Pinterest Hell

My 11th year of teaching started three weeks ago, and maybe for the first time in my career, I had a moment where I felt a bit bored. A moment when I felt that everything was monotonous. Now, maybe it’s the schedule or routine that I’ve grown comfortable with, as I’m in my third year at the same school. Or maybe it’s that students know me, and I’m not nervous, surrounded by teenagers who can easily inquire about my reputation instead of having to suss me out. But then I had this terrible feeling: What if I’m sick of teaching art?

Regurgitating the basics of linear perspective during my MYP class was definitely not reviving my enthusiasm. Although I did appreciate that my students appreciated the ease with which I corrected their drawings while they sketched the architecture of the school, the real issue I realized was not the content but the framework. Now, despite giving an example within the MYP, I have little qualms with its framework. On the contrary, I think it allows for extraordinary freedom—a freedom that allowed me to really develop my teaching using inquiry.

But recently, I struggled so immensely with my then DP1 students to get them to develop original ideas—ideas that were personal, authentic, and developed naturally. The kinds of ideas that the DP demands. Instead, I was in a Pinterest hell, feeling equal parts annoyed and sad because my students seemed to have little understanding of themselves, their opinions, or their interests. And as all DP Visual Art teachers know, there is no time to waste, and the CS is going to suck up a lot of that time. DP Art is, after all, a class—a rigorous one that comes with parameters and a grade attached—facts that are at odds with art and the art world. So, in my quest to solve this ideation issue, I came up with a simple solution: No technology. Students could no longer use technology when ideating. Alright, so I solved a world problem.

I had come to this epiphany during the summer holiday, so starting this year with a fresh group of grade 11s, I was ready to face this issue head-on. Then, three weeks into the year, I had the realization that this simply wasn't enough. It wasn't just what I was teaching, but rather how I was teaching it. If I wanted to support students to find their “what and why,” I needed to support them with idea development.

Enter TOK.

image sourced from MOMA