This essay discusses the relationship between teachers and students in art school with particular reference to the author’s educational experience and the knowledge gained from informal learning

O'Neill, Mary

English

University of Lincoln Institutional Repository

The Art of Giving LightlyI am what most people would deem an educated person. Ihave a little pile of certificates somewhere that provideevidence of my educational experience – Intermediate andLeaving Certificate, Degrees, PhD etc.. I also have a pile ofodder qualifications and awards – Irish Dancing, Italian,Cookery, First Aid, Ethics, Young Printmaker of the Year, thatsort of thing. This accumulation of pieces of paper suggests aconventional and successful engagement with theeducational system. What they do not show is the livedexperience, the fear of school that resulted in a chronicsuspicion of authority, the days spent hiding in a field behindour house because I was afraid of yet another publichumiliation at the hands of Mrs Buttimer or the Sisters ofMercy, yet another whack with a ruler, another hour spendstanding on my desk as punishment for being me. Theseearly experiences of education did not however put me offbut instead made me increasingly determined to prove thatknowledge comes in many forms and from the mostunexpected places – and that I could acquire it. While I wouldrather not have had the experience of Glasheen NationalSchool and Mount Mercy College, they were not all a wasteand may in fact have made me a better teacher. They taughtme that rules should be questioned, a perfect grounding fordeconstruction, and that respect is not given automatically byvirtue of the position someone holds but is something thatone earns ever day. They also taught me to recite poetry byheart and to perform mental arithmetic, which have provedendlessly useful.One would imagine that given the bad start that I would haveescaped the system as quickly as possible. On the contrary, Ihave spend most of my life in education one way or another,more as a student (22 years!) than a teacher. I realised that Iloved learning and sharing the pleasure of learning. Inhindsight, the shift from problem child to star pupil seemsswift and exciting. One day I was destined for delinquency, thenext I could do things, I could do them well, and I was praised.In reality this transition took a little longer and a lot of hardwork. The experience of being valued for what I had done wasall the more significant because it had been so rare. When itcame it brought with it a sensation of being somewhere that Ibelonged, I was home. In art school, I encountered peoplewho did not teach as much as give me the skills andconfidence to learn myself. Rather than being based on anexplicit educational philosophy, for some of the teachers Iencountered the knowledge of the benefits of this approachcame naturally, for others it was a successful strategy adoptedbecause of laziness. This teaching wasn’t always done inlectures or classes but through conversations in the canteen orthe pub, a recommended book or a piece of music.These seemingly slight encounters acknowledged a trust inmy commitment and dedication to my subject as well asvaluing my ability to acquire knowledge independently. Ofcourse, there were wasters, it would be romantic anddeceitful to suggest that art education in Ireland and Englandin the 1980s was not without it problems; there were thelechers, the incompetents, the lecturers who liked to talk sothat they could talk about themselves, and the ones that justliked to talk, but fortunately art school allowed one to pickand chose, and to give some a wide berth.In 1983 the printmaking tutor at the Dun Laoghaire School ofArt arranged for me to spend a term at the Edinburgh Collegeof Art and a summer staying in her brother’s flat in Amsterdam.She sent me off with a portfolio full of paper and copper platesand phone numbers of people I should contact. This proved tobe a decisive trip that helped to form a way of thinking aboutart and the world, as well as to consolidate often thought butbadly expressed ideas that I wanted to work on. That tutor doesnot know that she changed my life, nor do any of the otherpeople who have made a significant contribution to myeducation over the years. The gift of education that was givenwas not the gift of Marcel Mauss that required reciprocation,but the free gift, one in which the giver and recipient areunaware of the gift at the time. There is no obligation to thegiver in the free gift. However, in the knowledge that comeswith the free gift there is an understanding of the importance ofgiving lightly, without the need for acknowledgement,obligation or credit. When we share our knowledge lightly, aslecturers we run the risk of our contribution being unnoticed,however this allows the learner to own the learning. Itencourages students to be active learners, to be awake to thepossibility that learning happens all the time and not just intimetable slots. In the list of people who have contributed to myeducation – Zygmunt Bauman, Robert Neimeyer, John Dewey,Mark O’Neill, Maire Noone, Carol Shields, Samuel Beckett,Marsha Meskimmon, TomWaits, Simon Pattison, DentonWelsh, Nanny Mulder, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – there arevery few lecturers. In fact most of these people are long dead,but the gift of knowledge can survive us and impact on peoplein another time and place. What my lecturers gave me was theopportunity to discover the tribe of people that I needed to tapinto the world of knowledge and benefit from the wealth ofriches that exist in literature, art, theory and music.Students outgrow many of their teachers, and this is how itshould be. But in the process of outgrowing it is important toremember that without the encouragement and opportunitiesafforded by them it would not be possible to make the leapsin the present. In the current risk averse contemporaryeducational landscape which encourages students toconstantly evaluate and focus on concrete learning outcomes,it is increasing impossible for the slow percolation that hasbeen my experience of learning. Contemporary forms ofeducation required immediate impact based on proscribedlearning outcomes. What it does not acknowledge are theunexpected and informal moments of insight, the epiphanies,where information acquired years before can be transformedinto knowledge because the moment is right. I am notadvocating a return to ‘the good old days’ but wonderingwhat new strategies we need to adopt to facilitateunstructured forms of knowledge acquisition. In thecommercialize education system that treats and fears studentsas powerful consumers rather than as powerful participantsand co-creators of their own educational experience I alsowonder what has been sacrificedThe obverse of my experience of assisted self-education iswhat I have learned by having to teach. My early experienceof being judged a failed learner inspires me to try at least tosee the material from the point of view of students. Despitethe difficulties of the predicted-outcome-measurementsystem, learning can be interesting and open to unexpectedinsights. Praise when it is earned can be a powerfulmotivator. The presence of students, in class, in tutorials, inmy mind, forces me to articulate things more clearly, to see itfrom different perspective. While my practice – theproduction of academic papers – is a solitary process, it isconstantly fed by the engagement with the learning ofothers, and the way it forces me to see the material fromdifferent perspectives. As the old Buddhist saying goes; ‘youbest teach what you most need to learn’.I have not mentioned any students here because I do notknow yet what impact I have had on them – percolation is avery slow process and it is too soon to tell. But I hope that Ihave given lightly in the spirit of the gifts I have been given.Mary O’Neill

The art of giving lightly

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