The best learning can come from ANYWHERE, at ANY PLACE, if we are tuned-in

It's a small world after all
Standard Eastern Time, Sept 2013
Five weeks ago, I met Jonathan, an art curator turned art teacher at Springbrook High School, Montgomery County, Maryland. He is a passionate art teacher and a lover of art and art history. Before making a mid-career switch to teaching, he has had much experiences in the art world, from assisting Christo with his Surrounded Miami Islands in the early 1980s to curating shows and purchasing collection as a museum curator.

Asia Pacific Time, 2011
Half a world away in Singapore, I met Dr Karen Carroll at The Singapore Teachers' Academy for the Arts (STAR) back in 2011, and she also visited my colleagues and myself at the school where I teach, which is a Visual Art Niche School, or what is called 'Magnet' School in the US. I met her again at other STAR professional development platforms and it has always been an enriching experience.

Back To Future
Half a world around, back in Springbrook High, Maryland, 2013. I was having a casual chat with Jonathan and he told me he teaches an undergraduate Art History class at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) once a week and told me he knows Karen, and offered to take me to see her in MICA, Baltimore.

Wow! It's a small world after all!

Lunch on 5.5 Acres of Farmland
The meeting with Karen at MICA was great! In a two-hour chat, I got so much help from her on my Capstone Project. I felt like I bagged a gold nugget in her office! But two hours of meaningful talk just zipped past so fast and I just wanted more time.

Thankfully, Jonathan decided to set up a lunch date on 5 October at his home, a cozy house sitting on 5.5 acres of a formerly small holding farmland. I did not know what to expect for this lunch date except for the knowledge that Karen was also invited. As it turned out, a few more folks were also invited. There was Hannah, a retired nurse and close friend of Inge, Jonathan's wife, Jonathan's oldest son and Dr Joan Gaither, a retired Art Education professor at MICA now in her third career as documentary quilt artist. I am so privileged to be in the presence of these lovely folks.

One of the bird houses Jonathan erected

Karen admiring Inge's vegetable patch 

Fig from Jonathan's and Inge's backyard,
picked just minutes before

Jonathan's house is more than a residence. It is a museum, an art gallery and a library! It is just like any suburban house but the rooms and walls are filled with paintings, artefacts from various parts of the world, and shelf after shelf of books! The only problem is that Jonathan and Inge are running out of wall space!

Lunch was fabulous, with smoked salmon on cream cheese and bagel, a Scandinavian and US fusion affair (Inge is from Denmark), Jonathan's signature tuna salad, various breads, olives, mozzarella and cherry tomatoes and figs from Inge's backyard, and refreshing iced tea on a warm afternoon.

Freshly picked organic figs are amazing, they are very sweet but very clean tasting with a subtle fruity flavour. The figs we ate were picked just minutes earlier.  Even top notch store bought figs no longer have that fruity flavour, because they are a few days old.  

After lunch, we had fresh coffee and Inge's berry cheese cake was so delightful and fruity. I am not a big cheese eater but I cleaned my plate! 

The lunch that extended till supper: (Clcokwise: Joan Gaither (with hat), Jonathan (Standing), myself, Jonathan's oldest son, Hannah and Inge.

Conversations that we could not end  
Apart of the great food, the conversation was so rich. They talked about the 'trials and tribulations' of living with wild animals and various means to outwit them or vice versa. The wild life range from deers that would eat their vegetables, squirrels that chew through anything and would not leave the bird feed stands alone, herons that devoured the carps in the pond, tulips that got stolen by burrowing rabbits, groundhogs that have a mean bite!

Many years ago, I gleaned some understanding of challenges of life in the Australian outback and the how the introduction of rabbits by the Europeans created less than desirable environmental legacy such as the rabbit plagues. Sitting here at a Maryland farming neighbourhood, I think I get a sense of why Americans are noted for being positive. Well, there is not much options if you live with a range of wild life that more often out-smart you on a daily basis. Whinging is not going to get those vegetables to grow back, being proactive, quick thinking with a dose of humour does.

A long lunch seemed short when so much is shared and laughed about. Having grown up in Singapore as an urbanite, this is so, so rich for my ears. This made me fondly recall those times at University of British Columbia when I would observe the feeding and flight patterns of migrating Canadian geese, the music of wood pecker in Pacific Spirit Park, cherry blossom bloom in very cold spring, and the colourful red, blue, violet and brown hummingbirds in late spring.

There is Site Specific Art but there's no such thing as Site Restricted Learning

The best Art Education seminar, delivered on a wooden swing
Throughout the afternoon, I have gleaned so much rich learning from everyone at the table, from documenting narratives and a generation of wisdom through documentary quilt (I would like to call it ethnographic art), to learning from the adaptability and resilience of wild life in the backyard, to being resourceful without affordances. But I must say that the most insightful discussion on art education was in the garden .

After chatting at the table for sometime, we decided to head out to the 5.5 acres of backyard for a walk. We came to the edge of the property, where a weather-seasoned wooden swing sat along side trees planted twenty years ago by Jonathan. Karen and Joan sat down and we chat. Jonathan shared about the tensions working as an art educator, covering pedagogical and curricula issues, and resource management. These tensions are very common for any art teachers, regardless of context. Instead of directly offering advice, Karen asked Jonathan probing questions about his opinion on the value of teaching, his approach on professional development for himself and art teachers. The questions are familiar questions but ever relevant and when asked at the right time, they make one think hard.   

Then Joan shared her thoughts on the potential impact, the possible reaping of fruits for an art educator at different levels. With her wealth of practical wisdom accrued from nearly forty years as an art educator in school and in higher education, Joan essentially articulated the essence of why a teacher should move from just having individual professional knowledge to investing in building knowledge in a community. And she did that in just two minutes. Wow! Did I just hear a thud sound on the ground? I certainly did and I discovered a gold nugget below the swing at Joan's feet! 

Dr Karen Carroll and Dr Joan Gaither, cheerful ex-colleagues at MICA and good friends

Joan, Jonathan and myself fully immersed in conversations, with Baxter and Anina watching out for the squirrels

Connectedness as a way to build Social and Professional Capital
We have been told at the Fulbright Award in Teaching Orientation, we should not be passive, silent observer when we get to our attached school. We should initiative chats, be alert, have our eyes peeled and be curious, even in the most mundane of context. This is actually an important advice covered in Andy Hargreaves's argument in his book Professional Capital (2012). Building network with effective professional peers is an important channel to building a teacher's social capital. Individual human capital is the requisite professional knowledge at the start of a career but can remain static unless the development moves to the social level. Hargreaves is not referring to social circles for leisure activities but professional circles and network. Well, of course we need not always have professional chat in meeting rooms and an intense discussion over a muffin and coffee works just fine.

Hargreaves pointed out that social capital can only be built if the topics engaged in such networks is not for quick fixes but critical discussions. I have also written about the need to do conceptual 'visiting' using Hannah Arendt's critical theory (Arendt, et al.), and that the way to learn a farmer's secret is not at the farmer's market but at the farm (Lee, 2011. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ967133.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2fwbAl7C9llo1jzCMaABsFNwX84K-PHxXxYs02XOZfdm3IIiPvSFdgjfM ). 

At the end of the day (literally at 10:00 pm), I reached home with a gold nugget in my bag for my Capstone project. This is a good reminder that we can learn much, when we least expect it. I keep telling myself: be diligent in alertness, keep my ears tuned-in and eyes peeled with a non-presumptuous heart. 

Just like a gleaner who gathers loose barley grains amongst the cut, strewn stalks, one handful at a time, not dismissing the value of any grain. When the day is done, the humble gleaner-learner can bring home a huge sack of sustaining food. 


Till next time, when the gleaning learner returns......