Developing solutions for timeless withstanding of ideas for 2025+

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This is the first beginning of a new year [January 2025], in almost two decades, I am not balancing higher ed responsibilities with creative drives. "Students are developing visual solutions for the timeless withstanding of ideas," was my tagline for the website of their work at studentsofbingham.com.

At the time of this sentiment's inception, I thought it a provocative premise for intellectually expressive intentions, both as a teacher and as a student. I'm now driven to revist the etiology, epistemology, and myriad exploratory avenues of, "timeless sensibilities."

My articulations of "pedagogy" are now an historical footnote rathern than a primary characteristic for how I value [my] contribution.

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studentsofbingham.com

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Resume / CV

About

August 2022+

Asychronous Style

I conceded to the limitations of online discourse, tossing the majoirty of [personal] ideals by the wayside. The institution, the teacher, & the student, all grappled and grumbled with the expressions of, and contributions to, the degree granting 'system'.

I had one course allowing me to cling to a textbook, like it was filled with an alchemist's guarded secrets. I was able to have Intermediate Algebra students work at a class pace, use a pencil to write problems, while simultaneously necessitate articulations of their work. Students were assessed on what they produced with their pencil. My contemporaries thought it absurd when the publisher's products could steer the course, opening valuable time for me. Why grade handwritten (often illegible) work, by choice?

Withstanding Change: Students continued to devleop a [book] chapter filled with their photographs of 2-Dimensional content, an exercise I had been using for over 6 years.     If you could hold it between your fingers, it wasn't 2-D; they shot images of shadows & reflections.    I still was able to maintain a structure offering students pathways towards seeing the world mathematically.        

Student Publications

April 2022+

Amid the Rubble

With the pervasive acceptance, reliance, and desire to integrate screen-based delivery [and receiving] mechanisms into contemporary learning systems , I feel lost & afraid. I once heard the phrase, ".embrace post-modern education", spoken in the context of replacing analog instruments for digital. Once a profound normalcy, the human quality embedded within learning environments is now a vintage style of classroom design.

With a myriad styles of schools attended & teaching experiences behind me, epistemically I held a confidence in transforming my beliefs with the ever increasing integration of technologies into the classroom. Relunctantly, I made the transition from film to digital image making; I made it work both personally & as an instructor. I traded the emotional equity developed through making a print in the darkroom for the instant gratification offered by digital means.

"Reluctantly", I've [recently] used that word often in pedagogical thought.

August 2020+

Educational Experimentation

Abandoning the mainstream revolution of accepting teaching screens, I developed an art based curriculum for a student (My Son) who was interested in receiving a STEM based curriculum. IT WAS ALL ABOUT HANDS ON!! The digital camera (still & video), Infintity Box, mig welder, pencil, and spray paint were the primary tools for the expression of solutions. Several months prior to the installation of our curriculum, we designed and built (his studio) a woodshop with a welding area.

I was able to satisfy [my] curiosities around the profundity of using CREATIVITY as the avenue to express the knowledge of intellectual tools (Physics, Algebra 2 / Trig, and Cultural Anthropology). Yes, I lectured at a white board. Yes, paper, pencil, and used textbooks were key tools for learning mathematics and physics.

An Art Core based STEM curriculum uses publically accessible expressions as the highest form of achieving SUCCCESS of his / her knowledge acquisition.  The intensity of the curriculum was engaged up until fultime (via dual enrollment) at WNMU was exercised.   He pursued a BFA.    

What It Looked Like

March 2020+

Education's COVID Response

Whether a student went to a coat and tie school or a metal detector school, they sat in front of a screen receiving their lessons, unless alternatives were developed [by their parents or networks]. Most responded with anger, frustration, fear, and the general belief that online delivery systems suck. I was aligned with such a public sentiment, educational systems were not prepared for such an immediate, gross change.

Triggering the belief, "If you're not going to contribute to a solution, then shut the hell up", I decided to create the ideal curriculum for my 9th grade son - most of which had been swirling around my head since 2007.   This ideal, iincluding its delivery mechanisms, additionally informed my best practices as an online instructor whose comfort zones were exercised in front of a chalk / white board.   

My bedroom transformed into a lecture hall & video production studio.   

studentsofbingham.com

August 2009+

Digital Arrives & Darkroom Closes

I didn't want students to lose creative & articulative intention as a result of the ease by which an image is produced and refined (via Photoshop & Lightroom).

I'm an analog soul. I thrive within those hidden curriculums facilitating the learning of patience & practice. Practice is a skill to be learned, as instantaneous results can be limited to outcomes that don't work, the body of processes not to be repeated. Practice goes hand in hand with recognition & intention.

Prior to transitioning to a digital camera with an iso capacity of 6400, I limited myself to outdoor photography and regularly working with film (35mm & 120mm) in controlled environments; I shot the statics of life. The elevated iso opened my door to life within spatial interiors, while simulltaneously closing the door to "Making each shot contribute to the narrative." Digital photography enabled the image to chase a premise, rather than the premise chasing after visiaul articulation.

Photography was no longer an instructor of patience. In exchange, the [digital] camera offered an ease for students to get back into their saddle after being bucked off by an idea that just didn't work.

studentsofbingham.com

January 2008+

Engaging with Light & Film

THE DARKROOM: Students walk off into their personal lands of exotica, and shoot a role of film. They return to spend time in a social space, revealing their efforts in a developing tray for the first time to both themselves and their peers. There was music jamming in the background. Unique qualities (can imply technical failure) result in spoken commentary, interest, and curiosity. What was once perceived a failure is now a whimsical success.

All students experienced the darkroom, regardless of the course. When my film classes trasitioned into digital, students made pinhole photographs; art appreciation students made pinhole photograhps as part of their studio component. I didn't want to let the darkroom turn into an inferior space of history.

BOOK PUBLISHING: I discovered lulu.com as a tool allowing me to receive closure for my decades worth of verse. Being dramatically moved by the outcome, ease, and cost of POD publishing, I made each student create their own chapter. Those chapters are then merged together to make a book. My Math students shoot 2-D content (shadows or reflections) - an introduction to seeing & considering the world as a combination of dimensional elements - seeing the world mathematically.

studentsofbingham.com

May 2007+

Core Subject: Art

On the most fundamental levels, I used lens-based tools to hide behind, enabling me to watch, engage, and participate in the social world. I was able to share photographs and video with both strangers and acquaintances, offering [me] a sense of contributive value. I dug in to the enormous variety of available methods to share digital & wet media. I was able to get my curiosities "out there."

Why aren't English Papers posted on walls? Why aren't mathematical solutions in galleries? Why aren't science (social / physical) experiments exalted to the level of receiving their own rooms for display? Yes, they fail to have value for the consumer and often are emotionally and intellectually inaccessible (both qualities of post-modern expressions).

A re-evaluation of what the pedastal looks like, supporting the  expression of subjects (and subject matter), so intellectually glorified, must be considered.

studentsofbingham.com

May 2003+

Accessing a Service Ethic

QUESTION: Why does a wilderness expedition work? (EMICH - Thesis #2)

METHOD: Data set consisted pf 200 non-directed 35mm photographs taken while leading a 10 day canoe expedition with 6 adolescent males and one staff assistant. Similarities of visual content resulted in 7 categories. For each category I asked, "What's going on?"

RESULTS: In order for an individual to have access to their "Service Ethic", the following qualities need to be present:
1. Environment is perceived as a raw force.
2. Environment is perceived as all good.
3. Environment is perceived as all bad.
4. Experience individual reflection.
5. Experience collective reflection.
6. Exercise a work ethic.
7. Perceive the environment as a sensual entity.

A SERVICE ETHIC: A man is walking down the street early in the morning because he believes he will not encounter any other people; he is alone. He comes across a piece of trash on the sidewalk; he picks it up with the intentin of placing it into a trash receptica.

It's the expression of the highest form of service, doing something for someone else when you believe no one is watching & no one will know what you've done. It's about accesing and engaging our altruistic self.

studentsofbingham.com

May 2001+

Making Waves, Building Bridges

CURIOSITY: What kind of person will I become as a result of participating in the, Social Foundations of Education Program? (EMICH - Thesis #1)

CREATIVE PREMISE: Similar to an individual's 4 stages of ego identity development, an academic department's identity can exercise a parallel set of identity stages. An academic department does have a [collective] ego.

HYPOTHESIS: My Ego will assume similarities to the department's Ego.

STAGES OF IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
-Diffusion: A person (or department) hasn’t made any commitments about expressing their mission; they are not attempting to seek one out. Individuals are floaters; academic departments have no solidarity.
-Foreclosure: A person (or deparment) is willing to make comitments about the expression of their mission, values, lessons, etc., but, their commitments are grounded within another's choices. They didn’t reach conclusions based upon their own searching within the culure or cultures they want to serve. Ideologies are often borrowed.
-Moratorium: A person (or department) is exploring and experimenting with different expressions of their mission. They haven’t made commitments.
-Achievement: A person (or department) has made commitments after trying on what works and what doesn’t work, in the contenxt of expressing their mission.

studentsofbingham.com