Marvin, Until recently, I've never really thought about the subliminal learning that goes on in my room. In the past two months, while working on my masters, I've read, The Book of Learning and Forgetting by Frank Smith and Brain Based Learning by Eric Jensen. Both are easy reading and both made me analyze why I do what I do and how I can be a better teacher. I would recommend both books for any teacher in any area of teaching. Both mention "non-teaching strategies" or subliminal things we can do to increase student learning. Many are ways we can manipulate our environment. I have plants in my room to make it more welcome, I greet students at the door, I try to hang bulletin boards with the theme we will be talking about, two weeks prior to the unit. Jensen says this creates pre-exposure learning so the students have a something to connect to when the unit starts. Both authors stated that students need to be able to connect with something to learn it. I play different types of music depending on the time of day and the activity.Different types of music seem to set up my students moods for particular activities. One thing I have not done in awhile is totally redecorate my room to become a time period or theme for an art unit. The students seem to get more caught up in the unit when I do that. Does it increase student learning? I don't know. How do you measure something like that? I do know the students attitudes change with environment and I want my room to have a welcoming environment where they feel safe and can spend more energy learning. I also know that when I'm cranky, my classes become cranky. I know the teachers attitude affects the learning going on in the room. Hmmm, Interesting topic, I need to think about it more.
Thanks,
Bergie
-----Original Message-----
From: Marvin Bartel [mailto:marvinpb@goshen.edu]
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2004 3:45 PM
To: ArtsEdNet Talk
Subject: Top-Ten Subliminal Learning List
The mind never shuts down. Even when we are not seeing any effects from what we think we are teaching, our students are learning things that we are totally unaware of. What do our students learn without conscious effort and without knowing that they are learning?
I am curious about ways in which you have used the classroom atmosphere to teach art in ways the students are probably unaware. What works? How do we know what works? What is bad to do? How do we know? These things take no time away from art projects and assignments, but they may for some students be the most significant learning from the art class.
SUBLIMINAL LEARNING
Here is a list of things I have tried, seen, or thought of that are subliminal in nature. These are not directly connected with any assignment, but they are the sort of things that art class should teach. Does this list remind you of something you have tried? Do these ideas remind you of ideas to share with us?
my TOP-TEN subliminal learning list
1. Surprising posters that proclaim sayings by highly creative people - not just artists. Artist sayings are great, but sometimes philosophers and little children are better with words.
2. Posters of artwork by artists that are really famous, but very unfamiliar to this community - especially work that pushes the edges of what is considered art and never something that could be simply copied by the class for an assignment. I am looking for those art posters that would never show up over a living room couch.
2a. In classrooms with a computer with a good Internet connection and a digital projector, show art by running this web site while they work. http://www.whitney.org/ Or, prepare a presentation that runs silently or with music while they work.
3. Audio recordings of artists being interviewed about their work and why they do what they do in their art. These are played during the work time when we might otherwise be playing background music. This can work best during those rare times when students are working on a somewhat tedious or repetitive task.
4. The classroom as a closet - part of the room is open shelving filled with stuffed birds, scrap wood, scrap metal, drift wood, animal bones, pieces of wire, fabrics, a pile of old shoes, wall paper sample books, costumes, flea markets stuff. I have also seen all these things stored in plain sight above the closed storage cabinets.
5. A poster with list of ways that highly creative artists get their ideas for their art. I laminated this list and placed it on the wall above the sink.
6. A poster listing the purposes of art in society.
7. A poster listing the ways in which artful living improves our individual and collective worlds.
8. A poster listing the ways people earn part or all of their living because they are artists.
9. A poster listing the ways we are daily deceived by art and design (subliminal learning) used in mass merchandising and politics.
10. This is not in the classroom, but for many years I have made sure that every class has had a field trip to our house near the end of the term. If they forget everything else about the class, they never forget the place where an artist lives and works. Never again do they see their own life choices exactly the same.
AWARENESS HABITS
A schedule of change. The teacher does something new to the visual environment of the classroom and the students are asked to write down what they notice that is new and give their presumed reason that the teacher changed the classroom. Habits of awareness can be cultivated.
YOUR IDEAS?
Do you have one or two other ideas to share?
Marvin Bartel, Ed.D., Professor of Art Emeritus
Goshen College, 1700 South Main, Goshen IN 46526
studio phone: 574-533-0171
http://www.bartelart.com
"You can't never know how to do it before you never did it before." ... a kindergarten boy working with clay for the first time.
---
leave-artsednet-20359V@lists.getty.edu
