hot cognition

I've discovered that around the same time each year, I get to dreaming about Kaleidoscope* workshop leaders. Out of all of our programs, Kaleidoscope seems to be the most challenging, I think, because it is the scariest sounding to someone that hasn't been before. It's especially so if this is a person's first mission trip experience.

special needs children + visual and performing arts + a new environment = "I'm not so sure about that."

[*Kaleidoscope's (KAL) mission is to offer Cumberland Mountain school age children (6-11 years old) with special needs an opportunity to be exposed to a wide range of visual and performing arts. Also, we offer an opportunity for adult volunteers to share their interests and talents in the arts with this special group of children.]

In theory, Kaleidoscope sounds beautiful and extravagantly fun for both the young people and adult leaders. Get down to the nuts and bolts, and a workshop can be overwhelming. To ask so much of our adult participants I feel like we need to make sure the mission and vision of KAL is solid, more than just a cool day care or a performance*. So I find myself around this time each year reading journals and research about arts based education and researching successful arts programs to compare us with them.

[*The week culminates with Friday Celebration, as the children display, share or perform their newly acquired skills in the visual and performing arts. This event highlights the hard work and learning that has occurred throughout their time here. It is a celebration for everyone, including parents and friends!]

I certainly ascribe to the theory that touching one aspect of a person's life will affect other aspects. In other words, teaching children about art at KAL is not just about teaching art.

The creative process may be one in which children gain command of the brush and learn the mysteries of art making. But sustained creativity also places cognitive demands on the learner—wrestling with technique while processing elements of design and intention, facing the public nature of classroom art-making, and making meaning out of critical and supportive comments from peers and teachers. These sorts of demands may be present in other learning experiences, but children may respond more actively and deeply in the art room than in the classroom. The response may add up to what Abelson calls ‘hot cognition’ (1963), which theorizes that all experiences have both a cognitive and affective component and that each of these, in turn, influence and colour the other (1).

There is overwhelming data that children who are in an art program exhibit these things:

• dropout rates are reduced
• students are more focused and engaged in the classroom
• students believe they have control over their future
• students are motivated to achieve
• students learn to manage risk; are no longer at-risk
• students develop skills highly valued in the 21st century workforce, such as creative and conceptual thinking and collaborating with others

Some folks might call these "factors". I think they are practical, measurable ways in which we help the marginalized move in from the margins. And in areas like Grundy County, these factors are much more that just a way out or a changed life; they are transformational across generational lines and family boundaries. All of this reminds me of a quote out of another book I like:

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! -Rom 5.1-5

Being Christ followers, the truth of the matter is that transformation happens through grace in any way God sees fit. And those of us who live transformed lives know that it's not an end to itself: a truly transformed life reaches out to offer abundant life (aren't the above "factors" part of the abundant life?) through Christ to all that we meet. That's why teaching art touches every, and I mean every, aspect of a child's life. And I keep thinking about how I believe, without a doubt, that cliche we always use around here: art changes lives.


p.s. Inspired? Interested? We NEED your help. Email me!

[1. Catterall, James S. and Peppler, Kylie A. (2007) 'Learning in the visual arts and the worldviews of young children', Cambridge Journal of Education, 37:4, 543 – 560]