Jan Estep, “I Am For An Education,” Quodlibetica, Constellation 16: Art and Design (Mis)Education, October 2011. Inspired by Claes Oldenburg's 1961 statement, "I Am For An Art."

I Am For An Education

I am for an education that says "yes"—yes to learning, yes to art, yes to life.

I am for an education that helps students become aware of our own aesthetic, conceptual, and emotional gestures, to discover who we actually are.

I am for an education that helps students to be mindful of our conditioning and habitual reactions so that we are free to choose, rather than simply react.

I am for an education that encourages students to explore a wide range of options, which does not pigeonhole us prematurely as “this” or “that” kind of artist, “this” or “that” kind of person.

I am for an education that teaches students to consume dogmas, chew them up, and spit them out when they’re no longer useful.

I am for an education that realizes sometimes you have to wade through piss and shit to get to the other side of an idea.

I am for an education that cries when it needs too, rants when it needs to, breaks down when it needs to, whatever is necessary to unlock the doors of comprehension.

I am for an education that realizes sometimes you have to investigate your thoughts and intentions to get to the other side of a feeling.

I am for an education that holes up in the library for days and weeks at a time, to walk back out into the sunlight with one’s belly full of knowledge.

I am for an education that does not oppose book smarts against street smarts, but welcomes both as useful sources of information.

I am for an education that recognizes the full-on complexity of intuition and instinct.

I am for an education that teaches us to have faith in our own experience.

I am for an education that does not hide behind the vagueness of art or the open-endedness of these issues.

I am for an education that creates a critical, supportive community where students can take risks, try on different voices, and dig down deep to see what lies beneath the surface.

I am for an education that embraces failure as an opportunity to learn and to grow.

I am for an education that allows students to fall flat on our faces, and does not judge us personally for doing so.

I am for an education of mistakes, false starts, and wrong turns, that admits we don’t always know what we need from the outset.

I am for an education that embraces uncertainty.

I am for an education that teaches us that no matter what we can always begin again.

I am for an education that honors all aspects of being human.

I am for an education that does not place beauty above all else or technique above all else or concept above all else.

I am for an education that refuses to create camps of “us” versus “them.”

I am for an education that defies easy categorization and black-and-white scenarios.

I am for an education that avoids the language of right and wrong, good and bad.

I am for an education that fosters judgment but is not judgmental.

I am for an educator who does not defend her aesthetic ideology at the expense of her students.

I am for an educator who does not defend her ego at the expense of her students.

I am for an educator who realizes she doesn’t know it all.

I am for an education that does not pit the head against the heart, the mind against the body, thought against feeling, reason against emotion.

I am for an education that does not pit convention against freedom, tradition against experimentation, form against content.

I am for an education that does not bury its head in the sand.

I am for an education that confronts the real-life implications of its teachings and the real-life situations of its students.

I am for an education that understands learners have histories and prejudices and fears and limitations, and that creates a safe place to bring these forth.

I am for an education that champions the mind but does not over-intellectualize.

I am for an education that does not hide behind theory in an effort to make itself seem more important or serious or academic or scholarly.

I am for an education that supports the body but does not deny the intellect.

I am for an education that does not hide behind craft in an effort to shut out thinking.

I am for an education that values truth.

I am for an education that is vulnerable but not defensive, and that fosters students who are vulnerable but not defensive.

I am for an education that blurs the lines between art and life, learning and being.

I am for an education that is fluid and flexible, adaptable to each person’ unique condition.

I am for an education that doesn’t pretend to know all the answers or falsely asserts that we can predict the future.

I am for an education that acknowledges the fact that things always change.

I am for an education that is socially relevant, personally relevant, politically relevant.

I am for an education that does something other than regurgitate official knowledge, sanctioned attitudes, and worn-out platitudes.

I am for an education that does not create “problems” that only it can “solve,” bolstering its value by pseudo-posturing.

I am for an education that makes a stink when necessary, but does not overdramatize just for something to do.

I am for an education that is fair and reasonable and just, and that creates students who are fair and reasonable and just.

I am for an education that is not afraid of ethics and ambiguity.

I am for an education that shows students how to be critical without turning that criticality on ourselves till we no longer enjoy making art.

I am for an education of confidence and self-compassion.

I am for an education that assumes students are capable, far more capable than we realize.

I am for an education that gives constructive criticism without destroying a person’s self-respect.

I am for an education that helps students learn the hard lessons of patience, trust, and acceptance.

I am for an education that rewards perseverance, courage, honesty, and passion.

I am for an education that recognizes that learning is a life-long process.

I am for an education that emboldens its students.

I am for an educator who disappears, who is no longer needed by her students.

I am for an education that cultivates learners who are independent and free, trusting our innate capacity to teach ourselves.

I am for an education that works for the benefit of learners, not to perpetuate the status quo or itself.

I am for an education that doesn’t assume that one model fits all.

I am for an education that does not promote a narrow definition of success.

I am for an education that does not make false promises, of a career or a job or fame, or that measures a person’s worth by how much money we earn or what we can tick off on our resumes.

I am for an education that does not bow down to cynicism and greed.

I am for an education that expects you to show up, wholly, and engage the moment.

I am for an education that wants you to care.

I am for an education that takes its cues from the forms of everyday life, that breathes and pulses, constricts and surges, and is heavy and light and abstract and tangible as life itself.

I am for an education that wants its learners to grow strong in every way we can.

I am for an education that cultivates a life of the mind in communion with the play of the body, that is discursive and experiential, verbal and visual, tactile and cerebral.

I am for an education of making and doing, pushing and pulling, tasting and hearing, writing and reading, thinking and dreaming.

I am for an education found in between the pages of a book or in the arms of a lover or in the bite of an apple or in the eyes of a dog.

I am for an education that shouts and cries, whispers and laughs, holds dissertations and fosters creativity.

I am for an education that dribbles down one’s chin and skins one’s shin.

I am for an education that takes one’s breath away.

I am for an education that exhausts the body.

I am for an education that taxes the brain.

I am for an education that entertains paradox and welcomes contradiction.

I am for an education that seeks integration and resists compartmentalization.

I am for an education of the here and now.

I am for an education that gets under the skin, into the blood, and courses through the mind/body before seeping out the pores again.

I am for an education that rewires the neurons.

I am for an education that a learner inhales deeply.

I am for an educator who does the best that she can, wherever she is, in the time that she has, with all that she’s got.

I am for an education that is bold and kind, that creates a space of great affection but is brutally honest.

I am for an education that protects the classroom as a sacred space of sharing, but extends and expands beyond those walls.

I am for an education that takes many forms, and occupies many contexts.

I am for an education that is solitary, when appropriate, and communal, when appropriate.

I am for an education that gets passed on from person to person.

I am for an education that heeds no bounds.

I am for an education that always wants more learners.

I am for an education that is realistic, pragmatic, and grounded, yet is also aspirational.

I am for an education that admits the consequences of our actions.

I am for an education that is smart, not pretentious; friendly, not divisive; generous, not restricted.

I am for an education of possibility.

I am for an education of change.

I am for an education that moves us.

I am for an education that saves lives.

I am for an education based on love, not fear.

I am for an education.

return