"The coach is always the one, who is willing to win..." (8 min read)
Sorry for the grammar, but these notes are written quick and dirty.
In every single hour of classtime, i am just as passiv as possible to my students.
This means NOT that my teaching is not an active one. First of all, i think that nowadays no institution like school or university in germany is capable of lecturing ART in a proper way.
Let me explain...
Art is all about the playing. There is no right or wrong. Art is also the luxury we dedicate our time to.
And time is a pressures one, which we all know these days.
But ART NEEDS TIME and the ROOM to play with!
Here is the situation: As an art teacher in school you have these 45min or 90min between the sport and math lessons, which means in this short among of time you have to teach everything, because this, so called "Rahmenlehrplan", told you what to teach. But almost half of your students already give a fuck about what you are teaching, NOT because your are not able to teach or you are not entertaining as shit, IT IS because they are mainly higher educated through the internet these days and way further in mind, than this "Rahmenlehrplan" is.
-Or simply not in the mood, after 90min of sport-
During my studying i had to teach on an award-winning school for some weeks. In this time i had to lecture about animation, which was fine, because this is my spiel i am always talking about besides my studying.
So what happens...
First of all there was no classroom, because of maintenance, not cool, but hey not bad, considering...maintenance, at a school. Anyway, for the animation section we had to use the "computer room", but with no material to work with, computers who are good for office work but not for filmmaking and no cameras at all.
So what i did?
After the basic theory stuff of animation, stop-motion animation, frame by frame etcetera.
I placed the task to make a short animation movie with "Powerpoint", using hundrets of slides at a high frame rate, with at least 12 individual frames.
That was all i could squeeze out of this situation. Because of the lack of gear, no material and only 90 minutes a week.
In the first place, this YouTube generation of students were on fire! But as they saw, with what they had to cope with / to work with... they give up all hope AND ask me if they can use the stop-motion APP on there smartphone OR EVEN Adobe AFTER EFFECTS on there PC´s at home!
Thank GOD that i was still the foxiest headmotherfucker in charge. Last one is a professional animation program they use mostly in the film industry.
I am in my mid-twenties and i know what these kids are talking about, BECAUSE i am lecturing animation beside my studying... NOT because i was teached in, BECAUSE i was teaching it me, by MYSELF, online.
So i let them use what ever they want to use because i was still able to cope with it. Imagine, i couldn´t deal with that... those students would have been resigned twice.
And this is the situation we are living in. The way students get there knowledge is already shifting because of the Web 2.0 and all these social media platforms. Teachers know that, but they are trapped in the "Rahmenlehrplan" and also have no TIME or ROOM to lecturing art, or practicing art, or teaching themselve in art in a proper way these days. So students AND teachers resign.
That is art in school. Resign, no playing.
Now what happens in college. I am also student assistant for animation and scoring at university.
I will make it short.
This institut for art is slightly better equipt as school, and the leader of it is always willing to fight
for the TIME and the ROOM to play / to experience art as best as possible. THANK YOU!
Now what happens...
Even when you were lit in school for practicing art and you are on fire to make it already happened.
Enlisted in college and take student loans for years. You will get FUCKED UP, experiencing art, by the RUSH you have to take, to deal with at completing the B.A. and M.A. bullshit they call study.
In my office hours at the art institut, the students came along and always ask me for the fastest and easiest way to accomplish their credit for this semester. BECAUSE they are under pressure to succeed in their standard period of study. Which means that they have to carry about two disciplines at the same time, at the minimum, mostly more than that and are not allowed in any moment to really dive into a subject.
-I completely understand!- Because, when you had to have focus your limited level of concentration on so many fields, you do NOT EVEN ONE RIGHT.
So this is art at university. No time to play in the room you have.
Now, there is me. Complaining about it, not because i want to, NO, because i had to.
I HATE complaining, i love doing.
In my class time at a "youth artschool" (Jugendkunstschule) -i don´t know how to call it in english- i teach as passive as possible, because i am able to. The difference between school or university first off all is, that i have students who take their TIME to get in a ROOM to PLAY with ART. Because they want to, because they dicided to, because they have no restrictions to not doing it. Art is all about the playing.
So here is what i deliver them.
In my class, they have all the material they need, they have all the time to do want they come up with, and they have me as a mentor, not a teacher, who is still the best educated person in his field, who can be always asked for advise for resolving problems they are confronted with, by playing their own kind of a game.
Like a coach, who is able to play by himself, to lit up his students because he self is on fire. No big BOOM without any tiny little spark.
So where is the problem being an art coach? In school you have a lack of possibilities BECAUSE there is NO MONEY. At this award-winning school the teachers had to bring their own copy paper to print SOMETHING for the students. They hold up the medal, but the train is already off-the-rails in germany. NO MONEY. That´s it.
In college your are not experiencing art, you hustle your ass off to accomplish low level knowledge from professors who could only romanticise their stuff, because of the huge lack of patience you are forced to bring along. That´s it.
It takes a huge risk. It takes a huge self esteem, being a coach and not a teacher. But you maybe know, that the coach is always the one, who is willing to win... the game.
07/2017 Jürgen Auerswald
