{"id":82,"date":"2008-04-11T17:10:22","date_gmt":"2008-04-12T00:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=82"},"modified":"2008-04-11T22:42:17","modified_gmt":"2008-04-12T05:42:17","slug":"the-other-side-of-the-presentation-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=82","title":{"rendered":"The Other Side of the Presentation Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, I wrote a brief post<\/a> discussing the graffiti presentation that I was a part of on Saturday; I also ended up adding a comment clarifying Elizabeth Morin\u2019s role in the workshop (sorry Liz! \u2013 and no, this was not in response the first commentor, despite what she may have thought). Unfortunately, there is more to the conference story: to be blunt, this wasn\u2019t a very good presentation, in my opinion. Mark is almost too generous in calling the presentation \u201cmediocre\u201d<\/a> (though his story of what happened after is a fun read if you\u2019re feeling especially spunky).<\/p>\n

The presentation was exactly what it was \u2013 an overview of graffiti and ways it can be incorporated in schools. Elizabeth was on point with what she was to say, the two artists did an exceptional job at demonstrating expertise. However, the presentation never engaged the audience and I don\u2019t think Mark or I did our best to bring all of these elements together to create the kind of critical dialogue around graffiti that we were able to do at our first presentation on this work back in October. Of late, Mark and I have been going back and forth<\/a> on our respective blogs about graffiti and our thought process in creating the curriculum Mark is currently teaching and that I\u2019ll be teaching in three weeks.<\/p>\n

I agree wholeheartedly that there needs to be the critical discussion that was missing last week. Largely, this is what the curriculum that we\u2019ve created is about. There are no absolutes (graffiti is\u2026, it\u2019s good when it is used for \u2026). This project stemmed from personal interest in getting students to think critically about their surroundings and the possibilities of these surroundings \u2013 isn\u2019t that what all this talk of Critical P. is really about?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to stew any further over the presentation. I don\u2019t think it was able to convey the critical topics in graffiti I would have wanted to have discussed if I was a participant in my own workshop \u2013 it was a cursory overview, it probably didn\u2019t add a whole lot of useful resources for budding teachers, and it didn\u2019t get to the root of why and how the curriculum is going where it will go.<\/p>\n

Tell people this is awesome:<\/h3>