The Poets Always Inherit the Future
Things you learn at a barbecue
I recently wrote about the need to reintroduce ourselves to reality. I framed it within the ideas of artistry and what it means to be an artist. What surprised me about saying this directly for people is that I was immediately encouraged to clarify, to suppose a path forward, to make a frame for enabling this artistry. I liked the idea and felt a bit overwhelmed and then a few things happened to remind me of that not knowing is just as good as knowing.
You see, I do have ideas about methods and I’ve seen some excellent ones in play. Ask me about the most eye opening session on teaching math or science to kids and I can not stop talking about this one math learning system. I remember hearing the presentation that displayed a learning environment where the child learning math was taken inside a digital game and then brought back out. When they exited the game, they had workbooks and toys that were the same as characters they had “met” in the game. This sounded really simple and super aware. It sounded like all the mechanisms of culture and pop culture specifically, simply and thoroughly applied to teaching small children math and algebra. You see, what is obvious to all of us is that stories teach.
Fast forward to a barbecue where family and friends gathered and the people at the table are actually educators. In comes one of the younger cousins, who is no more than 13, probably 12 and she mentions how one of her teachers is building a compost pile as part of her science enrichment. She then mentions how another teacher is offering tie-dying classes. I mention how they both sound like fun and the child agrees. The educators at the table mention how different those classes sound. Needless to say, the 12 year old and I felt they were missing the point.
In a world shaped by reductionist philosophy (I think therefore I am), there is a pernicious obsession with deciding what is useful and what is not. It’s a linear visual with little room for curves or spins. Within this reduced and therefore disabled model, there is also a really big and unmentioned focus on valuing arts that are generally thought of as male. Further that conceit with a social system that benefits from separating all people into just a few classes, and what you get is a table full of adults who still pat the would-be textile artist on the head, while giving a solemn nod to the serious future scientist or mathematician. In no way could those two people be one in the same according to the current model of teaching. In no way could they exist in multiple contexts according to some really boring and completely false set of social constraints.
Later that afternoon just before I left, my host showed me a table he had recently restored. He had resurfaced the old formica or whatever it was, had painted the top in three different flecks of blue. He had cut out some fish from a sign and laid them on top and then applied epoxy to the whole thing. The result was sweet, attractive and of course it was crafty — outdoor table. He laughed as he showed me and said, “Hey, look, you’re not the artist, I am!” I laughed too, and said that it was a fine piece of work and that as far as I’m concerned, we can both be artists. We could even choose to collaborate someday. You see, there is no small talk in these situations because when it comes to art within culture there are layers of meaning, judgement of incorrect valuation to address and dispel.
We are all artists.
When people talk about STEM vs. STEAM it sounds to me like they’re saying walk vs. run. STEM is a concept in education that values the knowledge that an advanced society needs to exist. STEAM, with an A for art, is the recognition that stories are what make people care enough not just to learn and apply but to dream and innovate. Both the hard knowledge and the effusive poetics are what shape success in a world where everyone is connected, where the old is repurposed. A world without art has never existed and so if we are talking bare bone essentials for growing a more resilient future, one that responds to the current problems of degradation and waste, then art must be returned to a status where it is as important as oxygen in air.
It used to be that artists were the spiritual people, then for a while they became the engineers and architects. Eventually they became secular pundits, reduced to concepts that nobody in the mainstream even knew existed. Artists went from being essential workers found in every tribe or village into part-time gig workers hoping for their chance to ascend to a very costly and rarefied cosmos. Now there is an opportunity to place the artist inside each profession not because it’s cute but because artistry and poetry are essential to building a world that renews and inspires.
Give a child a book on soil and their eyes will most likely glaze over or dart like those of a prisoner’s seeking a door. Give the same child a compost pile and they might learn about microbial colonies and how it feels to be around the smells and the sounds. They might make jokes and complain but their eyes will track to the tangible. Feed that compost into a garden with the child and they will learn about the purpose and wonder that comes from the flowers and foods. Within all that exposure to sight, to smell to taste they will find their way towards the science and math. Give a child a chance to engage with a body, with a methodology that does not stop at “I think therefore I am,” but that pushes into “I am, therefore I think.” Give a child STEAM and you are giving them a whole systems education.
To take it a step further the other way, give a child a chance to dye a shirt for their compost team. Ask them to talk about colors and choices, mention things like Kelvin and temperature. Give them a chart on color and give them a chart on symmetry. Give them a symbol for the group and ask them to design their very own logo. What is the math of a bee? What is the speed of its wings? You see, talking to them within a certain context is all that it takes. Conversation is art.
To be honest I can’t imagine how we got to the point where our children and we adults are often failing to learn. I know we did it through brute memorization and scare tactics and then we moved into a kind of reactionary malaise that wanted everyone to feel good but didn’t really make the learning seem crucial.
This is a time when education must be entertaining but not purely for entertainment’s sake. The entertainment is part of the presentation and part of the embodiment. Put a child’s hands back in the soil while you talk about the science. Put your own hands in the tub of dye while you talk about symmetry or the properties of light. Talk about material production and resource exploitation and ponder resource management with them. Do this with children at any age, even over the age of 80, and you will be surprised what you find.
I don’t just believe you’re an artist, I know you are because being alive gives you a natural talent for creativity. The strength, depth and refinement of your creativity is up to you. Your level of identification with yourself as an artist is yours to decide. Just do me a favor and don’t laugh at that part of yourself without true appreciation. Our world is in an undeniable crisis situation, one proven to exist through many a data set. If you want to enable the future, don’t waste one more minute on culture that tells you that you are not a creator. Don’t waste one second of a student’s time on dividing them into pieces that don’t exist as a whole and within a whole. Nest yourself and nest every action and every discipline into the most gorgeous complexity. Go on tangents. Get dirty. Get a little lost.
To all you artists out there who teach or who don’t, who build or who maintain or rescue objects, projects, whatever: Give yourself space to be a human, to be a poet, to exist without limiting definitions. Invite in richness. Put a spell on yourself by inviting wholeness. Imagine. Dream. Smell. Taste. Touch. Wander around landscapes, and into activities. As Walt Whitman once said about the Body Electric and what it needs, “loaf” a bit and make that kind of wandering part of your science, discipline, your self. I promise you, everything is already art, the only difference in saying it out loud is that now you make it conscious and that is how we inherit the future. Our world will not be inherited by minds alone.
