In preparation for our class on Wednesday, January 24, please post here your paragraph-long question to the reading assigned to us by Felice Salmon.
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Created January 6, 2020
Community? Engagements? Arts? Well, for starters this is a class taught at Transylvania University in Lexington, KY by professors Kremena Todorova and Kurt Gohde. The goal of this class is to form a relationship with the community by engaging in artistic projects with the community. The outcome of this will manifest itself in many ways, some recognizable and others not so much.
CETA 2020: Our first 2 emojis (of hundreds)
Created January 6, 2020
Individual Tasks
Collect addresses, make & write thank-you cards, design pronoun buttons--Anna Davis
Blog Manager--Paige Wessling
Recorder/archivist for This I Believe essays--Sarah Metcalfe
Social Media--Lydia Baggett & Garrett LeVan
Photographic Inventory (3 people)--Yousef Alsdudi, Sarah Bennett, & Faith Boles
Space, raw material, & tool inventory manager AND order enforcer--Emily Neat
Quality Control & Class Ethicist--Alex Toney
Software Design Team (3 people)--Shelby Barker, Emily Cecil, & Abby Pearson
Fabrication Team (3 people)--Brooklyn Greer, Will Hemingway, & Marissa Price
Finishing Team (4 people)--Nannie Baze, Emon Daneshmand, Ally Frederick, & Madison Phillips
Additional photographic documentation--Kremena and Kurt
Working with production design at Kre8Now Makerspace--Kurt and Kremena
Publicity for the class--Kremena and Kurt
Securing materials needed--Kurt and Kremena
Among those who said they had a spark, twenty-four percent had one related to art, dance, drama, music, writing, or some other creative activity. This is the second largest area of interest in the study. The study stresses the idea that nurturing a teen’s spark will help them to speak out, take action, and solve the problems plaguing society. Given the above, would it be reasonable to conclude that the increased focus on STEM and movement away from the arts is harmful? I ask this question because although the push for STEM is a response to society advancing technologically, it seems as though that’s not where teens’ interests lie. If teens are being pushed toward math, science, and related occupations, wouldn’t this create adults who are unable to apply their skills and knowledge to societal problems? If the arts do have a place in modern society, how does one tackle the notion that they are outdated and do not require funding/institutional support?
ReplyDeleteGreat question, Zach!
DeleteThe data presented seems to indicate a disconnect between the parents and other adult mentors in teenagers' lives. While 77% of parents are encouraging of their children's sparks, "fewer than half of the youth with sparks say that people at school
ReplyDelete(48%), coaches, mentors, or other youth workers (43%), a religious leader (29%), or a neighbor (16%) helps them develop their spark." Parents being on board is certainly helpful for youth development, but are there ways for parents or family members to connect closely with other adults in their child's network? Might the advice given be more effective if addressed as a teenager's network of adults?
I think forging networks of support for young people that span home, community, and classroom is a major part of what all adults need to be doing, not just parents. Three big evolutions in thinking need to occur: -People need to learn how to ask for help in healthy ways. -Adults need to widen their understanding of how to support kids whether they have children or not. -Kids need to be given more opportunities to have leadership and power in groups outside their families.
DeleteSeveral studies report that each generation becomes more depressed, anxious, pessimistic, etc, with the youngest generation obviously scoring the highest in these areas. Some theories point to the internet as one of the possible leading factors because it is a source of real-time information about the state of the world. Every day we have the opportunity to read about recent mass public shootings, ongoing genocides, and whatever embarrassing, horrific remark Trump tweeted yesterday. All of this constant exposure to the dark side of the world causes us to see the world as solely or primarily dark. What personal effect could this be having on teens today? Could this be contributing to their lack of “sparks” or lack of motivation to actively take control of their lives? After all, if the world is shit, what’s the point, right? Could routinely exposing our youth to the positive news events—in addition to the dark ones, not instead of—help them to recognize their interests, talents, hobbies, whatever, simply by generating a more optimistic view of the world which will then theoretically be internalized to an optimistic view of the self?
ReplyDeleteWhat a good, thoughtful question, Kacy! I can tell you many adults feel the same about the state of the world and about the news we are getting.
DeleteThe article discussed teens needing support from home and access to high quality programs that promote the different sparks of teens.What can a member in the community do, who is not the parent of a teen and does not have direct access to the programs schools have, to be a part of helping teens pursue their spark? The article discussed how poverty plays a role in the lack of resources and programs students have access to, so how can the community help with these issues? I feel sometimes people in the community do not even know how to help because the issues are so overwhelming such as poverty, and how do people overcome poverty, especially if the community are the ones in poverty.
ReplyDeleteExcellent question! I am hoping Felice and the other speakers tonight will have some ideas to share with us...
DeleteWhilst reading the article my interest was piqued by the 28% Stem vs 24% arts interest in 15 year olds. This pulled me because if the percentages are actually not that far apart shouldn't we begin to see/treat the arts as an equal contender when it comes to the amount of arts opportunities in the classroom? Furthermore these leads me to think and ask questions regarding arts high schools that require auditions ie scapa lafayette...Athough we know administration is shifting education towards stem, therefore alienating arts in that way, do current infrastructures of art institutions keep interested students out that do not have access to those who are prepared and pushed at a young age to audition and get into art middle and high schools?
ReplyDeleteYou are right to be asking these questions, Blake. If only we could ask them of our superintendent of schools....
DeleteI am interested in where you think, as human beings, we developed this society that downplays the potential of young people? It is very interesting reading my peer's responses more to statistics, but this idea of what lays in our consciousness as human beings is more of my interest. What is it about being human, that makes us set up a world in which young people aren't able to engage or identify with something that makes the feel part of this world with passion? Is it our ego? Is it our own failed attempts at finding a spark early on in life? I guess what I'm asking is: What is the core of this aspect of the human condition, that if fixed, would sort of shatter this set up we have today?
ReplyDeleteI, too, am wondering about this...
Delete"Among the 15-year-olds surveyed, 28% describe their strongest spark as sports,
ReplyDeleteathletics, or other physical activities, and 24% describe it as creative activities such
as art, dance, drama, music, or writing."
I am truly surprised that the number is only 28% for the 15 year old whose spark is throught althletics. The reason I say this is because most individuals say that it is what makes them who they are anytime you ask them what or who makes them who they are today. Why is it that low? Are we not encouraging students in activites anymore or even the arts? Why are the number declining and pushing more towards stem in which we are still behind in so what's the point of enhancing it so much? Everyone can have stem but can everyone have a creative art or talent that sets them a part from the rest?
I guess what I'm asking is, rather than treating symptoms of this issue from the outside, what can we do on the inside to get right to the source, and what is that source?
ReplyDeleteSitting down to read a study subtitled “The Untapped Strength of 15-Year-Olds,” I couldn’t help thinking about the 15-yearl-old boy in Marshall County, KY who yesterday shot to death two of his classmates and injured many others inside his high school. The shooter has not been named, which somehow makes the situation even more serious; we have to consider that he could be any one among the 15-year-olds living in rural Kentucky (and, admittedly, anywhere in this country), that each of them might be capable of doing what he did.
ReplyDeleteReading the study Felice assigned us, I kept wondering about the shooter: whether anyone had encouraged him to think about his “spark” and work on developing it, if he ever felt his voice mattered, whether he lived within a nurturing network of family and friends. If he didn’t, why not, what in our social system may have contributed to how he was growing up?
I was struck by the list of “Fifteen Actions to Support 15-Year-Olds,” especially by “1) Ask teens about things that matter to them.” Perhaps if the shooter had been asked (more frequently) what matters to him, he wouldn’t have felt a need to shoot his classmates? This is a speculation, of course. More important is remembering to ask teens what they are passionate about and to encourage their passions.
I am very concerned that the voices of our youth are only displayed to the public in a negative way. The article states "If you believe the headlines, most teenagers are failing school, having sex, drinking alcohol, and committing violence. They’re
ReplyDeletezoned out on computers, iPods, and cell phones, and they won’t have anything to do with adults—particularly their parents... but that is only part of their story." i think this statement highlights the common misjudgment of our youth. The article then explains how often the positive activities that teens are involved in are forgotten about. I cannot agree more that the image that teens are constantly photographed as misrepresents who they actually are. When our rhetoric around teens is limiting and falsely claimed then how can we as a society expect teens to have any since of self, they have no choices in life. I am very concerned for the upcoming generations for this exact reason.