Thesis, T&P and space

I am currently in Senior Studio 1 (aka Thesis 1), creating a body of work in ceramics. It has been a very stressful time, first researching, working out ideas and coming to conclusions. The thing about making creating a body of work is that it takes time and dedication. Ideally, I would work on Thesis and nothing else because there is always more to add, ways to make it better, and new ideas that emerge. It’s hard to have this focus while I am in school with several other classes and obligations that must be met. I realize I am not alone in this, and everyone in college deals with distribution of time and that’s part of the skill we are learning.

I feel the same way about Theory and Practice. Art Education is the other half of my career goal and I want to give as much focus and insight as I give to my Thesis work. I’ve found the best way for me to juggle is to focus on one for a while, then the other, then switch. There is this zone we get into when creating a lesson, and artwork. It needs space to flourish and develop. In a perfect world I would take Theory and Practice and Senior Studio 1 separately, but it was either now or next semester which is Thesis 2… no way!

My workload has got me thinking about my future students and the amount of work they will face in school. As teachers, we all have the highest expectations for our students, but the reality is, they are overloaded. Is it our culture that places an emphasis on being able to do a thousand things at once? Were we meant to live this way? It all seems like too much, especially when you throw in life and all of its hurdles.

How can we give our students that space to create? We all have a certain time frame in which we are expected to complete our lessons when we are teachers. The marking periods move along and we must keep up. How do we help our students keep up but also give them space to create quality work? I don’t know the answer to this, but it is certainly something worth thinking about.