A R T S C H O O L F U T U R E S

See a draft of this article in the current issue of The Journal of Writing in Creative Practice by John Wood

Reconciling Four Modes of Thinking

This polemical article argues that industrialisation, together with economic and organisational expediencies have distracted universities from the ecological purpose of learning. Over the last few hundred years, this was largely unnoticed because the modern universities emerged from the monastic traditions of private study, rather than from the more collective, skill-based practices upon which our art schools were founded. Recently, Covid restrictions have lowered student expectations still further, as much face-to-face teaching has been replaced by largely disembodied and sensorially impoverished exchanges online. It is now time for a major re-think of education in which we better acknowledge our creative potential as a species. This might include re-defining 'knowledge' more in the context of embodied wisdom and human capability than in terms of abstract data. This would enrich the learning experience by seeing knowledge as existing within the whole mind/body/spirit and within a whole ecological context.

• read John's article: Beyond Conservation in Sublime Magazine.
• See more articles

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