ED 5850 Assignment A (Preparedness for 21st Century Learning): Part One

Background For HBP Blog Readers
This and the following post comprise an assignment I've written for my ED5850 class (Using Emergent Technologies to Support School Improvement) in the Masters of Education program at the University of Lethbridge. I thought at least parts of it might be of interest to HBP blog readers.
Background For My Instructors
As I’ve written in the ED5850 forums, who I am as a person is integral to who I am as an artist and a teacher. My mission for these roles is connected: I have a strong calling to use my own struggles with vulnerability and my own understanding of vulnerability to do whatever I can do to move humanity forward. As a mother, especially, I feel a deep sense of urgency. Survival of the fittest no longer cuts it in the interconnected world of the 21st century--I believe that we humans need to move to an expanded paradigm in order to survive, one that includes compassion in all of our endeavours (for ourselves, for each other and for the earth).
I am just one of many people who are concerned about the atrocious problems of the world, people who would also like to see this paradigm shift. Most of us have no idea what to do, though. In my independent art project, the Human Body Project (for more explanation, see the Human Body Project website), I can be seen as a teacher to my audience of something we can actually do to make change. By using my naked body as a human “sample” I offer an experiential learning opportunity. In essence, I am saying: “Use me as a starting point to explore in a felt sense your own human vulnerability.” That felt experience is the key, difficult though it may be. Like a classroom or workshop, I offer a place or situation where people can have permission and a chance to learn how. Also, like a teacher/facilitator, I offer outcomes: the more we deal with our own vulnerability the more we will be able to feel connected and compassionate; the more we feel it, the more we live it.
My mission and my art project are actually very related to the main subject I teach, public speaking at Lethbridge College. (I have also taught writing courses at the U of L and LC). What I am doing in my art project is, in some sense, a modeling for what students do in class. Whether students want to or not, they have to explore their vulnerability in a public speaking class. Also, whether they are conscious of it or not, students have a strong need to connect and form community. When a student speaks in public he or she is putting him or herself out there. And almost everyone has some kind of edge around that. My main job as an instructor of this class is to create a supportive environment so that students can feel safe in their vulnerability. The “we’re all in the same boat” message applies to both my art project and my class. I think I can say that when students leave my class they are not only better speakers, they have also experienced being part of a caring community.
For this assignment, I will address both my class at the college and my art project.
ICT-Related Vision/Place in Contemporary Educational Thinking
Human Body Project: The project is an ongoing one that mostly “lives” on the website anchored by an artist statement, documentation of the events, and my blog. I have had an “if you build it they will come” mentality about the site and, indeed, people from all over have contacted me to tell me that they have been moved by the project. It is necessary for the project to have an Internet presence to reach people.
My vision for it would be that the video documentation of the events would be there now (in reality I haven’t caught up on editing for about two years); and the photos and participant art and other website updates could be done easily and quickly. I would also be reaching lots more people and project events would be webcast or have their own reality TV show.
My project is very much about experiential learning, i.e. actually learning to deal with feelings of vulnerability (who does not avoid this?) vs. intellectual knowledge of our mortality (who does not know this?).
Public speaking class: There are two main ways I’d like to use emergent technology to expand what we do in class.
1) I’d love to see students really willing to stand up for themselves and for their views in a way that reaches beyond the classroom. We already record student speeches. I’d like to experiment with getting students to post their recorded speeches on MySpace or facebook or YouTube as a means of reaching further outwards.
2) I’d like as many students as possible to engage in critiquing presentations and for them to understand more clearly the possible diversity of their audiences. For these purposes, I’d like to use Turning Point student response system “clickers.”
Using Internet sharing/networking sites addresses the concept of authentic learning. Students will be encouraged to use sites where they are already “hanging out.” Using Turning Point also addresses the concepts of differentiated learning and universal design for learning. First of all, use of the “clickers” is tactile and in the moment. But, also, the anonymity of the responses helps to engage the more reticent students.
Synopsis (My Area at Lethbridge College)
I am a contract instructor, meaning I never know what I’ll be doing from one term to the next, but I have been teaching at least one section of the public speaking course almost every term since 2004. The usual class size is between 20-30 students. I am one of four regular public speaking instructors. The course is part of the General Studies program at the college but business students are also required to take it. My classes are usually at least half business students, 40%-ish general studies students and a smattering of CIT (Computer and Information Technology) and nursing students. (The class can be used as a U of L transfer GLER elective.)

Vulnerability is the Key

As a yoga practitioner and yoga teacher, yogic concepts have been very powerful growing tools in my life. Two of those concepts, compassion and presence (i.e. the act of being present), are simple to understand but difficult to embody. I mean I, for one, have difficulty with my family of origin and my next-door neighbours compassion-wise. And, while I have not found the usual absentizing substances useful for me for a long time, I would happily take a holiday from myself and read detective novels and eat cookies and popcorn in bed for three weeks if I got the chance. I am no shining star.

In my day-to-day life I also watch myself and my social discomfort. I often feel like I don't belong and that people are judging me. I have various ways I try to defend myself against this discomfort. My defences put people off. I'm just human. What I'm trying to point out is that we all have these kinds of difficulties and they hold us back. Much of our social interaction is about avoiding vulnerability.

When we are overcompensating, when we are not present, when we are not able to feel compassion, we make the wrong choices. This applies on a macro- and micro-level. This applies to the current mess in my own head and the current mess in the world.

Many people are working on their difficulties these days. We want to feel better. We want to be more compassionate. That's why TV shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil are so popular. People want clues. Oprah and Dr. Phil tell people what to do. I suggest this works only to a point. Many spiritual advisers and religions also offer less than practical advice.

For those of us who are ready, there is a deeper place that Dr. Phil and Oprah and Deepak Chopra and many pastors don't seem eager to go to. There is a key to working on these individual icky places and our collective fucked-upness. That key is learning to experience vulnerability. This has to be experiential and visceral, i.e. felt.

In this project, i.e. my particular choice for exposing myself and others to a shared experience of vulnerability,  I'm saying that by dealing with nakedness (mine and those who join me; this self-exposing blog) you are going to feel vulnerable. I'm not saying this makes sense for everyone, but the people who are drawn to this project are looking for that kind of experience. I created this project because I need this kind of experience.

Another yogic concept is the idea of practice. The more practice we have feeling vulnerable, the easier it gets until, who knows, we may get better at being present and compassionate. This will aid us individually and globally.

Working on a New Artist Statement: Site Needs Updates (I'll Get Me One of Them Round-to-its)

I'm going to get around to writing a new artist statement (again) one of these days. And I also plan to post photos, art and writing from the last two events. Not to mention make some kind of video. And create a proposal for HBP to be a reality TV show (albeit a reality TV show totally turning tail on titillation and tittering... sometimes alliteration just happens).

In terms of a new artist statement, I'm starting to realize it has to be more of a mission statement. So here's a start.

As a mother, artist and teacher I feel it is my mission to use my understanding of and struggles with vulnerability to help move people's consciousness forward. We are bombarded with information about the problems of the world. To some, the problems seem insurmountable. To others, they seem far away and not applicable to our lives. Many people, like me, find the knowledge of such global atrocities as misogyny, poverty and violence a painful burden. What do we do?

I know what we need to do. I get that not everybody needs or is able to do it, but I believe many of us are. And if enough of us use my prescription, we will change the world. We need to experience vulnerability. Of course, we all experience vulnerability daily; we need to experience it in an expanded way.

My way, for those of you unfamiliar with the Human Body Project, includes using my own naked human body for the purposes of standing in for all of our vulnerable physical bodies. There are certainly other ways to facilitate an experience of vulnerability, but I've chosen to use my naked body because our bodies are the physical us: they are fragile, they are mortal, they are universal. Everything, in terms of this world, starts and ends here. And when I mention this world, I mean the earth. No matter what your religious or spiritual beliefs, you have a physical life on earth. And then you will die. And we all are in the same boat.

Because of our fear of facing death and all those concepts associated with death like aging, imperfection, loss of control, etc., we do not live properly. We are programmed to go elsewhere when we are faced with vulnerability. And we don't have to go far. Along with too much information, we have too much distraction. Stuff to eat, watch, play, drink, buy, etc. is on constant offer, not to mention that we are surrounded by messed up messages and more and more distant/virtual ways of communicating.

We do not deal. We do not grow up. And we do not properly take care of ourselves, or others or the earth. We do not know how.

I don't know how either. But what I do know is that enough of us need to get together and viscerally experience vulnerability and learn to be with vulnerability instead of avoiding it, or nothing will change. I am advocating paradigmatic shift here. I am advocating a completely new way of living in the world. I believe it is urgent and necessary and a precursor for our children's health and lives.
(to be continued)