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Season One: Taproots
We spend our first season having deep, sustained conversations with professors from many parts of the college. Our guiding questions are: What do you teach? How do you teach it? What have you come to learn about teaching in your career and in your discipline? Through conversation, we begin to map our community and meet some of the lives being lived at the college. We discover the meaning these professors find in their work and have the chance to adapt activities and ideas they've developed for our own teaching as we come to know our instructional community better together.
What do we bring to our students?
What do we bring to our students?
Errol Alger teaches Art in the School of English and Humanities. He has an expansive sense of time when it comes to his part of an education. While he’s teaching his class with its learning outcomes, he’s also aiming to alter the very way his students perceive the world around them for the rest of their lives. He also knows that this kind of shift in perspective can’t be learned in one lesson. It takes time in class and time out of class to germinate if it’s ever to flower.
During my conversation with him, I realized that we constantly returned to what he, as their instructor, was bringing to his students every single class. So that’s my question for this episode: what do we bring to our students? There’s a unique answer to this in every classroom and here is Errol's perspective.
Below are some of the works of art he mentions and two activities he uses to better connect him with his students and his students with their communities.
Come spend some time with Art.
Episode 1
Episode 1
Listen here to our first episode. A bonus episode is at the bottom of the page.
The Work of Andrew Goldsworthy
The Work of Andrew Goldsworthy
Goldsworthy has published many books of his work. These works of art, created in nature from natural elements, are made all over the world as Goldsworthy travels. Many of these images are from the documentary Rivers and Tides (2001), which is an excellent introduction to Goldsworthy's method and work. His work inspired one of Errol's students to see nature in an artistic way and create his own sculpture. Tap the arrows on the image to scroll through a selection of works by the artist.
Untitled student project
Untitled student project
Brian McClain
This is the pinestraw and leaf spiral Errol's student, Brian McClain, created in his yard after being inspired by Goldsworthy's work.
Activity: Journaling Together
Activity: Journaling Together
Here are the guidelines for Errol's shared journaling activity if you'd like to adapt it.
Activity: Teaching into the Community
Activity: Teaching into the Community
Your work may already directly affect the community but if you'd like to create an activity that encourages students to take a lesson into their personal circles, here are some guidelines you can begin with.
Bonus Episode
Bonus Episode
This is a short excerpt from our original interview. In it, Errol offers close reading and interpretation of two paintings and then explains how he connects this kind of learning to the important skill of critical thinking. Below are the two works that Errol discusses, by Henri Matisse and Vincent Van Gogh.
The Red Studio, 1911
The Red Studio, 1911
Henri Matisse
Starry Night, 1889
Starry Night, 1889
Vincent Van Gogh
This song, by Don McLean, is the one that Errol refers to in our interview.
MTC Faculty
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