|
Shannon
Harvey's interview of Stephanie Johnson continued:
|
|
SH:
What did you observe during the Seaside High School Art Day?
 SJ:
Well the first year that we did it, we had a different set up. We had
slide projectors with a series of different images, art images, and we
projected them onto the paper and then the youth from seaside high could
draw what they saw, trace around it, or they could counterpoint it with
something else. And the slides would change every fifteen minutes or so.
And the drawings came out really nice. This time we had students working
individually. They had their own pads and the students from Major Pro
Seminar decided upon topics. Something about their families, the first
one was a self-portrait. And the second one was about how they envisioned
their futures, where they would be five years from now. And these are
all topics decided upon by the VPA Major Pro Seminar students. Some of
who are just out of high school not that long ago themselves. So that's
really interesting to see |
SH:
Could you talk a little about the interaction you observed between your
students and the high school students?
SJ: Sometimes they were a little bit shy, and then I'd have to go and
break them up. They'd be in groups of themselves. There would be three
of four VPA students and I'd pass through and I'd say, if I see you standing
together again you're going to fail this course. You got to move. And
then they'd see me wander around and they'd run. I'm being facetious but
really, I explain to them the function of the course and the function
of the activity is to invite these students and make them feel welcome.
So whatever they have to do to do that. And then there are some people
whose personalities are more social, and they will welcome the students,
spend time with them, so it's interesting. And now that I'm thinking about
it, it does break down a little bit by gender. Some of the female students
that I have in Major Pro Seminar are older, and so they're kind of motherly
and so it's easy for them to do the thing and interact with the high school
students. For some of the men, just in high school a minute ago themselves,
it's harder, because they don't know how to relate to it.
What's interesting too, is that the students from Seaside High School
are fairly diverse. Not completely; I didn't see a lot of Asian
students but I did see students of European descent, African descent,
Latino, Latina. And so it's fairly diverse so it's an opportunity for
the VPA students to interact with students who are both of a different
culture and a different age. Part of the thing that's been important for
my students to experience and think about is how we invite the students.
The first time we did this a year ago we talked about the ethics of invitation.
That we didn't want to fall into some kind of pattern that had already
been set by the art teacher or school looking upon some of the students
as the bad students and some of the students as good students. That we
let the students self select, and any student that wanted to come was
invited. So we weren't going to get into that. Because the very students
that are the "bad" students may be the ones that can benefit the most
from an art experience. We spent quite a long time talking about that
in the course. |
| SH:
In what ways has this class become involved in the RUAP/ Community Arts
Partnership Program? |
| SJ:
I think it's been a very successful experience so far, I really wanted
the students to have a hands-on experience. I really wanted to do something
that would serve the immediate community. I'm trying to do something similar
in senior capstone, which is to go over to the (Monterey High School)
art academy with some of the senior capstone students and have them conduct
a critique of the students' work. So again we're tying to a community
agency with which we have a reciprocal relationship. |
"...what
I like about our program is that we do things in small steps, we don't
over commit, we don't say we can do something we can't. We go for deep
rather than big. You can get into all kinds of trouble when you want to
make a big show of something, instead of a deep, authentic connection." |
Seaside
is not as official, but we're tied to community agencies, we're bringing
students together, doing art, doing art critique, whatever it is. And
really fulfilling the mission of our program which is to reach out to
those who have been marginalized and disenfranchised, and use art as a
tool of social justice.
Since I know about RUAP, and I know what's going on with it, I try to
weave things together throughout almost all my courses. I see that RUAP
can grow, we just have to get our own independent funds. I think in the
future RUAP is going to be an incredible thing. When I went to the CAPI
(Community Arts Partnership Institute) conference, the people from (Portland)
State University have a whole service learning department with 20,000
students. But what I like about our program is that we do things in small
steps, we don't over commit, we don't say we can do something we can't.
We go for deep rather than big. You can get into all kinds of trouble
when you want to make a big show of something, instead of a deep, authentic
connection. You want to make a big show of it, get a newspaper article,
whatever it is and not really be connecting or not really be providing
service or communicating. And we're not like that, we're small but we're
mighty as a program. And I really appreciate that. |
 |
