Piecing Together the Design Principles: Exploring the Making of Mosaics
By Anne Cavallaro
Housed in half of an apartment building on a residential street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Intermediate School 30's landscape is a unique model of an urban Expeditionary Learning school. We are small in numbers and in space--and while lack of space is an ever-present challenge--it also encourages a tight-knit community.
As I started my second year teaching art one day last September, I stood in our small lobby, cluttered with delivery boxes, tables, chairs, and chess sets and noticed that our school lacked the aesthetic of a traditional academic institution. I also observed a lack of visual information on the culture of our school at the school entrance. I wondered if there might be a way for our student's voices to be heard from the moment one stepped through our front doors. It seemed important not only for the needs of I.S. 30's visitors and guests, but for our students' need to express who we are as a community in a real and permanent way. I found myself thinking about how the art room might offer a place for an expedition that allowed students to develop their artistic skills and also provide meaningful service to the school community.
Upon meeting Class 703, 18 seventh graders, I realized it might be an opportunity to take advantage of the intimacy of a small group setting to explore this idea for an expedition combining service and art. I asked the students how they felt about the physical structure of their school. We discussed space and the different ways it can affect our moods. Many of them agreed that our school lobby needed a makeover. Using drawing as a powerful tool for observation, the students spent the next two weeks sketching the lobby from different perspectives. We returned to the classroom to discuss the ideas our observations had generated. Many ambitious (and expensive) ideas surfaced. Recognizing that redesigning the entire lobby would be too costly for our budget, the students suggested that the front entrance to the school needed a permanent and visible art piece that reflected the culture of the school. The Expeditionary Learning Design Principles seemed a perfect starting point as a theme. Most of us could recite all of the design principles, however we had questions about the degree to which they actually impacted our thinking in our daily lives. It seemed to all of us that exploring them further through a project like this would help us to better understand their place in our school's culture.
Having made the decision to create large-scale art works for the school lobby, I suggested to the students that we work in the medium of mosaic tiles. The pieces would be flat and could be hung on a wall, thereby saving space. In addition, I was curious about how the process of "fitting the pieces together" might become a physical metaphor for our eventual understanding of the design principles. We decided we would create 12 separate mosaics, representing each design principle, Expeditionary Learning, and our school. After much deliberation through measuring and mapping out the space, we decided that the mosaics would be approximately 22" by 36" each.
I divided the class into six groups. Each group picked a design principle out of a hat. Next, students sketched and brainstormed ideas for their designs. We took time to discuss and translate each design principle, and to decide how each might be best represented visually. Our first shipment of tiles arrived and the students began to work with the small, colorful tiles, when the groups confronted their first problem--how to get a square to form a curve. Designs with beautiful and intricate organic shapes no longer seemed functionally possible. It was a clear example of how the artistic process demands that the medium inform the design.
Once each group came up with a design, students coated pre-cut masonite boards with a glue and water mixture to prime the surface for the tiles. The designs were drawn in pencil and then marker to lay out where the tiles would be placed. Students worked within their small groups to designate jobs and discuss design problems. After the tiles were glued down and in place, the mosaics would be grouted. Students kept journals to reflect on their process, and as groups progressed and became more absorbed in nuances of their own designs, the class would form a circle to discuss how the design principles were guiding our collective project.
Throughout the mosaic-making process students encountered many successes and failures. One group discovered when they grouted that they had placed their tiles too far apart and what had originally been a terrific design had gotten lost. It forced the group to come together to find a way to work with the problem and find another way to allow their design to emerge. The class felt empowered by taking responsibility for their own learning when navigating through tasks such as how to assign jobs within the group, how to resolve creative differences, as well as how to problem-solve while working with a new set of unusual materials.
Students also became experts in showing and critiquing each other's work. Several times a week the students would give each other feedback. Often the class' opinion on what did or did not work in a particular mosaic would differ from mine. Our differences often led to empassioned debates and pleas in favor of a certain aesthetic. The students in the class knew that their work would be a permanent installation in the school: their decisions would affect a larger and ever-growing audience, and that leant an air of gravity to them.
In addition to becoming expert craftspersons through their mosaic making, students have also become more proficient in what it means to work within a team toward a common goal. They managed to do this while also finding ways in which to preserve their own creative spirit and emotional investment required for such a long-term endeavor.
The entire process has forever changed the shape of this class. Unlikely friendships have been formed; unknown talents discovered. As a result of our time spent reflecting on the design principles, in taking on the responsibility for making them come alive visually in a public way, they have become a regular part of my students' vernacular. The design principles acted as a lens through which we could frame any topic, and their universal accessibility as ideas allowed all students the opportunity to express their thoughts within the group.
This year when the mosaics are installed, my students will know that they have made history at their school by making the ideas that guide our school's cultural vision come to life through their art. The students of Class 703 have ensured that the design principles will be a part of the daily life of I.S. 30 for years to come.
Anne Cavallaro teaches art at Intermediate School 30 /Mary White Ovington in Brooklyn, New York.
Teacher tools to accompany this article are available here.
BOOK REVIEW: Why Fly That Way by Kathy Greeley
Reviewed by Scott Hartl
In the early years of Expeditionary Learning we often looked to Kathy Greeley, author of Why Fly That Way? (Teachers College Press, 2001) for a high quality picture of what Expeditionary Learning might look like in the classroom. Greeley is an inspirational teacher. She is practical, reflective, passionate, and in it for the long haul. Greeley also holds exceptionally high standards for both herself and her students. Her book, Why Fly That Way? is also both inspirational and full of useful lessons for us as Expeditionary Learning educators.
Why Fly That Way? is the story of one year in Greeley's seventh-eighth grade classroom in a forward thinking urban middle school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The story of the year in classroom 311 unfolds like a good novel, as a group of guarded, challenging under-achievers struggle through learning a commitment to quality for both themselves and each other. The story is full of drama, tension, colorful characters, and moments of both pain and uplifting success. But this is no Hollywood tale. Greeley's writing rings with classroom reality-- one step forward, two steps back. Rarely is the right next move unequivocally clear. It is Greeley's searching honesty, as well as her extraordinary talent that makes this story so full and useful for us.
The book's sub-title, Linking Community and Academic Achievement, frames Greeley's argument that each is a prerequisite of the other. She asserts that it is the character of the classroom community that will, for many students, determine their willingness and ability to engage for the long haul, and to effectively pursue intellectual growth. The community that Greeley and her students pursue over the course of the year is not of the simple "feel-good" variety. Community as described by this book is inseparable from intellectual work. It is a community commitment to quality and care.
The value of this book is Greeley's insightful description of what is required to attain this type of able community. Through Why Fly That Way? we see the details of planning engaging and rigorous projects. We see how to make historical content come alive with connections to the students' experience. We see how theatre can be used as a highly effective tool for learning. We see how a theme can be woven throughout a year to ignite deeper connections to material. We see a master teacher struggle with the details of how best to use the precious resource of instructional time to best serve competing needs. Through it all we see a teacher with an extraordinary commitment to her students and to the craft of teaching.
The country's current fervor over standards often fails to honor and support the work of defining and attaining high standards teacher by teacher, classroom by classroom. The story Kathy Greeley tells us is clear evidence that there is no other way. In the closing chapters of Why Fly That Way?, the sense of constructive community and bountiful achievement overflow from room 311. As a reader, I found myself cheering for it. You will too.
Scott Hartl, former principal and founder of Harbor School in Dorchester, Massachusetts, currently consults with Expeditionary Learning. Hartl was the first school designer for Expeditionary Learning.
Fieldwork Archive
It is not that I do not have principles. It is just that I do not always consciously plan my life or spend my resources according to them. It is more like I recognize them when I bump into one, like seeing an old friend at Stop and Shop. I have never really named my guiding principles. There are virtues to which I aspire: courage, integrity, respect, etc. But at a certain point, 'a lot' becomes 'none,' and contradictory virtues often compete for my attention (humility and pride, action and reflection, productivity at work and loyalty at home). I need structures and habits that bring me back to my foundations, or else the currents of daily life will carry me from one item on the list to another.
As I posted my Expeditionary Learning Design Principle posters on the wall of my music classroom at the beginning of that year, it dawned on me that the children might understand each design principle better by analyzing lyrics of songs. The children could teach their parents and community members about the design principles through their performance of the songs, especially if we had students introduce each song through original explanations of how the song related to the given design principle. We could even educate our audience on the use of rubrics, to guide the development of quality work, by displaying the concert rubric for me to refer to during the students' performances. (
The morning of February 25, 2002 arrived with some questionable weather conditions on the pass. Day one called for sunny skies, but a high of only 13 F with 10-15 mph winds. Day two sounded less promising, with a high of 22 F, cloudy skies and a 60 percent chance of snow. Winds on the ridge could reach 30 mph. We decided to proceed to the trailhead and reassess the conditions. If snow stranded the crew at the huts, the caretaker could easily retrieve everyone with his snowcat. The artic wind posed a greater concern. Foremost in everyone's mind was the safety of the children.
