of art,” Margolis said, and “refused to answer any more questions.” Jake Wark, spokesperson for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, said that Simpson only described the LED lights after she was “repeatedly questioned by the MassPort employee.” Simpson then “roamed briefly around the terminal,” Wark said. Margolis said this caused several Logan employees to flee the building. As Simpson left the building, she disconnected the battery powering the device, according to a press release provided by Wark.

Simpson had five to six ounces of Play-Doh in her hands, State Police Maj. Scott Pare said in a press conference this morning. The Play-Doh could have been mistaken for plastic explosives.

Simpson was confronted at a traffic island outside Terminal C by state troopers with MP5 submachine guns, and she was arrested at approximately 8 a.m., Pare said during the conference. “I’m shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport at this time,” Pare said. “We’re currently under [aviation threat level] Orange. The threat is there against aviation. We did have MP5 officers respond to the scene immediately.” State police determined that the device was not a bomb after her arrest.

“She followed instructions as was required by the State Police and within minutes [Explosive Ordinance Disposal] unit found that it was an innocuous device and we took her into custody,” Pare said at the press conference. “Thankfully, because she followed instructions as was required, she ended up in a cell as opposed to the morgue. Had she not followed instructions, deadly force may have been used.”

Simpson is a young geek artist who was very active in a number of robotics and technology circles and had gained a reputation as a helpful expert to those involved.

The reaction at the airport by security personnel was entirely professional and appropriate. The aftermath is a disgrace to the spirit of American justice and Simpson's case is a benchmark for our society.

Simpson's teen-aged belief that her device was obviously art was not so much a personal mistake as a generational affliction all young people share. Once the police had established that the device was indeed art and that Simpson's explanation was accurate the State should have dropped all charges. Instead Simpson has been dragged from one hearing to another. WBZTV.com brings us up to date:

Thomas Dwyer Jr., a lawyer for Simpson, said his client didn't think her shirt would scare anyone. He said she'd been wearing the shirt for several days on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus, and it had not alarmed anyone.

He said many young people are fascinated by technology and wear clothing with flashing lights.

"People make these objects part of their identity. It's a part of their personal expression," he said. "They are legitimate forms of First Amendment expression."

Dwyer also argued that state law does not clearly define what a hoax device is.

To continue to prosecute Simpson for this misunderstanding is shameful on the part of the State of Massachusetts. And the reson is compelling.

More and more, not only will young students be wearing electronic paraphernalia but most Americans and tech-savvy travelers will as well. Linda K. Wertheimer, a Globe reporter explains in an article called Look out, Logan: Software is soft wear;

CAMBRIDGE - Orange lights dance across the maroon silk blouse MIT professor Rosalind Picard dubs her "party shirt." The power source for this eye-popping fashion statement: a circuit board, wires, and a 9-volt battery, all concealed in an inside back pocket.

The blouse, also equipped with a microphone, is wearable computer research, part of a growing field that will draw more than 100 researchers from around the world to Boston this week for an annual conference. The researchers will show how their latest designs help people communicate and, in some cases, deal with serious medical issues.

But at this year's conference, they also will confront a side issue - whether to wear their designs at Logan International Airport.

The three-day conference opens Thursday at the Hyatt Harborside Hotel near the airport just weeks after Star Simpson, an MIT student, was arrested at the airport while sporting a glowing design made of a circuit board, wires, and a battery. Simpson, who has worked with Picard and other researchers in MIT's Media Laboratory, said her item was a piece of art - with lights that formed a star - that she made for a career fair.

What the article fails to emphasize is the exponential growth of exoskeleton medical devices that enhance and extend the human endeavor.

Star Simpson is an artist whose experience is less crime and more harbinger of things to come. If airport officials were threatened by Star Simpson, image their fright when someone wearing Dean Kamen's bionic arm shows up at the airport.

The charges against Simpson should be dropped immediately. Further legal buffoonery will only damage the reputation of the prosecutor's office unnecessarily.The State of Massachusetts should take pride in having handled the situation without violence and to a reasonable conclusion. Star Simpson is no criminal and that much is obvious even to those who don't understand art.

Learning Physics Through Art

A fellow software engineer recently turned me on to linerider. It's software written by a former science teacher that allows individuals to create drawings that an anonymous sledder slides around on. Here's how linerider bills itself:

Line Rider was originally created by Boštjan Cadež, a Slovenian university student, in September of 2006. It almost immediately gathered a cult following and became the seventh quickest gaining keyword in Google. Since that time, the ‘toy’ has generated over 16 million views. Fans quickly noticed that they could create tracks, set them to music, and share them over YouTube.com. Currently, there are over 11,000 shared videos with many more to come.

Give it a spin with an art or science class.

I'll Know It When I See It

I've been frantically getting my art ready for my art show at the Willimantic Food Co-Op which spans the month of April. I signed up last year and I haven't shown any work since like 1982 or so.

I can't say that I'm nervous but there is an excitement about putting your stuff out into the public domain. I delivered a dozen pieces Monday and they were up today and look great. They just fill up the Cafe space beautifully and I checked it all out because I happen to really believe that two or three of the pieces are significant.

Monday I spontaneously put together an poster spontaneously to advertise with and today I put together an information sheet.

Now, Monday night I took a couple of copies of the poster to the Mansfield Community Center to stick up somewhere. So I gave it to the people at the desk and they said that they have a magazine turnstile that they'd stick it into if approved!

I kind of rolled my eyes and shook my head, "Okay." What can you do. And you already know what's coming so before we get there let me back up a bit.

Months ago I also submitted a request to the Mansfield Community Center to arrange a show there as well and thereafter I got back a strange little email saying they wanted to see some samples to be sure I wasn't going to display "macaroni" art.

I submitted a few jpegs of stuff I had laying around to prove my art wasn't made of macaroni. All the while, in the back of my mind, I was thinking about creating the best damned macaroni sculpture the world has ever seen (my wife is Italian, I'm sure we can do this).

Nothing happened for a long time and then last month the Community Center suddenly wanted a portfolio probably because of this.

I hope this doesn't sound judgmental but by now I'm thinking to myself, "Geee-zeus Ker-rye-st, how many freakin' artists can there be in the area - they must be trying to drive us out!" I'm fifty-odd years old, serve on the school board, exercise every day, and they think I'm making this stuff up. My brain was speechless.

But I had bigger fish to fry because the Co-Op show was closing in fast.

So Monday night, after handing them my poster I took some consolation in the fact that I could PROVE I was an artist. "See this poster - well take that - that ain't macaroni!"

So tonight the phone rings and I'm hoping it's a new contract but instead it's the Community Center desk-person.

We can't put your poster in the community room.

Um, why?

You're out of the area.

What area?

Oh, your show is in Willimantic and the Community Center services Storrs and Mansfield.

But I'm a member, I'm from Ashford...

Yes, but the show is in Willimantic...

Could you please give the poster to the Art evaluation committee? They asked to see my work and this is a great opportunity for them to see it.

Um, okay, but they are used to getting the art delivered to them.

You can't make it up.

Feed Me

Last night's budget meeting convinced me to vote for this piece in the Saatchi Art Gallery showdown. It is called "Business as Usual" by Albo Jeavons, 2001. In addition to voting on this year's school budget, you can vote on art as well.

And business as usual it is as I'm sure it is every year.

The longer I am exposed to the public school budget process the more I am convinced that public schools are writing their own one way ticket to being dismantled. I can support school budgets that hold the promise of reforming curriculum, upgrading process and content, and reinvigorating the vitality of the school.

You can rest easy there will be none of that this year or in the foreseeable future. You can stop staring as though you're fitting me for a straitjacket for suggesting such a thing.

The delicate flower of education is once more awaiting its ritualistic meal.

The Banality of Totalitarianism

I have repeatedly commented on the censorship of art over the years. First because I was brought up to believe that the voices of others were important opportunities to re-examine our own ideas and second because I myself will someday die an artist.

I rarely whine about First Amendment rights. This country has long hated and denounced the rights to free speech whenever such a thing is exercised. Yes, the Bill of Rights is saluted with a grudgingly perfunctory grunt of acknowledgment like something the founding father's shoved down our collective throats. No one in authority ever wants this right to be exercised as it detracts from its value as a historical artifact whose platitude works so well on designer doormats.

And conservative detractors of free speech have nullified the amendment with extreme prejudice by proclaiming it a privilege or a crime. Yes, by all means, exercise your right to think and say something we might disagree with and you risk your job and ability to find another or maybe we'll simply sue you for liable, slander, or whatever. There is no need for substance to such remedies but we can quickly drain your resources in endless specious court proceedings that will destroy your life.

So I won't bore anyone with the idea that artist's have a right to free speech because that's like asking them to wear a tee shirt with a bullseye on it saying, Shoot Me!

But today, the Courant offered a story called The Art of Argument by Stephanie Summers that informs us that a piece of art by George Jacobi was removed from the Mansfield Community Center because it offended at least one veteran.

This link displays the artwork as covered by the Courant story.

Here's some of what the Courant story says about the removal,

When Air Force veteran David Kloss looked at George Jacobi's photo collage that included images of an American flag, he saw an anti-war statement inappropriate for a family-oriented town facility. He took it to the Mansfield Community Center staff, who took the piece down to quell any controversy.

The move backfired.

"We have an ongoing debate about the censorship of art for moral reasons," Jacobi said, "but political censorship in a public place is unacceptable."

Jacobi declined to replace the artwork with another piece and took a second piece down as well.

Two sculptures thought to be too sexual also were removed, but that artist, Eda Easton, did not contest the decision.

The main focus, however, was on the Jacobi photo collage. Seventeen citizens, including some of the 5,400 community center members, objected in writing to the town about removing the artwork and called for a procedural clarification.

"We believe that it is wrong that one person have the power to determine what the community should or should not see. These decisions are too important to be decided on an ad hoc basis by any town employee who happens to be the recipient of a complaint," the letter read.

Monday night, the town council unanimously voted to order a policy be drafted for choosing artwork for public buildings, except for schools, and dealing with complaints. That task will go to the arts advisory committee, which selects the art work for display at the center.

As director of parks and recreation, Curt Vincente oversees the center. He said he made the decision to take the photo collage down after a couple of complaints because of "the potential for offending veterans we should have the utmost respect for in the community."

"I don't believe that this facility should be a conduit for that public debate," he said, adding that there was plenty of non-controversial art out there. He said he partly considered the risk of losing memberships over the matter.

In comments to the council Monday night, Kloss said that although Jacobi's work was well done, its use of the American flag was disturbing. Kloss' own photographs of a father-daughter backpacking trip he organized through the rec center were declined for display.

"I was very surprised that the photograph was removed," he said last week, adding that he did not believe it was a result of his complaint alone and that the issue was overblown.

The 12- by 48-inch work, titled "Local American History," strips together segments from three photographs: a display of orange flags at a local church yard that marked the Americans killed in Iraq; an American flag; and gravestones at a local cemetery.

"Someone complains and they take down the artwork. Is that censorship?" asked Kloss, a local surgeon who likes to photograph nature.

Yes, said Jacobi and others on that side of the debate. "Regardless of the interpretation of my artwork ... the soldiers represented in it died to protect our right of expression, and our right to interpret anything in our own individual way," he said.

Jacobi said even Norman Rockwell's iconic small-town America art dealt with the theme of war.

An exhibit of Jacobi's work opened Friday at Windham Hospital, although he is not including the flag piece.

and furthermore,

Easton, an artist since 1958 who has done shows in New York and Europe, was more amused than angry when a mother imagined a penis in one of her sculptures and insisted the artwork be removed. Vincente said other adults and children commented on the suggestive nature of two of Easton's pieces.

"That's the first time that's happened to me," Easton said. "I'm used to Europe, and I'm used to the human body being indeed a part of life, and I think a certain amount of sensuousness is a part of art."

Easton's sculptures have been displayed at the University of Chicago, in Boston and New York, and at the Haus der Kunst museum in Munich. A self-described loner, she taught for 25 years and still takes in students because "it's good to be asked uncomfortable questions."

Still, the German-born Easton sees the local dispute as a serious matter, her family having fled Nazi Germany in 1938. "You have to think, I'm an immigrant from Germany ... and so I can see what can happen if government overreacts."

Artists and town officials alike doubt a policy will remove risk of controversy in the future, but they hope it will make the process more transparent for the public and artists alike.

"I don't necessarily think we're going to prevent this from happening again, but what we'll have is a process for handling these situations," Hart said. "That's what we want."

Curt Vincente's argument requires discussion though.

"I don't believe that this facility should be a conduit for that public debate," he said, adding that there was plenty of non-controversial art out there."

As a member and artist-in-waiting for a show at the Community Center, I found this latest exhibit exhilarating because it actually featured real artists. For far too many shows, children's artwork and very provincial pieces lined the walls as though our community were devoid of grasping anything more visual than close-up photography of flowers or drawings of horses or provincial scrapbook adventures.

Art is not about public debate. It is about personal introspection. There is no debate society that I'm aware of at the community center and the fact that it is run by fear instead of pride is just one disturbing aspect of this event. The strength of having a community center is not just to keep the community physically fit but to keep it mentally fit as well. The most shocking thing Mansfield could do would be to support the arts, the artists, and the country by providing a laissez-faire attitude about artists and their art. This is not to say that salacious material should be shown, merely that artist's who express opinions should not be silenced.

But what truly disturbs me above and beyond the pedestrian banality of removing the work is that someone who fought for this country was the trigger. Not a day goes by when someone in government justifies brutal killing, torture, and war as the means to protect our freedoms and to spread those freedoms across the globe. And not a day goes by when these same soldiers and politicians who wrap themselves in self-glorifying patriotism don't use their political clout to censor, intimidate, or shout-down the god-given rights we profess to be fighting for and protecting.

My father was a Marine who served in the Pacific theater during World War II and I grew up learning The Marine's Hymn that ends with the line "if the Army or the Navy ever look on heaven's scenes, they will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines". It's a liberal assertion. It transcends petty politics. The silent graves of soldier's who died fighting for these liberties died unconditionally for this stuff. They didn't sit around saying, "But what if my neighbor objects to that opinion - geezus, maybe Hitler and Hirohito are right! Society really must be controlled."

Whenever I hear that an artist, political activist, or peaceful assembly is being attacked or marginalized or demonized by someone in this country I keep hoping that someday a soldier will put on a dusty uniform and stand guard to serve notice that THIS, THIS is what we protect and fight for and swear our honor and pledge our allegiance to.

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Frank Moss on educational futures...

Frank Moss, an entrepreneur and former CEO of Tivoli Systems, was named head of MIT's Media Lab in February. Here's a sample of what he says about education;

MARCH 13, 2006
Business Week Special Report: Young Entrepreneurs of Tech
How the Masses Will Innovate
interviewed by Stacy Perman

Interviewer: "Moving forward, what are the major areas in technology where academic institutions and venture capitalists will be channeling resources and investments?"

Moss: "The societal business model. Companies are now paying attention to some of the major socioeconomic problems in the First and the Third World. We have a billion people using computers in the First World. It is still limited to wealthier societies.

In the next 20 years we will see the adoption (increase) to 5 billion to 6 billion. And the kinds of killer apps that are important in that world are not those necessarily centered on communication and commerce.

I think as we experience the problem of aging populations we will need to supply different ways to educate, and traditional schools are not the way to go. We will see technology dramatically change the way kids learn. We will see health care without hospitals. That is where the action will be. Just another tweak to a telephone or a handheld device will happen, but it will not be a major source of growth. That is becoming a commodity."

Interviwer: "What new directions will you pursue as head of the Media Lab?"

Moss: "The Media Lab has done a lot to shape the world of technology. We will continue to develop and find brand-new areas. One is between humans and computers, and how the computer relates to people and expresses itself in ways it never has before. For instance, (this means) giving computers common sense and reasoning like people, not just crunching numbers, but having an emotional intelligence as well.

We will (help) to break barriers between a much broader adoption of technology and solutions to the problems facing society today.

We talk about how to make life more pleasant and fulfilling for the aging. We have drugs now that can increase people's lives until their 90s and 100. This is an untapped resource –- the incredible wisdom and knowledge that resides in seniors' brains. We will develop ways to extend their capabilities with technology.

We will improve mental and cognitive abilities. It is esoteric, but think about the problem of aging. People tend to weaken physically as they age, but if we can expand their minds to contribute to society, it will greatly enhance the experience of aging."

Interviewer: "You talk about education and the bottom-up effect that millions more people will play in societal advances. How do you see this unfolding?"


Moss: "We will undergo another revolution when we give 100 million kids a smart cell phone or a low-cost laptop, and bootstrap the way they learn outside of school. We think of games as a way to kill time, but in the future I think it will be a major vehicle for learning.

Creative expression (is another area). No longer will just a few write or create music. We will see 100 million people creating the content and art shared among them. Easy-to-use programs allow kids to compose everything form ringtones to full-fledged operas. It will change the meaning of creative art in our society.

We are already seeing early signs of it in blogs. The source of creative content is coming from the world. That revolution will go well outside of the written word to all forms of visual and performing arts. "

Satellite Art

I was just reading an online article talking about companies taking advantage of Google maps.

What they do is paint their logos on the roofs of their buildings so that when you zoom in using the map feature then switch to satellite mode, you see the logo identifying the building.

So I tried looking at EO Smith from the Google satellite perspective. Click on the title link, center Connecticut in the map area and slowly zoom in using the mapping feature to Mansfield then Rte. 195 and so on. Switch to the satellite mode and you'll see the school and football field.

Now, it seems to me that, come spring, the art department should organize the student body to wear certain colors (or hold up color boards), and see if they can create an EO Smith School logo on the football field, and take a picture of it using Google.

Just a thought.

Teaching Young Artists to Think About Art

Art critics are navel gazing these days. This New York Times book review asks where Art criticism has gone and where, in its absence, has Art gone.

The author wonders aloud if Art and artists have lost their way. In the context of high school art these questions are worth posing. Yes, young artists learn technique and experiment with medium. But what should they be thinking about? And who is their audience?

This article in many ways laments the extremist elements of art that have taken hold over the past thirty years or so - the masochism, shock, celebrity, and disenfranchisement of it all. When I see young adults tattooed, pierced, and desperate for attention, I cannot help but feel that these are artistic visions inspired by false prophets. The artistic community should not have to debase itself to get or deserve attention.

From the article [bolded text emphasis is mine]:

At the conclusion of "Art Since 1900," the four authors hold a round table, and their prognosis is equally dismal. Art, they believe, has become little more than "commodity production, investment portfolio and entertainment." Everything, they say, is turning into kitsch. But just as the formalist Michael Fried linked arms with the antiformalist Harold Rosenberg in their antagonism to contemporary art, so the oppositionalist October editors, with their objections to art's frivolousness and their insistence on the centrality of modernism, sound like no one so much as the traditionalist Hilton Kramer.

A single theme or complaint unites these otherwise disparate voices. Rosenberg lamented modern art's "anything goes" attitude. Ruhrberg writes that "in painting today, anything goes." By the early 70's, according to the authors of "Art Since 1900," "it seemed, as the song had put it, 'anything goes.' " Kramer has said: "With the eruption of the Pop Art movement, an element of demystification came into the art world, an element of cynicism, an element of . . . 'anything goes.' " If there is a presiding spirit over the art of recent decades, it is not Jackson Pollock, and not Andy Warhol. It is Cole Porter.

But how can art criticism cope with an ethos of anything goes? In an environment of perfect freedom, what is there left for a critic to criticize? For critics at newspapers and magazines, who astutely discuss current shows and exhibits, this is less of a problem than it is for writers who stake out theoretical positions. Some, like the writers for October, have turned to politics, interpreting art in terms of Marxism, or feminism, or gay activism or old-fashioned anti-Americanism (while the writers around The New Criterion have reacted to this leftist tendency with their own conservatism). Or they have found refuge in the higher realms of French and German philosophy, usually producing jargon-ridden criticism that is incomprehensible to anyone without a Ph.D. in European theory. We live at a moment when artists have been asking the kinds of questions children ask - What is art? What is it good for? - and critics have for the most part been giving answers not even an adult can understand. "Mommy, why have we come all this way to see pictures of soup cans?" "It's Andy Warhol, sweetheart, and he's wielding a sharp, insinuating heuristic chisel to pry at the faultlines and lay bare the sedimented faces of his surround. "

Mainly, however, critics who have not retreated into monasteries have often retreated in another way, according to the art historian James Elkins. They have, he says in his brief but heartily polemical book, "What Happened to Art Criticism?," given up being critics. They are expert at describing and evoking recent work, placing it in historical context, drawing stylistic and intellectual links among artists. But, with a few exceptions, they do not judge. A Columbia University survey of 230 art critics conducted in 2002 found that making evaluations ranked at the bottom of their list of priorities. Elkins calls this retreat from judgment "one of the most significant changes in the art world in the previous century." He writes that critics have become "voiceless," "ghostly," "unmoored." Art criticism, Elkins says, is in "worldwide crisis."

Worse yet, IMO, is an American public equally voiceless, ghostly, and unmoored who are incapable of making art part of the surroundng community. We too often settle for big city museums to intellectually insulate art from the public where no man, woman, or child can ask, "Why is this art? Why is this important? What does it mean?"

Maybe we need it as much as we need it. And maybe in a politically polarized society, it is the tie that binds.