I am Dialogue as a Medium/ I am Active Listening/ I am Dessert
This lesson plan was a project that required us to facilitate/ teach our classmates for 45 minutes, basing it off of an article(s) that was assigned to us. We could include an activity or an aspect that would engage our classmates into a discussion and the lesson.
Background:
For our teaching lesson we set up a comfortable and trusting environment by bring in tacos and desert (cookies and brownies) and holding a conversation about Relational Aesthetics, diagloue, and active listening while engaging our classmates into these activities. We were enabling the discussion by involving ourselves into the discussion and subltly asking questions that continued to propel the conversation forward. We sat on different sides of the room instead of positioning ourselves at the head of the table/ classroom (which is the "normal" location for a teacher). I believe that the experience was benefical for each student, and we were able to get our point across with the discussion that we were holding by creating a relaxing and comfortable environment. The discussion was strong and impactful for all of us. I am not so sure that I would change how we held the class, but maybe switch up what we were talking about a little bit more by bringing in other concepts/ topics to discuss as well. Below is the information that I contributed to the lesson (I was in charge of bring desert and facilitating the second half of the discussion).
Article:
The Aesthetic as a Process of Dialogical Interaction: A Case of Collective Art Praxis, Meban.
Lesson Plan:
Overview:
Most of the time we enjoy a meal, we are sharing a conversation with either someone in our family, a friend, or even a colleague; discussing issues in our everyday lives, a potential project, etc. When engaging in conversation it becomes just as important to not only listen to the other person speak but to become an active listener; to take mental notes about what they are saying, comprehend what they are saying, be able to engage in an intelligent response to what they are saying. These two processes are something to take note of as an artist. Not only because they are becoming more vital not only for vital conversation, but also because they ARE becoming the pieces themselves.
Breaking It Down:
Dialogue as a Medium becomes important because as artists we are constantly listening to sources and cultural trends that surround our everyday lives. We are listening to the viewers’ responses/ discussions after they have viewed our work. Dialogue is becoming more of the artwork rather than just a component of the piece.
Active Listening becomes important not only as a viewer but in any conversation containing art. In her article, Meban states that active listening asks individuals to “recognize the potential of listening as a creative practice” (37). You can listen to someone when they are speaking, but are you actually hearing him or her? That is the difference between listening and active listening.
Guiding Questions/ Topics:
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Dialogue becoming a portion of the work (i.e. Lounging Red Couches from the reading).
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Have you ever had an aesthetic experience involving a meal or food of some sort (maybe a certain restaurant with a specific entrée in mind that you share with someone special)?
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A lot of art revolves around dialogue (ranging from the discussion the final product arises in its’ viewers to the dialogue the artist must undergo while creating the work), so how can we demonstrate this relevance for our students? How do we make it the MEDIUM?
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What are some samples of Dialogue as a Medium (besides Lounging Red Couches)?
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Listening is just as important as talking, what does it mean to be an “active listener”?
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How can we teach our students to be “active listeners”?
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In the reading, Meban states that “active listening asks individuals to recognize the potential of listening as a creative practice” (37).
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Can we make active listening a MEDIUM to work with as artists? If so, what would this look like?
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Can someone just participate in active listening or is it something that must be practiced and mastered?
Key Terms:
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Active Listening asks individuals to “recognize the potential of listening as a creative practice” (37).
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“Inter-human [human interactions] relations and dialogue become a central part of the aesthetic process” (33).
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“A social aesthetic offers a way of conceiving art practice as a site of transformative education and possibly in which dialogical interaction the ethics of self/ Other relations” (35).
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“Critical pedagogy is… rooted in a democratic ethos that attends to the practices of teaching and learning and focuses on lived experiences with the intention to disrupt, contest, and transform systems of oppression” (35).
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“We need to consider dialogue as a [creative] medium through which the sociocultural matrix of our interactions with others becomes a site for critical and creative reflection” (36).
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Artist as Co-participant: “Dialogically-based art practices also require us to reconsider the role of the artist” (36). / “Strive to acknowledge the specific identity of our interlocutors, and conceive of them not simply as subjects on whose behalf we might act but as co-participants in the transformation of both self and society” (37).
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“Consumer culture ideology pervades such community contexts and shapes our ways of interacting with others” (38).
