Lincoln Center institute for the arts in education

In my post about Maxine Greene, I mentioned the Lincoln Center institute for the arts in education. During the summer of 2002 I participated in The National Educator Workshop: Introduction to Aesthetic Education. Everyday for the week of July 8 through 12, I trekked to New York City and spent my days at Lincoln Center. As a child growing up in the Long Island suburbs of the City, I had my fill of concerts, opera and ballet at Lincoln Center, but for that week in 2002 it was a treat to enter buildings that for years had seemed out of range to me as a theatre attendee. The location, and having access to these buildings that are home to artistic endeavors, made me feel artistically inclined; it was as though my surroundings could rub off on me and cause me to feel like an artist!

Wikipedia has some pictures of Lincoln Center’s buildings, and Carthalia contains a compilation of history about the buildings along with some postcard pictures of the complex. In fact, if you have an interest in old postcards or theatres and concert halls worldwide, you should check out Carthalia – Theatres on Postcards.

During the week long workshop I participated in activities designed to expose me to the sensations of aesthetic education. There were hands-on art workshops, hands-on music workshops, attendance at a concert, a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and attendance at a dance performance. There was also a lecture by Maxine Greene, which was one of the many highlights of the week. I was immersed in the arts, and loved every minute of the process!

Throughout the week each of us (there were about 40, if memory serves correct) were encouraged to keep a journal. After the workshop concluded, we were asked to submit a Response Essay about the week long experience. In addition to various handouts provided during the workshop, we were also given a booklet entitled Entering the World of the Work of Art – A Brainstorming Guide. The booklet’s purpose was to guide us in bringing art into the world of education, particularly as a way of expanding imagination. From the booklet:

“At Lincoln Center we believe that works of art provide an inexhaustible resource for exploration, reflection, and understanding. Children and adults have the capacity to respond to a work of art in ways that can stimulate fresh insights, encourage deeper understandings, and challenge preconceived notions. Without the limitations imposed by “right” or “wrong” answers, the process of responding to a work of art develops each student’s ability to think in fundamental and powerful ways.”

“As a result, unexpected connections are made, alternative points of view considered, complexities explored, and doors to new and imagined worlds opened.”

To read more about this experiential program, first visit the Lincoln Center page and then scroll down to the lower right corner, under Arts and Education, and click the link for Lincoln Center Institute.

Hearing does not equal Listening

In the July 8, 2007 New York Times Book Review, Haruki Murakami writes in his essay, Jazz Messenger,

Practically everything I know about writing, then, I learned from music. … Even now, almost 30 years later, I continue to learn a great deal about writing from good music.

Murakami goes on to quote Thelonious Monk who, when discussing how he gets special sounds out of the piano, said

When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!

The essay fueled my thinking about how we listen and how we process what we hear. Listening is not always a simple activity. To be sure, if your hearing functions properly, it is easier to hear than to listen, for listening requires attentiveness, and attentiveness usually requires a level of interest or need. Hearing is a physical act; listening is a cognitive one.

Turns out there is even an International Listening Association created “to promote the study, development, and teaching of effective listening in all settings.” And it may come as no surprise that in some schools students are taught how to listen. The University of Minnesota Duluth has a page on Listening Skills, and Study Guides and Strategies provides an interactive guide to Active Listening.

My favorite site about sound, though, is Listen: Making Sense of Sound, part of the Exploratorium online. If you aren’t familiar with it, the Exploratorium is “the museum of science, art and human perception” located in San Francisco, California. Their online exhibit contains a slew of well-prepared, informative yet entertaining interactive activities designed to get you thinking about the act of listening – not just to other people but also to your environment, which contains wondrous sounds of its own.

Listen with your Eyes

Listen with your eyes closed, because what you see influences what you hear.

Thus exhorted Wouter Snoei, a composer from The 192 loudspeaker experience, a concert we attended in Amsterdam with our friends.

Peter Elsea, for the University of California at Santa Cruz electronic music studios, wrote an essay on Hearing and Perception. Although he posted the essay in 1996 (so there may be more current research available), I found it an interesting accompaniment to the 192 loudspeaker concert.

Returning to Wouter’s exhortation, I wear glasses, and wearing glasses impacts my ability to hear. In loud environments particularly, I need to see the speaker’s face and lips to influence the odds of properly hearing what is being said. More on this idea is available in The University of Kent’s peer-reviewed electronic academic journal article posited by Michael A. Forrester, Auditory Perception and Sound As Event: Theorising Sound Imagery in Psychology. If you don’t feel like reading the entire article, skip ahead to section 5.

I suspect if we had kept our eyes open during the loudspeaker experience, we would surely have processed the sounds as coming from the 192 speakers. By listening with my eyes closed, I heard the sounds but conjured up images of the places or people from where the sounds may have emanated. (And yes, I did keep them closed during each of the four pieces!) This is not unlike listening to a radio, as discussed in Forrester’s article. In many instances, listening while seeing combine to enhance the ability to process the sound.

At the HyperPhysics site, hosted by the Georgia State University Department of Physics and Astronomy, you can learn more about the physics of the ear and hearing. And you can get an earful of information at Neuroscience for Kids, including experiments to test your hearing.