Week 6: Teaching Artist Union and School of the Future

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Scott: Can you still prop that up because hopefully…

Speaker 2: No you can’t even hear you.

Scott: Really? Okay. Alright well we’re going to try holding this mic today, let us know if the audio gets completely out of control.

 So who’s on the call right now? Are Adam and the class in Tennessee on the call?

Adam: Yes we are can you hear me?

Scott: Yeah we can hear you guys. Hello everybody in Tennessee.

Stephen: Hello…

Chris: Hello…

Scott: Hey Stephen and hi Chris and Cassie, it’s really great having you guys here.

Chris: We’re also here with Angelina in New York, she’s our intern.

Scott: Okay great and we’re here with a very small, but dedicated crowd who came out even under predictions of snow. Do you guys want to say hello…

Female Speaker: All Department of Education facilities have been closed for tomorrow because they told us that there’s going to be 18” of snow.

Scott: Nice and if I hadn’t hurt my foot last weekend I would be out sledding with you guys but instead you can just feel bad for me.

 Anyway, welcome Chris and Cassie and everyone else who made it to the chat. This week we’re going to be talking about the Teaching Artist’s union and School of the Future; two projects that really should be seen as distinct but are intertwined in a way. Ultimately I’m not the best person to describe how they’re intertwined; it would be great to hear from you guys. Would you mind giving a brief introduction just to those two projects and then maybe we can talk about how they connect and how they can be seen as examples of fledgling art worlds and we can just chime in whenever. Does that sound okay? Why is that Greg?

Greg: I don’t know that’s a great question.

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Scott: There we go, let’s just try one more time. By the way do you want to open the chat on the projection?

Greg: Hello? Alright hi everybody, sorry for that. We’re still working out the glitches. This is Greg I’m going to turn it over to Scott here just to give a brief intro and we’ll get started.

Scott: Oh wow. Hey Chris and Cassie. Yeah so actually you won’t believe the amazing introduction I gave to you guys and I realize that the internet had already cut out.

Cassie: I felt it.

Scott: Did you? I thought so. I actually didn’t really introduce you much except to say that the Teaching Artist Union and School of the Future are two distinct projects and that our goal tonight isn’t to really disambiguate them but it would be nice to hear about them both in and of themselves. And it would also be interesting to hear about how they’re connected. And at some point during this we’ll definitely want to talk with you guys about how they can be seen as fledgling art worlds in some way or at least can be helpful as examples in this series too for other people. First of all would you guys mind just giving a brief introduction to Teaching Artist Union and School of the Future?

Cassie: Yeah we felt that it would make sense to talk about first the Teaching Artist Union and then the School of the Future because the School of the Future is a project of the Teaching Artist Union so a lot of what has come up in the Teaching Artist Union we’re trying to address by bringing the project of School of the Future. So another piece of it is that—so Chris also is the Institute of Applied Aesthetics and he has taken on the role as sort of my other half in the School of the Future but he’s part of the Teaching Artist Union. So that’s why I feel like whenever we come into a room there are so many [inaudible] [0:09:53] I just wanted to clear that up. But yeah I’m really curious actually to ask other people some questions about Teaching Artist and to discuss what the Teaching Artist Union was and what it’s become and where it’s going to start.

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Cassie: So I was curious if other people are really clear about the word Teaching Artist? I feel like in New York Teaching Artist is—there is sort of a whole world of teaching artists that supplement the whole education system and our part of museums and it’s kind of—I mean it’s pretty broad because I feel like many of us also work as adjuncts and we’re a fairly unnetworked group of people and the job itself is pretty informal. But it has a sort of a special type of meaning to us here and I’m wondering if that definition—if there is a definition in other cities that relates. I think there is one in Chicago but I don’t know about other places.

Male Speaker: I’m getting a sort of vibe that Teaching Artists Union is support for maybe—like a group of artists that support teachers in a sense and help them with whatever they need as well as universities and such.

Cassie: Yeah but I feel like there’s a special meaning to the word “teaching artist” in New York City. We have a pretty important position in the entire school system but also we are in all sorts of different sites including museums and definitely some colleges and stuff too. But anyway yeah the Teaching Artists Union is sort of this place for these people to meet and figure out what it means for us to have a union. Basically we encounter a lot of issues of being freelancers but we also have special pieces in common which are having a social practice automatically and being a part of a lot of larger institutions. I see someone saying ‘Is this a New York City thing?’ Oh this is interesting, ‘I’ve only seen the word used in New York.’ So there’s a national organization called The Association of Teaching Artists and that’s actually a national—it’s a website to support teaching artists everyone. But anyway so I guess it is sort of—I’m seeing that it’s a New York centered thing.

[0:15:00]

Cassie: But we’ve been meeting for about a year, we are a group of probably 50 people that know each other pretty well. Our meetings are about 20 people at a time in my studio and we have scribble shares every month, we have a monthly supportive meeting called Infinite Support and it’s really just they’re talking and learning about teaching and a big piece of it is we consider teaching a part of our practice, our creative practice. Just showing each other our work and talking about ways to deal with a lot of the problems we encounter as parts of institutions.

Chris: How many people are in Teaching Artist Union?

Cassie: I think it’s about—depends on how we’re talking, maybe 200 people but we know 50 well and it’s a super local community, we know each other’s faces and that’s really important to me.

Chris: When did you guys start?

Cassie: About a year ago.

Chris: What are the main goals of Teaching Artists right now?

Cassie: The main goals are to define ourselves as an intentional community who knows each other and who can sort of refine our practices as artists and educators and also to define the role of teaching artists as an important part of the education process and something that should be planned into education from the beginning.

Chris: Are most people that are teaching artists that come to the union meetings are they also among art practice?

Cassie: Often but I feel like we’ve all sort of gravitated more and more toward art teaching practices for artisan practices.

Chris: So I sent Scott a Teaching Artists Union membership cards so that you guys might see that at Base Camp on the tables, you can also find it on the website.

Scott: We totally have a whole stack here.

Chris: Amazing.

Cassie: Scott do you have your super big one?

Scott: Oh I do, let me hobble back with my cane to the back room and get it and I’ll be right back.

Greg: Yeah I printed up a bunch, we’ve even got them on different colors; goldenrod, cherry, yellow and white, so if you see any that appear to be forgeries they are just Base Camp originals.

Cassie: Yeah so the Teaching Artists Union card offers free admission wherever teacher or student discounts are given and that’s available in the Artworld newspaper too. The Teaching Artists Union is super local, it’s a group of people that know each other really well, we’re all working on the same type of work and it’s a great community of people. It’s one of the best.

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Cassie: I think the interesting questions come when we start to talk about more like unionizing and what that means to us. So we can talk about that or…

George: Are you unionizing as teachers or I mean obviously this is a teacher’s union, but this is a different segment of maybe like an artist as a role of a teacher, as a role of maybe as a citizen of the community and also as a future role in everybody’s digital perspective?

Cassie: Totally. I think a good example of part of the different between a teaching artist and a person that would be invited to the teacher’s union is that we’re just invited to come for sort of like—usually in a project based way so we’re there for like three to six months and we’re not planned in from the beginning. It’s like when they have a little bit of overhead grant money at the end of the school year often it’s like ‘oh well maybe we should invite some artists in.’ So it’s a lot about we’re not planned in from the beginning so then we’re also not supported, we don’t have health insurance offered to us or even just a sense of belonging in institutions because we’re definitely invited as a supplement to what’s already there. So the idea of unionizing it’s unionizing as a super specialized group of people who are—yeah I guess just put in these situations. Often the work is—I compare it to being sort of like missionary work because you’re sent usually alone to a school, you’re the only artist in this institution and you’re kind of expected to deliver their art department. It’s pretty rigorous work and you’re never compensated for your preparation time, or very rarely, and you’re basically paid the same way somebody is paid as if they just show up with ping-pong to play with kids. So it’s pretty—I feel like it’s really important to get together as union and to show how valuable our work is and how important it is to have arts in schools with real artists. The union part is really interesting because I still don’t really know what that will be, like what our answer to that is. I really decided at one point that we could become a project based union where we can have gripes but we can respond by creating projects that relate to those as a group. So that’s where the School of the Future comes in.

George: And it works both ways too because I think the schools benefit from this entity, if I may call it, and to have it support these schools that they may have resources and different things; it could be the lesson plan and such things the union might have together. It could be many facts that the teachers always struggle with sometimes in class.

Greg: Can I interrupt just a minute. This is Greg at Base Camp, can we have when people are asking questions or discussing just remind everybody who you are, just occasionally, not every single time but that way people know who everyone is, sometimes it can get a little confusing. So who just asked the question, sorry?

George: George Johnson.

Greg: Great thanks George and when…

George: I’m a teacher and I’m really enjoying this conversation.

Greg: No that’s great, thanks George for the questions, they’ve been great. When we’re not talking we ask that people mute their microphones to keep the audio quality relatively decent. So continue, sorry you can answer that question if you remember it or maybe George can…

Cassie: Sorry George, what was your question?   

George: I just completely agree to the fact of unionizing because it benefits the school and I’m adding to the fact that it’s such a great possibility that the School of the Future, that the Teaching Artists Union is going to employ so much of their resources as a group to work with the schools. I think the big question now is how is it going to be possible; through the National Teaching Association?

Cassie: How is what possible, the School of the Future or getting involved with the education system?

George: Just getting more involved, making it more of a global…

Cassie: At this point my priority is definitely dealing with the New York City Department of Education. I’m really interested in other Teaching Artists Unions sprouting up, I love watching how the public school moves like a virus and I think that can happen with Teaching Artists too but I just don’t know if there is—I honestly have no idea if there’s enough of a community of teaching artists in every other city to do that. I guess right now the dream would be that we can sort of through the value of Teaching Artists and through the School of the Future kind of create a model or something that we could potentially present to the DOE and at least begin a conversation about arts in education. I think one of the main goals of the School of the Future is through that process creating a few different publications that we can distribute to different people for different reasons. One of them would be sort of something to offer organizations so they can understand the position of the teaching artist better.

[0:30:00]

Cassie: Another publication would be for teaching artists in New York to have as sort of a manual of handouts that can help them connect with what they need to connect with to get through the job and to access the resources that they need. Then another one could potentially be to offer some advice to the Department of Education for ways that we feel like we have seen or proven that work with using art to solve problems in schools.

George: It’s very concrete. I mean it’s all possible but with as many members as you have there has to be a way to work it into the system as—you know one of the requirements to get unionized—I think I’m talking too much, I’m sorry.

Cassie: No it’s great. I hate talking to nobody; it’s really difficult to talk when nobody else is talking.

Chris: It’s like a question of [inaudible] [0:31:37] and the different between Teaching Artists Union and a Workers Union. You can talk about that a little bit.

Cassie: I definitely had my share of conversations with people who are really turned off by the idea of union because they think of factory workers rallying for healthcare. We’re not in a bad position, we have really awesome work, and we’re doing exactly what we want to do. We’re all super idealistic and I feel like we’ve found a way into the system and don’t want to become such a formal—we don’t want our careers so formalized that we have to be angry workers. I think it’s about identifying what about unionizing can work for us and what our real goals are and how to actually achieve them which I really don’t think has that much to do with participating in the systems that have already been set up or unionizing. So I think [inaudible] [0:33:23] important I don’t think that many of us really believe in the healthcare system so I don’t really know if I’m that interested in being part of a union where that goal remains. I could go on and on, there are so many tropes to unionizing that have been really important but I feel like we’ve only learned that we definitely need something different. Also as artists we have the ability to [inaudible] [0:34:02].

Chris: Kind of as a non-classic definition of a teaching artist on the science indicator by training and to see the emergence of this amazing community over the past couple of years happening has been really amazing and just inspiring to see people coming together that are artists that are also teachers and everything go smooth.

[0:34:58]

Chris: For them to have a way to exchange with each other, have a way to build a network that’s cohesive and meaningful in New York City where there are so many fractured communities, I think that’s a really great thing. That’s a deviation from the [inaudible] [0:35:12] of the union and I think that’s what makes it so beautiful and powerful.

Cassie: I see a really good question, ‘is there a difference between teaching artists and artists who teach?’ I think I’m really open, the union is really open to involving—yeah or art teacher, right—to involving people who are interested in education and art and who practice one or both and have something to offer based on that. Also really interested in the people that come to the union as just artists with social practices because they feel like they have something to gain from performance—they think their practice of performance or communication is related to teaching. But I think the definition itself of teaching artists from the Association of Teaching Artists or something would say that a teaching artist is an artist who teaches. I would say that my emphasis in teachers who teach as a part of their creative practice which I think repels some people.

Chris: Can you give us an example of a cool project you’ve done recently or what you’re doing right now with the School is Bushwick?

Cassie: Yeah I feel like my job is amazing and I don’t know if other—like I keep saying I don’t know if other people in other cities have opportunities like this, but for example I got hired to work with science teachers to produce a project for Brooklyn schools to reproduce where basically I’m creating art projects that will complement the science curriculum. It’s been pretty amazing to just get to work—I’m working as a professional developer now so I’m working both with students and with their teachers to try to figure out alternative ways to teach what they’re learning so I feel like it’s kind of the most amazing way to get into the system and have a voice and have an audience that spans outside of the people I know or the people I know who they know or their cousins or their two friends. Like dealing with all 200 second graders in one school I feel like I have access to so many parents and so many families. So for instance I taught 120 kids today about how to grow mushrooms in their house and they’re growing them inside of this huge mountain on wheels and that’s their big project this year. We’re talking about habitat and what makes them comfortable and how to use what you have and I work on making stuff that’s sustainable, it lasts for the school. I don’t know, I just feel like it’s a really, really amazing job, its amazing work. Unfortunately a lot of people really aren’t compensated or treated that well for their work but I think, not to play into the under valuing of art, but I really understand—I feel like I’m doing work that I do for free so I just happen to get paid for it.

[0:40:00]

Cassie: So Teaching Artists Union is really cool because we just spend a lot of time hanging out and talking about what’s going on in these very specific situations that we end up being in.

Chris: Do you think this is a good time to talk about School of the Future a little bit, unless people have questions?

Scott: Do you guys have any questions here?

Gerard: I was curious based on what you were talking about a second ago, what do you think artists bring to teaching that other teachers don’t? My names Gerard, I’m here in Philadelphia.

Cassie: Yeah I feel like I bring a lot of awkward silence…I ask questions that maybe don’t have answers. In New York City I witness what you see on the news about teaching to the tests and we’re just an assessment-based education system and everything boils down to…

Scott: Hmm I don’t know, on our end it looks okay. I think their connection got lost. Hey everyone I think we lost connection with Chris and Cassie but it looks like a bunch of other people are still on the line. We’ll go ahead and add them back to the same thing.

 Hey guys

Cassie: Hey now.

Scott: Yeah we lost you for a second there.

Cassie: That’s what I just said.

Greg: Its okay, we’re all blushing.

Cassie: Good.

Greg: And you should know there are many faces here at Base Camp despite the potential blizzard.

Scott: Oh I think we lost Tennessee too; I’ll go ahead and add them back. Oh wait we lost Chris again. Our connection seems just fine.

Greg: Other folks can hear us okay? You don’t have to necessarily talk you can just text that you can hear us.

Scott: You could just raise your hand and nod.

Greg: Hello?

Scott: Yeah can hear, just not the ones that got dropped that’s all.

Greg: You know what I think I’m dropped because I’m not getting any…

[0:45:00]

Scott: Okay we’re going to hang up on everyone and recall.

Greg: I think we’re having troubles.

Scott: I think so too.

Greg: I think Matthew is there, hi Slats. We’re having some internet issues.

Cassie: Alright.

Greg: Are we back in business?

Scott: Alright so…

Greg: I guess we’re sort of in transition anyways so it wasn’t a terrible loss. I don’t know where you guys were, if you were opening the floor to discussion or questions or if we were transferring over to School of the Future?

Chris: Did the person that had the question get it answered? In Philadelphia?

Scott: Oh yeah, hey Gerard?

Gerard: Yeah?

Scott: Did you get an answer before we ran into a technical…

Gerard: If there are more thoughts on that I’d be really curious. Not only from our guests but from others who are typing and stuff. This is a question that I think haunts what I do. But typically parent artists to do what we do which is often far exceeding making art.

Scott: So basically you’re asking about artists’ competencies and how they can be translated into…

Gerard: Exactly, what do artists know, what are compencies about teaching?

Chris: Can you just repeat that for us?

Cassie: Yeah can we have a translation.

Gerard: Again the question was really about what it is that artists bring to teaching which is different from those other teachers in the sciences or the humanities who may have—many of us are practicing studio artists, the best we did was get an MFA which doesn’t have a teaching component at all. What is it that we as artists bring to teaching that’s unique and valuable, what kind of contributions do we make to learning?

Cassie: I think there are really practical answers and then there are more metaphysical ones. I think the practical answers are we don’t have to [inaudible] [0:49:22] standards as those teachers do so that we can explore the way that we approach subjects. I feel like we bring the ability to not have answers in school which I feel like doesn’t really happen in schools—what I was talking about before was that we teach to tests, the whole Board of Education is so wrapped up in assessment that I think they miss the part about learning.

[0:50:08]

Cassie: Where just most kids are—they’re memorizing and then regurgitating. I think in art we’re just asking questions and we’re asking big enough questions that there is not just one answer, giving kids the opportunity to just wonder and to explore. I also think we’re teaching them a process that is maybe a little bit mysterious at times but giving them the skills to follow a process through to complete something because they believe in it and because they need to complete it because we ask them to. It’s really like problem solving to get stuff done in a way that otherwise I feel like they only know how to shuffle information around, like we’re raising middle-men.

Chris: I think that’s good. The teaching artist is I think the glue of the school, it provides this access point for exploration, for creative problem-solving, for addressing questions that do not get asked. Things that overlap; science overlapping social studies, overlapping with real-world sort of stuff and the teaching artist is like the piper, they take the kids outside to explore and they ask questions about how the world works and you guys find answers.

Cassie: We go on and on, I mean schools are so set on overlapping subjects that there is no interdisciplinary…so that overlapping…is allowed to overlap subjects it kind of wreak havoc on that whole system automatically and I think it creates a lot of opportunities for questions. Also the school [inaudible – bad audio] [0:52:51] at times and we’re brining not only ourselves but our knowledge of other communities and other people and their ways of doing things that communities and cities [inaudible] [0:53:13] basically there’s not a lot of awareness of what’s going on…I think the little bit of freshness that we bring.

Chris: Yeah. I think it’s about school [inaudible] [0:53:32] about Teaching Artists Union…

Scott: Hey Chris and Cassie; can you hear us okay?

Cassie: Yeah

Scott: Diana here has a question.

Diana: Well I guess this kind of goes back to what you were talking about before, but it struck me that artists are researches inherently and that they provide new avenues and new ways of looking at the world that are not just about reading or writing but more about all five senses and maybe other senses. So I don’t know if that’s a question necessarily but…

Chris: No I think that’s really true.

Female Speaker: I was thinking of something along the same lines.

Chris: I think an artist in school helps visualize that and provide opportunities for the school to interface with that community for a teacher if everything comes from visual or [inaudible] [0:54:55] hypothesis.

[0:55:00]

Chris: So yeah seem to be challenging like the prism, the light shining through.

Female Speaker: I was thinking along the same thing of what Diana here was saying, there are a lot of people that if they get in there and they just hear a bunch of words about history or something they won’t understand it. But if they get somebody to show them and actually get them involved in seeing things and drawing pictures of stuff that’ll activate parts of their brain which will get them through things that wouldn’t get in there otherwise. There are some people that just learn better that way.

Cassie: Experiential learning. The history of School of the Future is that last year the Parks Department gave me a park that has been much overused in my neighborhood in Bushwick in Brooklyn. They gave it to me because I proposed doing some sort of summer education from there and the Parks Department does not have an education program in northern Brooklyn so they were very happy when I suggested it. They didn’t give me very much time so I pushed it back a summer when we could do it full on. So basically what we have is a park and a big group of teaching artists and now we have a building—a portable building we built there that will be there to—or the students at the Columbia Architecture built for us. So that’s what we have so far. And what the basic premise of the school is that it’s a school where the teaching artist who’s usually not based anywhere will belong and their process—the process of the school is an extension, an exhibition of their process and how to [inaudible] [0:58:30]. And the site where the school will be is in a super industrial neighborhood, next to a highway and a Staples mega-store and we’re going to be there addressing the site, addressing the people that we have to work around and doing that through what we’re calling the method of teaching artist. Now we’re pretty heavy into kind of think we went through phase 1 and now I think we got those people on board and a lot of people that have out reached right now. Another thing is we really want to research schools [inaudible] [0:59:50] through the school so we’re going to have a team of teachers led by Chris who are going to be documenting, studying what’s going on at the school and making that [inaudible] [1:00:09] researchers there from the outside just watching and participating because we really want to create some documentation that can be reusable or at least that can be useful in some way.

[1:00:28]

Chris: Yeah I’m going to be serving as head librarian for the School of the Future and I think it’s got this really great opportunity to display the idea or to display working hypothesis in a way that school can be outside of a brick building, it can be transparent, it can be outside and that art can be the mitigating factor for their gain. Kind of responding to a very situated specific site.

Cassie: Right and education does not mean a brick building.

Chris: Right, right.

Cassie: I really like this question, “In what way is this a school of the future rather than a school of the past?” I think it’s a school of the future because it’s the idea of using art as a vehicle to learn [inaudible] [1:01:56] and that our goal would be to actually create [inaudible] [1:02:07].

Male Speaker: I started to write a manifesto for my school of the future. I want to read some of it to everybody. I’ think the really cool thing is that there can be many people; education, school or teacher, with interest in a project, they all come together, a good community effort. At my school of the future is not inside, but sometimes both at the same time. My school of the future I’m the teacher and the student and we are teachers together. At my school of the future I [inaudible] [1:03:04] with my teams. At my school of the future I know all who are copied in our community. At the school of the future creating practices celebrated and explored. At my school of the future everyone fails, everyone explores and everyone asks the questions they always wanted to ask. At my school of the future my desk is my body, my pencil is my mind. This school of the future, your school of the future can happen anywhere, anytime people come together and learning can happen. This is just a start of some ideas I was putting down.

Cassie: I think we’re also really interested in the history of education and the history of art education and the history of artists and being a site that acknowledges those histories as well as a way to unite all of the artist-run [inaudible] [1:04:19] that are popping up everyone in the city, which there are many.

Chris: I think we’re really excited about the idea of how do we [inaudible] [1:04:36] the School of the Future will hopefully be a way to introduce that idea.

Cassie: I think I’m going to just get this huge block that it’ll give me the art world, the education world and then even a very specific art education world which has its own [inaudible] [1:05:10] that we’re sort of just getting involved with right now.

[1:05:15]

Cassie: [Inaudible] [1:05:15] between those worlds and even if it’s in a small way if we can start to absorb pieces of the conversation from all of those different sides we can come up with some things [inaudible] [1:05:41].

Chris: Yeah

Cassie: I think having relationships with [inaudible] [1:06:07]. I think that teaching for a few years is probably the reason why I still do art and I have an art practice that goes in and out of [inaudible] [1:06:28]

Chris: I think that the flipping [inaudible] [1:06:58] that school is like this kind of binding factor for everybody, everybody has an experience with school and I think it’s a really interesting platform in which to kind of jump off of but also come back. So recently we were giving this presentation at our friend’s project in lower Manhattan and we were kind of like reflecting on our own personal histories of education in school as a way to kind of fill up School of the Future because they were really responding to own experiences of learning and education and what it has been and what could be, what it needs to be.

Cassie: Yeah I feel like school is pretty heavy and everybody has a lot going on with that. There is so much to explore, it’s just a formative time and some that we all share. So I think for some reason there has not been a lot of art that just asks people to talk about it until recently. I think it’s a great conversation to have at the School of the Future.

Diana: This is Diana here in Philadelphia. I was wondering you mentioned divides between different—between the art world, education and art education, teaching artists. It sort of sounds like teaching artists do what progressive educators already do. I’m thinking about this group of publishers called Rethinking Schools and they do some incredible work already in all sorts of fields. So maybe there isn’t such a divide. Can you talk about maybe the ways that there are overlaps in these fields already?

Cassie: There definitely are overlaps of course I just don’t think there’s enough.

Chris: It’s a question of access.

Cassie: Yeah. I mean those overlaps aren’t happening in schools that I’m in.

[1:10:00]

Cassie: I’ve been in so many Department of Education meetings where there is no time or money left for art at all so…

Chris: Yeah I think at the end of the day every student in the United States is required to take a math and a reading exam at the 4th Grade, 8th Grade and High School level. That’s what every school that gets funding from a state or federal entity is worried about and I really think that eats away at opportunities for creative play instead of a lot of disciplines in school. I mean Waldorf Education is amazing, Montessori education is amazing and private schools are great but there is very much a lack I think of those kinds of pedagogies in public schools across the board in the United States. I was just going to bring up School of the Future, it’s an artist run school but it’s opening in July in Bushwick Brooklyn, a section in Brooklyn we are in habit called Hunt for Curriculum right now so if anybody would like to propose a project, any way that they would like to use education or learning or art as a way to interact with the community we are open to many things right now.

Cassie: We’ll be open for 24 hours programming…

Chris: 24/7

Cassie: For that month and the idea also to host a conference or an assembly or congress at the end or somewhat near the end that [inaudible] [1:12:25] for people involved in the education system with the teaching artist and so the conversation to continue and to bounce off of everybody what happened at School of the Future.

Chris: I think really [inaudible] [1:12:58] right now sitting amongst TA members is what is the future of the School of the Future.

Scott: Would this be okay time to ask another question that relates to the future of the School of the Future?

Cassie: Yeah

Michael: Hi this is Michael at Base Camp. I’m curious do you guys—I’d like to hear about sort of what you visualize the School of the Future and the Teaching Artists Union in about 10 to 15 years; 20 years maybe.

Cassie: Well the School of the Future, we’ll see what happens with the first one but I really like the building, the way it’s being constructed is that it can be taken apart into pieces and moved to other sites where it can be rebuilt. Basically what we’re making is pillars that will be able to be repositioned somewhere else and then a new School of the Future can develop from that. I’m not sure, I mean we’re going to work really hard on publishing some stuff that can be used in creating some new models of it but I feel like we have a really, really big process that is the first time that either of us, Chris or I, have [inaudible] [1:14:50] and we don’t know.

[1:15:00]

Cassie: I think that the dream would be to go out of the art world with it, to have some sort of a meeting with some boards of education. But maybe one day there will be a school district in New York that doesn’t have a location, or not a geographical district but it’s actually a school district for artist run schools or a school district for the arts. Somehow there is something, a trace lapped from the process. I really don’t know what it is. Teaching Artists Union I think it’s really important that it remains and continues to grow. I think I’m very wary of how formal the teaching artist position becomes because a lot of what’s so beautiful about it is our freedom and our ability to kind of fall through the cracks of these institutions and have access to all of these people to do all kinds of impractical/practical things that might be regulated. I think the Teaching Artists Union is beautifully underground right now and hopefully it will remain really strong but also kind of stay somewhat under the radar. For me if other Teaching Artists Unions can open around the city I think it’s really important to have a local group of supporters. I think perhaps we could help create at some point a larger network that can pull resources but I can’t really tell I can’t see what’s going to happen yet. This is a really damn good group of people right now. It’s like the moment right now is really good.

Chris: Yeah my dream is really to do some fun research like really things [inaudible] [1:17:52] what kind of learning happens at the School of the Future so that can be published in an academic journal but also can serve as an art keep in itself. Thinking about a deviation between a pre and post survey like ‘how many TAW members did you engage, what kind of things did you learn’ let’s think about a creative way so that we can measure the kinds of learning the Teaching Artists like really involving and bring to the table. That can hopefully progress a conversation about the value of Teaching Artists and art education in general. So I think that can live on indefinitely in many ways; that research and that knowledge that we collect through doing experiments. Was that Michael Bower? Hello Michael!

Michael: Hi.

Scott: That was Greg typing that in.

Greg: Doesn’t it though—it’s like ‘so the School of the Future is the school of today. Join us.’

Chris: There’s actually a really great—well a weird school division in Philadelphia, do you guys know about that?

Greg: No

Chris: It’s run by Microsoft.

Greg: Oh yeah, The Gates Foundation. We all belong to that.

Chris: Are there any questions about School of the Future?

Greg: We do have a question, I’m not sure what it’s about though, hold on.

Hankin: So this is Hankin here at Base Camp in Philly.

[1:20:00]

Hankin: I guess I was just wondering if there was ever and I apologize because I joined late here today so you might have already covered this but I was wondering if there’s a social component to the research that you’ve done or things that you discuss. The reason why…

Chris: You’re asking about social component to research?

Hankin: Yeah let me elaborate. I went to this alternative school from K-8 and there was as large component of it that was focused on the social aspects of the classroom. So there is a lot of focus on communal bonding and group exercises and just the whole structure of it was classes were taught in circles and not at desks. I don’t know I was just kind of wondering if that was a component of what you worked on.

Chris: Well I’m looking to fit in the notion of—this is like an educational term called communities of practice so a community of practice is a group of people who come together kind of like under the—they might be preexisting but somebody is brought into a community practice because they want to learn something. They want access to some sort of expertise so I’m interested in how the community practice is formed. The community practice can be anywhere, it can be a group of teachers out of school, it could be midwives that deliver babies and they talk to each other and share their skills but I think the School of the Future is going to produce a really kind of interesting and unique kind of community practice that will hopefully sustain over time. I think that’s my interest, how can this experiment bolster the teaching artist union, include more people around the community of Bushwick and then stay over time as an autonomous community that’s impactful and helpful to the people that are a part of it. So there’s a number of variables you can measure in terms of retention and formation of communities of practice. I recommend a really cool book by Etienne Wenger and I’ll type it in after I stop talking, but he’s written a lot of books about situated learning and communities of practice so I think those are things that I want to research. And they’re inherently about social dynamics.

Scott: Cool and Stephen had a question. Do you want to go ahead and ask that Stephen? Are you in a place where you can?

Stephen: Can you hear me there?

Scott: Yes

Stephen: Actually I have a bunch of questions but maybe I can kind of make them into one. It seems to me that—I already asked the question of ‘why aren’t you more skeptical about art’ because I feel that there’s a real very strong kind of belief or bias in art and it’s not that I don’t share it but it’s that I think something needs to be really profoundly questioned. So you’ve been ascribing to art this specific status; it could really do something, it could change the world, it has this perception busting capacity that needs to be unleashed on the world but the problem with that is that it kind of gives art this very special status which actually is tantamount to improve much in the world.

[1:25:10]

Stephen: So I’m kind of wondering how you can deal with that because on the other hand you’re also talking about citizenship, you’re talking about equality, so how do you kind of square that equation. Because on one hand you want to make art something which is egalitarian and at the same time you’re holding up art to be something which will never be egalitarian because it has something which has very special privileges and actually it gives artist privileges that other people don’t have in case of just symbolic rights of going to museums at half price and to sort of behave in a way that we’ve grown accustom to see artists behaving which is really quite disgusting and it’s one of the reasons why we want to rethink the whole notion of art worlds where artists wouldn’t behave that way. So have you—it’s kind of a paradox and even maybe a contradiction that I’d like you to address.

Cassie: Sure I guess I’m super skeptical of most art. I think that we’re talking about work that happens with kind of people with the intention of communicating explanations in a specific community that needs a connection to—a new way of connecting with some type of information or skill.

Chris: I think we’ve been talking a lot more about learning and education, the conflict of art which is a very different thing. I don’t think we’ve been talking about art much at all today, it’s been more about education and I think we’re trying to bring to the learning process an artist process and that [inaudible] [1:27:35] I think as necessary or community reform. I think the artist is really [inaudible] [1:27:51] for many different patronages.

Cassie: I guess I have not wanted to identify with artists for most of my life but the times that it’s come in really handy have been when I’ve been outside of art communities. So when I am at a school art kind of does have—the word ‘art’ and idea of art has the ability to melt away a lot of the sort of suffocating rules and bureaucracies. So that is a privilege I’ve been given through art. I think a lot of people use it really well in these contexts that we’re talking about.

Female Speaker: I think art is…

Stephen: It is a problem. It’s a problem to say that someone uses their privilege well, is it not?

Chris: I don’t understand that.

Cassie: I don’t know if it’s a problem.

Stephen: Well people who have privilege tend to say that they use it well. You will find this is almost a universal characteristic of privileged people, they think that they use it well. In so far as they acknowledge the privilege I mean.

[1:30:00]

Stephen: I find this particularly problematic in the case of art because it’s the one thing that seems to go unchallenged in art. Art wants to challenge everybody else’s privilege but not its own.

Cassie: I guess I think it’s a problem with language right now because I actually think that…I think that what’s going on is good. I think there’s a lot of definitively good moments happening and I’m not focusing on the way that I’m describing it because I guess I’m just not really being cautious of my language but I understand what you’re saying. I’m really not sure that I know how to respond to that.

Diana: This is Diana in Philadelphia. I have two comments; maybe one is an answer. I see current art practice, maybe an avant garde practice as being sort of parallel to education and the School of the Future and Teaching Artist Union are kind of examples of that. I mean if you define art as relational aesthetics or about dialogue then you can start to see the parallels between what artists are doing, what you’re doing and education. Then this idea also of privilege; I think can sort of be resolved when we start talking about art that is about social justice and when we bring communities into art it’s about getting at those issues of privilege and the issues of elitism in the art world.

Chris: This is Chris from Philadelphia and I was thinking part of it, from what my perspective, is that when I was younger I went to school for people with learning differences and minimal brain dysfunction. I was thinking maybe it could be possible that if they had one of these kind of schools that it could be with people, instead of having all these labels and everything and then you get to go a special school for this, it could be anybody that could go in there, it could break down barriers in that sort of way. If that will help anybody.

Chris: I think we’re really just trying to play with a lot of different interfaces; art, education, but I think we’re all just kind of all melted together so it’s hard for us to separate all of these vain, classical terminologies that maybe people associate with those words. I think that’s a really cool thing that I think we’re working to right now in terms of a process; what is art, what is education, how do they come together, what are their interceptions and what kind of possibilities do they present for a community in a lot of different context. I think the art for me is about responsibility. If you’re going to be artists I feel like you should know the community that you are [inaudible] [1:34:18], who you are impacting as being an artist and just be cognizant of that. I think we’re trying to do that with the School of the Future in a lot of ways.   

Scott: I think there seems to be—in some of the questions and discussions so far there almost seems to be this kind of binary being set up between a celebratory perspective or a kind of optimistic one and a highly critical one.

[1:35:03]

Scott: I don’t know if that’s necessarily really important to thread out, I think the discussion about that is really important but I think one question that I have kind of relates a bit to the critical side. I know a lot of the work that you do Chris and I understand that a lot of what motivates these projects is highly critical of current problems, both in education and art. You guys have mainly focused on the problems in education, not so much in art. In a sense it sort of seems like, tell me if I’m right about this, but it seems like you see art as almost a loophole within education or at least that’s what you’re describing with these practices. You’re not really so much addressing the problems of art per say, you’re just kind of using some sort of status that you get as artists or that you can use as artists to apply to this potentially even more problematic or even more bureaucratic educational system. Do you think that’s true?

Cassie: Yeah I think it’s definitely become a bit of a vehicle to solve problems and I think that a lot of the paradigm of art pedagogy—pedagogy as art relies on the idea of art as a problem solver. So we’re using it but I think the School of the Future is our art project.

Scott: I think the thing is that isn’t one of the problems that artists as problem solvers is one of the primary ways that this really large talent pool gets instrumentalized by every industry in the world. We’re sort of seen as problem solvers and we take that role and generally our initiatives are self-run and low budget and DIY until the point where they actually take off and then either we cash in or someone else appropriates us. So I guess my question is about how these kinds of projects can on one hand raise critical awareness and sort of instigate more ferocious critiques. On the other hand offer some opportunities, some kind of alternatives that don’t necessarily have to kind of drag through the mud of every—critiquing every existing problem, you just kind of side-step a lot of them. I think both of those things are really interesting. What am I ultimately saying? Just that one thing that I’m always conscious of is I guess that potential to be either appropriated or to sort of willingly at some point allow the systems that we’re setting up to just ultimately not be that different from the existing ones. Or have a disillusion yeah. That’s not in the form of a question, but…

Greg: It’s alright, it’s not Jeopardy.

[1:40:02]

Scott: Right it’s not Jeopardy, but I guess I wanted to form it like a question because I was curious what you guys thought about that. Especially seeing how these two projects are both based in New York, both cultural tsunami—this giant cultural vacuum cleaner. I don’t know, this major center with so much gravitational pull and so many creative minds that are there and so many incentives for all of the intangible creative capital that you’re building. Do you know what I mean? I feel like there is a lot of not necessarily danger because—well anyway I feel like there’s a lot of danger to allow critical projects that you set up to either be appropriated or to basically in many ways resemble the things that you’re trying to side-step or overcome in the first place. I was wondering how you guys approach that danger.

Cassie: I think it’s just the mentality that is there is no danger; it’s just those systems that we might be absorbed into. We could also see it the other way and see them as a part of our project that we’re working in the art projects.

Chris: It comes down to also choosing the right people that are sincere in what they’re doing, being cognizant of I think the long term goals we’re all setting for each other, the formation of the community that I think is autonomous. If we can motivate that I think there is a way that it can be the best compilation that can be perceived like you’re saying Scott, that’s maybe not so good.

Cassie: I’m not that really [inaudible] [1:42:51] in the art world itself when it doesn’t reach that side of itself. I mean [inaudible] [1:43:03] solving communities that reach outside of the [inaudible] [1:43:22] art world.

Chris: I think New York City really needs a response right now [inaudible] [1:43:31] and it’s hard I think to break free of that. I think we’re trying to provide places where the communities form and start that are the difference in their current intention. I think that’s what it comes down to, is what is intention of the community or the individual? I think our intentions are pretty sincere and [inaudible] [1:44:08]. I trust that.

Scott: Totally. I have another question I just don’t want to keep jumping on if anybody else has other things they want to…

Chris: [Inaudible] [1:44:36]

Scott: Absolutely. Speaking of the wider community, how do you see School of the Future’s potential to engage with other existing pedagogical projects by other artists?

[1:45:10]

Scott: Can you hear me at all by the way? Sorry can you guys hear me? I think we lost them coincidentally. We’ll add Chris and Cassie again hold on a second. Hey guys. Hey we just wanted to pummel you with some more questions right as the Kung Fu is starting above our heads.

Greg: That’s not actually a joke, it’s true.

Scott: Yeah it’s totally true. But yeah, I was curious, speaking of the wider community, how you see School of the Future’s potential to engage with other existing critical pedagogy projects by other artists and groups. I know that you guys do, at least…

Chris: [inaudible] [1:47:02]

Cassie: We’re also sort of a social community. We’re kind of up to our knees in artist run schools that are happening around us so I feel like a lot of the other teachers, practitioners of participating are already engaged in their own full projects.

Chris: Yeah Cassie made this awesome school flag for other Teaching Artist schools; it’s on the Flicker account.

Scott: Okay yeah, we’ll look for that. Definitely, I know you are, I was just kind of curious if—I think it’s something interesting to discuss and thought it might be good to chat about with you guys. But I also saw your note that you guys are pretty much ready to wrap up soon so we definitely don’t want to keep you on for too long. Michael has a question.

Michael: I’m curious about strategies to bring together all these artist run pedagogical experiments or whether you guys are doing different types of outreach or anything to connect with those groups.

Chris: Michael was asking [inaudible] [1:49:09].

Cassie: The weird part is we know—those are our friends. I feel like there’s a pretty tight group of people here that are all doing projects.

Chris: Yeah we’re going to hopefully think about invitation and having some sort of like maybe big events.

[1:50:00]

Chris: I think it’s just really a question of how much [inaudible] [1:50:05] but I think we’re going to try and of course that’s something that I don’t mind, [inaudible] [1:50:20]. So if people want to add to that I think there’s a lot of [inaudible] [1:50:36] in Portland that’s coming up, there’s going to be some cool people there. We would love to have something at the School of the Future.

Male Speaker: I’m thinking about a lot of activity happening in Los Angeles too like the public school, the mountain school, ASAP. There are all these sort of really interesting experiments where I feel like they’re all sort of like, I don’t know some of them seem to be claiming their own territory but I think it would be wonderful if there is some way to sort of bring some of this activity together.

Joe: This is Joe from Philadelphia and I was just interested in this kind of bringing schools together there’s an artist, Mel Chin, who is working on this project right now that’s fundred.org with this connection with all of these schools that he’s connected with. There are many in Philadelphia, he’s coming here in the middle of April for this big pick-up of all of these fundred dollar bills. It’s like this link of trying to get the schools and education as a base to make a change or make a difference and it’s by rising—how can we raise 300 million dollars to erase the lead problem in New Orleans. It’s like is that possible, well maybe? So you can link to there and you can see all of the schools that he’s connected with and it’s also a really good model of how to get these schools involved. It’s like he’s reaching out to these teachers with the Teachers Union and saying this can happen by developing practices in a way that’s really contemporary, he’s not going to try to make any money off of this project but trying to solve a problem. Will it work? Maybe not, but maybe there’s an opportunity for people to learn in that way.

Scott: Well guys I’m really interested to see how this is going to shape up in New York. I’m wondering if there are any interests in the School of the Future, this particular project. I didn’t really quite get a good sense of how you guys were interested in working with other existing projects beyond the fact that you’re aware and you’re friends with them. I totally understand that, I don’t think it’s a really easy question to answer to be honest.

[1:54:48]

Scott: Also I don’t know that it’s necessarily assumed that you should be working with everybody just because—I was just asking because for one thing I only know you’ve for much a shorter time Cassie, but Chris I know a lot of your work you do work with existing projects and I know that we’re working on something that’s pretty massive that connects with a lot of people as well, that we’ll be talking about next month or so. But I was just curious if this particular project, if there was any real interest to overlap with other existing creative pedagogy projects. Because of their proliferation there is a kind of ground swell of this type of work, I think a lot of people are wondering is it something that will mostly benefit the people involved for the short time that it has that perceived momentum behind it or can we actually seize some of these moments and push past some of the barriers that we actually have in existing art worlds. Because Cassie I know that you guys aren’t really all that interested in working through—like specifically getting stuck in some of the problems of some of the most dominant art worlds but then again when all is said and done as soon certain moments and momentum are over and that does happen, we’re sort of left with whatever structures people put in place. I think that’s what really interests me about what you guys are doing, what a lot of other people are doing is not only are you building an art project that you can put on your resume and not only are you interested in doing some good in the world or something like that too, which is awesome, but you’re also setting up systems that other people can use and you’re co developing certain structures and systems that other people have helped to set up as well. In doing that I think you’re kind of getting beyond some of the competition that you were talking about initially that usually keeps us pretty alienated from one another and usually keeps our ability to use this incredibly massive and almost dangerous potential as a giant group of creative cultural practitioners, it kind of keeps us from doing really awesome things with it. It makes us sort of weak as a giant group and sort of allows us to get used by any interest that’s larger than any one of us, which is a lot. It would be nice, whether we address that more here tonight or whether we follow up with that it would be really awesome to follow up with you guys because I think you guys have a lot to offer and it would be nice if we could actually enter into that conversation together in addition to looking at all of the awesome things that are happening in the moment.

Cassie: Yeah I think it’s really important to show an awareness of all of these other projects and try to—there’s no real need to compete, there are so many issues to deal with, there is so much about everybody super specific location situations they can deal with and all we can do is keeping learning from what they’re already doing and hope to create something interesting enough that they want to contribute.

Chris: Yeah I think it’s something we’ve been aware of from the beginning, before we did the School of the Future. I sent a couple of links to something called the Demonstration District as a project that Cassie and I see as maybe being the future event that station of School of the Future.

[2:00:00]

Chris: And that is again school district of artist run schools. So the idea is to create school district offices around town, who knows but using it to create boards of education that unite all the different projects. So that’s very much already in the works.

Scott: We’re checking out your—the Demonstration District website right now. Thanks so much for taking the time out to join us. I happen to know you guys are involved in a lot of stuff there right now with the trade school and getting things prepared for the design of the School of the Future this Thursday. There is a lot going on so I’m glad that even though you weren’t able to come here in person this week I’m glad that we were still able to connect.

Cassie: Yeah I would love to have a Teaching Artist Union get together in Philly sometime and yeah I’d love to learn what the local situation is there.

Scott: Great. Yeah we could definitely try to connect with people here for sure. I know there are a lot of people that fit that category and I bet a certain percentage of them might be interested to have a conversation about it.

 Alright guys well thanks a lot and we’ll just follow up with all of you guys online and see you next week.

Chris: Alright. Thanks Scott, appreciate it.

Scott: Bye guys.

Greg: Thanks guys, bye.

[2:02:34] End of Audio

Week 6 (PART 2?): Teaching Artist Union and School of the Future
[0:00:00]
Speaker 1: And utilized by others for various profit. Are we unwilling collaborators or uninformed collaborators in the system?

Speaker 2: I think that’s what you were touching on.

Speaker 1: Yes, technique plays into the thesis.

Scott: Absolutely and what you were talking about—well what everyone’s talking about right now is one of the main issues that we take often with artists’ social practice and so called public art. Especially when it leads toward the celebratory often it’s just a very easy and convenient way for local and governments or states to not give funding to social programs that actually need it and just sort of use the amazing low-paid or even unpaid like PR abilities of artists and just kind of say ‘hey aren’t we doing such a great job as a state?’ Or as a city or as whatever it is, ‘isn’t this so amazing’ when in fact ‘no not really.’ It’s just a very incredibly tiny amount of money and resources that are going towards this. It’s like ‘hey these artists are really going to give us a good sell and we actually can even do less.’ So I mean it seems really similar to what you said about schools. It felt like that happens with Social Services and so-called Public Works, I’m sorry…

Speaker 1: This is something George used to rant about, artists raising funds and getting perks. Healthcare issues all the time.

Scott: Yeah. On the other hand I wouldn’t want to completely be just a negative-Nancy about this and all peoples’ attempts to do something in the world are nullified because we’re actually spending our time trying to do something to change our circumstances or the world around us, but on the other hand I feel like artists have a particular responsibility—well…

Speaker 1: Artists I think differ from [inaudible] [0:03:19] that would be interesting, the difference between design thinking and art practice. Where design is inherently totalitarian, its goal is to be gratuitous and art is very often the instrumental, it’s the thing attempted to [inaudible] [0:03:42] and it’s resistant to that. I mean art is inherently resistant to usefulness.

Scott: Well I think you and Stephen should definitely have a conversation about this.

Speaker 2: That’s the real challenge, people are unaware that education is happening, art education where I’m teaching students still demand that there be skills and particle aspect to—something I stress more experimentation, they want ‘how do I make good versus bad so I can make money?’ I think that ties them to the sort of what you’re talking about, sort of creation of the creative skills.

Speaker 3: I think a lot of what Cassie was saying early on about how the education system hasn’t prepared students for varies outcomes based learning, ‘we want to learn how to do X because it’ll be on test.’

[0:05:00]

Speaker 3: Those students who wash up on your shore want to learn how to make this versus that. So I mean…

Speaker 2: The one thing I would’ve liked to have asked, but I think it was just sort of off topic, which was it seems to me that the alternative practice of being a teaching artist as she said, if in direct sort of suspicion of an artist who is a teacher had for instance a college or high school, I don’t necessarily get that sense from a public school, but from some of the sort of alternative educational models, it’s in there. I think what you were saying Scott, setting up the binary which is we are outside the institution and anybody inside the institution is corrupt, perpetuating the process which you paid $40,000 a year for education. But I feel like that’s missing a lot of the stuff working inside the system. I don’t know that sort of not being a negative-Nancy that sometimes you can do more good than necessarily hang your head against it. When you talk about all these things that you catch on, what if there’s a real tie into this? Why don’t you sort of work from the inside, read some of this material, ideas, process?

Female Speaker 1: A lot of this is also cultural, there’s an acquired need figuring out what you already do well. Like teaching to a test, that’s important for students.

Speaker 2: Yeah for some things that is very important.

Female Speaker 1: But you’re almost doing students a disservice if you don’t do that because they’ll probably study it that way. So how do we combine it to a necessity [inaudible] [0:07:57]. So I wonder when we [inaudible] [0:08:07] racially, like working outside of the system, what does that mean, who are these people working outside of the system versus the people who are in the system, how do we insert here?

Female Speaker 2: Me personally, I don’t care if [inaudible] [0:08:33], as long as they learn how to think. I don’t care if they think that everybody at the White House is paid in cream or whatever, as long as they know how to think about the whole situation.

Scott: Well one thing that we keep stressing every single week here just because we sort of started out this year with the example of the public school as the project that Michael had mentioned and a lot of what these forms are on the wall for the few of you guys who haven’t been here during the previous weeks this year yet, part of our goal is to work with the LA branch to start a Philadelphia Public School and I guess that’s already happened in the form of, I don’t know, how many—I’m thinking it’s like approximately 2 dozen class proposals.

[0:10:00]

Scott: There are more than we had initially printed up there for the Philly branch as well. One of the things that could actually be helpful for is actually following up with us and anyone else locally and also potentially people who aren’t local. It’s sort of set up on a city by city basis at this point. I think even though we’re the only people that—I think we’re the only branch that has sent them sort of multi-city classes but still I think it’s probably largely going to happen locally just because of the way it’s set up. Anyway that would be a good way to continue to connect. Some of the things that have—various questions that have come up could become course proposals. I think tonight Michael made at least one proposal I saw, maybe. Anyway, if you guys are interested in that at all it’s easy to do it online but we printed out a bunch of forms to make it a lot easier for everybody to not have to remember where to go and what to do. So if you would like them I’ll give you some of them. We can even talk about them here. I don’t know what you guys think about this but the framework of being able to propose any kind of class for anything and then being able to express interest in a class, any existing class is a kind of like open ended structure that really doesn’t exactly resemble a university in any way or even a more structured free school. It’s actually just kind of—anyway without getting into the reasons behind it, it’s really just sort of drawing from a generic idea of a class to a course to just give some kind of space to different desires that we have and interests. To just give you an example one of the courses that were proposed last week by one of the artists of residence here was how to pick locks. The reason for that is that our lock actually seized up on us, the front door and they actually had to take it apart just to get out which was pretty messed up so we got a new one. We happen to have this lock that’s laying around now that kind of periodically seizes up so Halps thought ‘I’d really like to lock pick’ so he proposed that class and a bunch of people have already signed up for it. He has no idea how to pick locks yet so he’s trying to figure it out. But then some of the courses are much more in depth with a lot of resources and that probably the people that get into them will only get into them because they’re super engaged with that subject and they’ll be much more self-selective.

[0:15:08]

Scott: Anyway I just wanted to let you guys know about that. I may not be describing it the best way.

Speaker 1: I’m going to be trying to get sort of a core group of people together to help facilitate classes. They call it DAN, which is an acronym. What is it called?

Speaker 2: I don’t know, I thought it was Distributed Artist Network but that’s not it.

Scott: I have no idea, actually I think the Philadelphia—basically the city by city committee is just called D-A-N and I don’t think it stands for anything actually.

Speaker 1: Yeah it’s just made up; it’s essentially a core group of people that are helping to make these classes happen. So next coming month or so we’re going to be trying to develop a group who would be interested in helping to facilitate some activity here.

Scott: Yeah so if any of you guys are interested let us know.

 Oh that’s you Joe. Hey we had an email exchange briefly.

Joe: Yeah it would be great to get together and just sit down and talk about…

Scott: Oh cool.

Joe: Things like that.

Scott: Absolutely yeah

Joe: Just this kind of idea

[0:17:34] End of Audio