"To teach as if the whole world were in the balance."
Elevated,
artistic behavior is the natural human behavior whenever there is a congruence
of mind, body and spirit. It is what artists and creative people and lovers
report all the time. And there is no reason why the exchange between teacher
and student could not achieve similar results. Especially in the arts. Any
education that seeks to elevate behavior, seeks to address in fullness the task
of healing the world, requires an education of the mind, the body, the spirit.
Especially in the arts.
Evidence from the Deep Structure
of Art
The deep
structure of art, a primary urge and satisfaction of the aesthetic
impulse, is to perceive, what Gregory
Batteson termed the pattern that connects. The primary value, talent, and goal
of the artist is to perceive the pattern wherein each contributing entity is
simultaneously distinctive and related to every other entity. That is the work
of art. That is artist’s contribution to society. It is this single trait,
revealing the patterns that connect before others take note of them, that both
endears us to those we flatter, and enrages those whose sins are thus
exposed.
The
pattern that connects is one in which each contributing entity’s
distinctiveness is revealed to be more radiant by the company it keeps. The
most profound of our artists, perceive and portray something in addition; the
sum of the lights cast by any one contributing source reveals more and more
important origins and affinities, than any subordinate. Thus the symphony is
more, different, and more revealing of the mind of its composer and the nature
of nature, than can be accounted for by a list of its notes, or chords, of
melodies, or themes, or movements. The play is more than its words, lines, and
scenes. Thus the dance, the painting, the quilt, the poem. Thus the world. And thus it must follow as the night, the
day; so is the human being, that is; we humans are a surprising alloy of mind,
body, and spirit whose full measure can only be gauged by a reckoning of all our
attributes. And whose potentials will only be realized by nurturing all those
attributes. Thus the charge to our
educational systems of attending to the whole child through the efforts of the
whole teacher.
What
evidence is there for this seemingly radical proposition aside from that which
I offer from my own twenty-five years of its practice? The evidence is ample.
§
It is the method of instruction of
the Bhuto school of dance-theater of Japan.
§
It is the method of instruction of
Gyoto chanting in Tibet and Nepal.
§
The training of mandala painters of
Nepal, Tibet and Navaho of the Americas.
§
The method of instruction of the
traditional martial arts of China and Japan.
§
The method of training didgeridoo
players and dancers of aboriginal Australians.
§
It is the life and manufacture of
traditional Shaker architecture and artifacts, song and dance.
§
It is the traditional way of
instructing totem pole carvers and mask makers of the People of the First
Nations, the Haida and Tinglet of the Pacific Northwest.
§
The training of sun Dancers of the
Plaines Indians.
§
The poetry schools of Sufism.
§
The traditional purposes and methods
of mask making throughout Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
§
The purposes and method of
instruction of the international Waldorf Schools.
§
The training of Olympic level
athletes.
§
The training of atmospheric level
astronauts.
§
The musical training employed by
Yehudi Menhuin, Ravi Shankar, Mickey Harte.
§
The training of Tea Ceremony
Masters.
§
The mind, body and spirit of Yoga,
Tai Chi, Chi Gung, Tai Kwan Do.
§
The method of instruction of the
Kirov Ballet, Alwin Nicolias Dance Co., Mark Morris & Co.
§
The purposes and methods of the
Bread and Puppet Theater.
§
The traditional training of cantors
in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
§
The purposes and method of
instruction for Creation Theology of Mathew Fox in the design of the New Mass.
§
The purposes and methods of the deep
ecology movements such as Culture’s Edge at Black Mountain.
§
The arts training programs at
holistic centers such as Eselan, Naropa, Omega, Interface the Open Center of
New York.
§
On and On.
Holistic approaches to arts education a radical proposal? Perhaps for art education as most art educators have come to practice it, but common fare for practicing artists. Which it might be again. Want to try?
~Peter London
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