I subscribe to BOMB Magazine, and in the current issue (Number 118, Winter 2012) I found something good in an interview with artist John Miller. He makes some very articulate observations on contemporary circumstances surrounding the profession of artist, and the educational approach that (sometimes) prepares people for that profession. Here's the part of the interview that best resonates for me: The fundamental problem with being an artist is trying to figure out how to use your time and what to do with yourself. In that, it differs significantly from other vocations. And that's the quality that is being lost in our art schools and in schools in general; there's no more floundering around. If everything has to be optimized at every stage, that's a real loss: another fine day in fine-arts education! That could be linked to neoliberal economics--students are paying more for tuition, they want to see results, they evaluate their teachers, and so on [pp.54-5]. This actually lays out a lot of ideas I've been trying to synthesize and express for myself for the last year or so, and I find it very validating both as a (now) full-time artist and as a former college educator. I should also say that, as an educator, I had no problem with the idea of students evaluating their teachers. But I do feel that increasingly, all forms of education are, (as Miller suggests) under the thumb of business models and "optimization"-driven assessment procedures. In my own situation, the push toward the student-as-customer ethos created a toxic and untenable environment wherein I felt absolutely disempowered and utterly demoralized. Students expected of me (and my discipline) things that were impossible to give, at times even unreasonable and inhuman to ask. The overall campus cultures tended to isolate low-power faculty (of which I was most definitely one). Others, of course, have had more positive experiences with teaching at a college or university level. But even they can provide an incisive critique of the influence of corporate models on the conduct and ethos of higher ed. For an audio recording of part of the John Miller interview, go here. |
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