What will you give?

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We just returned from a luncheon/fundraiser for Artists Creating Together (ACT). This is an amazing organization that "brings people with disabilities together with artists and art projects." At the luncheon, we were entertained, fed, given a handmade key chain, and provided information about ACT's efforts.

After lunch we watched this video:

Then the mother of one of the individuals highlighted in the video, Drew, gave a moving speech about what ACT has meant to her family. Finally, we were asked to consider what each of us might be able to give to support programs like these.

This was not a surprise. After all, it was a fundraiser. But it got me thinking.

I am grateful for organizations like ACT that are supporting people who are often left on the margins, and I would encourage you to support their work by going here and making a donation. However, when it comes to the arts, we all benefit from creative experiences. Unfortunately, in the current educational climate of college and career readiness and teacher accountability, "specials" like art and music are often the first to be sacrificed because of a lack of resources - time (spent instead on test-prep) and money (spent instead on standardized-tests).

I long for an educational system where tests and test-prep are done outside the school day, and where we fund the arts and hold fundraisers for standardized tests.

Do you ever make mistakes?

The above was on my Facebook news feed this past week. As a young adult, I remember watching Bob Ross on our local PBS station, WNMU. If you are not familiar with his work, watch this short sample.

Anyone considering making online teaching videos could learn a lot from Bob Ross. He treats the viewer as an apprentice. We get to watch him engage in an authentic act. And as he engages in this act, he describes what he is doing and why he is doing it. Let me amend what I wrote at the beginning of this paragraph: Any teacher could learn a lot from Bob Ross.

PS: When John Golden (@mathhombre) found out I was writing this post, he asked me to include the following. I do it gladly. The idea of "happy accidents" fits with my efforts at graceful imperfection.

Do you really understand?

A version of this post was originally written for my Learning Museum blog. As I continue to consolidate my blogs, the timing seemed right to move this post here. You see, it's ArtPrize time again in Grand Rapids. Also, two of my classes are currently focusing on the differences between making sense of something and truly understanding it.

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Grace Chen wrote a very thought provoking post called, Making Sense of Understanding. I was reminded of her points as I attended an ArtPrize 2011 Sneak Peak at the University of Michigan's School of Art & Design and SiTE:LAB. As I reflected on what I made up as I watched the the movement of the piece in the movie below, it became clearer the distinction between making sense and understanding.

When I first saw it moving, I thought that it was a mobile and that the wave motion was the result of the wind. That didn't make sense, however, as we were indoors and there wasn't that much air movement. My wife, Kathy, thought that it might be moving to the music. But when the music stopped, it kept undulating. Then I looked up and saw that levers were moving up and down which resulted in the wave-like motion. Mystery solved - the piece moved in some preprogramed way. This "made sense" to me and so I moved on to look at more of the art.

Before I got to far, Kathy exclaimed, "Cool!" I turned back to see her reading a description of the piece near by. "It's the motion of the ocean," she continued.

Huh? That didn't make sense. But then I read the description too:

Because it might be difficult to read, here is what it says:

The installation draws information from the intensity and movement of the water in a remote location. Wave data is being collected and updated from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data buoy station 51003. This station was originally moored 206 nautical miles Southwest of Honolulu in the Pacific Ocean. It went adrift and the last report from its moored position was around 04/25/2011. It is still transmitting valid observation data but its exact location is unknown. The wave intensity and frequency collected from the buoy is scaled and transferred to the mechanical grid structure resulting in a simulation of the physical effects caused by the movement of water from this distant unknown location.

Now I understand. And understanding did make the piece even cooler.