The Shift

How might we empower students to navigate frustration in their learning through mark making?

The proposed project was a workshop full of mark making. Creating flextangles, drawing on the walls and interacting with huge stuffed flextangle chairs. All activities guided by prompts for mark making to navigate different emotions that cause frustration in learning. Grounded in art therapy theory, this workshop intends to empower young people to work with iterative processes drawing patterns and twisting the flextangles, subconsciously interacting with this mindset of repetition that aids their learning. While paper flextangles is the starting point, this project will be developed and explored through different avenues such as upscaling the flextangle, the use of materials for mark making and the potential for optical illusion or perspective will be explored.

Various art therapy theories relate different mark marking movements with the emotions that we feel. Mark making is a valued form of expression in a child’s early years but lesser as they age; there is huge potential in mark making as a way of understanding ones frustration that can be nurtured during these later years too.

Neurodiversity research too highlight the importance of mark making and repetition in learning. Mark making is the art form that develops a child’s ability to write. Repetition is a learning aid in the sense that skills need to be repetitively used to be acquired. This is particularly important and useful for learning difficulties. But, how do we empower students to have this repetitive mindset and willpower toward their learning even when it is frustrating?

What is the project's intention?

When presented with the task of planning the double-diamond process of what I would develop and deliver each week for the entire semester, I panicked. This is where this research project shifted into being just that. A research project. The intention moving forward was to explore, collaborate and further understand what frustration feelings and looks like. This project does not need to be an intervention in the school-to-prison pipeline.

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