Making shelter from the storm

Making Shelter from the Storm
or, Why I agreed to coordinate
Texas Tech University's
Junction Center Art Program

Originally published in
Trends in Art Education (1999), pp. 35-36.
Also published in ArTeacher (1999), pp. 33-35.

Dennis E. Fehr, Ed.D.

Two minutes ago I downshifted my Harley-Davidson onto the I-10 exit marked JUNCTION. Now I'm parked atop a lookout from which I behold the little town, the 411 acres of the Texas Tech Center, the north and south forks of the Llano River, and miles of Texas Hill Country stretching across the Edwards Plateau.

I take a deep breath. I wonder how far I can see. Far enough? Last fall I agreed to coordinate Texas Tech's Junction art program. A few months before that I taught my first course here, A Revised History of Western Art. We looked at art by women, non-whites, and other groups who have been left out. Anyway, it was last summer that taught me why art teachers all over Texas call Junction an experience, not a place.

Actually, Junction is a kind of place—a “stop the world; I want to get off” kind of place. It's a place to study painting, drawing, papermaking, woodworking, metals, and mixed media; bookmaking, printmaking, sculpture, glassblowing, and ceramics; photography, electronic media, art history, and art education, with nationally known artists and scholars—Texas Tech's strongest art faculty. We also offer AP credit courses. It's a place to socialize with other artists who are as serious as we are. To sink into our work. To nurture ourselves.

I agreed to coordinate the program because the world needs places like Junction. For centuries Western civilization has eased its guilt over its atrocities with the belief that somehow its technological ingenuity implied an accompanying ethical advancement. Francis Bacon, for example, lumped the two together when he described this process as “the relief of man's estate.” True, some technological advancements—developments in medicine and increases in agricultural production, for example—have ethical components. And some sociological advancements—to name a couple, the invention of democratic government and the notion that religion is about love rather than judgment—have indeed strengthened the ethics of our species.

However, events took a sinister turn in the eighteenth century. Homo sapiens accepted when technology offered the ability to spill more blood than in any of the 60 or so centuries since the emergence of Western civ's first half dozen cornerstones: writing, city-states, private property, war, a male deity, and the subjugation of women. We can imagine thoughtful people of the 1700s suddenly sitting up and paying attention.

The nineteenth century broke its immediate predecessor's record of bloodshed, and our own century has broken the record yet again. What are thoughtful people to think today? Do we have any special reason to think this evil trend will reverse itself in the coming century? Or will the twenty-first century see the use of biological and chemical weapons that make nuclear bombs look benign in comparison? At least with nukes it's over in a flash. Can humanity become ethical enough to prevent this in time? Now, dear reader, are you asking what on earth this has to do with the art program at Junction? Read on.

Imagine this—weeks in a rustic, rural setting, getting up each morning to work on your art. If you want to call the Outside World (it becomes a proper noun toward the end of the second week), you'll find a phone in the administration building—nowhere else. If you want to watch TV, there's one around somewhere—I think I heard it's in the administration building too. The good news is that you probably can watch whatever you want, since you'll likely be alone. And one of the best things about this place is that you can cross the river to downtown Junction and go to the picture show any time you want, and watch any show you want, so long as you want to go on a Friday night and you want to watch the one that's playing. (Hint: The choice usually seems to target the average seventh-grader—perfect for me but probably beneath you.)

Perhaps instead you'll finish up your 12-hour workday by heading “to the river” with the rest of the gang. Someone may sneak in a 12-pack, but now that I'm in charge, don't you dare let me find out. I might throw you out unless you assure me it's Pepsi (and offer me one). At the river, everyone kicks back and talks with friends old and new about each other's work, or the day's deer sightings, or maybe, after a couple Pepsis, the meaning of life. We'll break up around midnight and head for our cabins for a few hours' sleep. No matter how little sleep we catch, getting out of bed doesn't seem as hard at Junction. That's good too, because breakfast is served at eight sharp and you're advised to be on time.

Then of course there are the day activities for your admittedly limited spare time— you can canoe, tube and swim in the south fork of the Llano, or walk its banks adding to your collection of holey rocks (nature's only creations at Junction that are not protected); you can play basketball, volleyball, and softball; you can hike or jog on miles of trails; you can play ping-pong; or you can challenge me at the pool table (be warned that in my dissolute youth I looked like the Fonz, I could run a rack, and I haven't entirely lost my touch). And don't forget the weekend trips to San Antonio.

Yes, we professors will push you, but we'll all get to know each other as people. Pretty fast, in fact. We're in class together for hours a day, and the learning isn't bordered by classroom walls. We interact outside of class. We eat all three meals together. This is part of the Junction mystique—we learn to know each other beyond teacher and student. This interaction creates mutual appreciation, respect, understanding, and communication. It's easier for you to ask questions and for us to respond. Your voice is heard in setting the agenda for your class because your understanding, interests, and educational needs are more visible. And the personal attention we give you is mirrored in the attention you give each other. A sense of community emerges. You may form classroom teams, discovering each others' strengths and using them to the group's advantage—smart learning, in other words.

The pace is rigorous and the work challenging, but on some important level we feel ourselves starting to relax. Old strengths we had forgotten are made new again. We become prepared for the upcoming teaching year. We can greet our students in the fall with the kind of optimism and enthusiasm a Junction summer can provide. In short, we may be better teachers because our human side is showing. Our students will be touched. Bringing our humanity into our teaching creates a space for them to grow ethically. And we made this possible because we first nurtured ourselves—not selfishly, but wisely.

When bonds between people are thin, evil has room to grow. When our bonds are thick, there's less room for evil. Junction thickens bonds. Here's a way to thicken yours:

You can earn your entire 36-hour Master of Art Education degree here in four summers (one credit-hour for each work-intensive week), although some don't mind taking five or six. For that matter, many come back summer after summer simply to take a deep, long artistic breath. And students who don't wish to earn graduate degrees are welcome to take our courses under non-degree status.

People who lack teaching certification are encouraged to apply to our masters program. They will earn certification as they work on their MAEs. Several of the MAE courses even count for certification credit.

Another successful feature of TTU's MAE program is its policy of admitting promising students whose bachelor's degrees are in areas other than art. Before moving to Texas Tech, I coordinated the University of Houston's graduate program. In 1992 one of my students, Mary Fraundorf, whose undergraduate degree is in elementary education, became Teacher of the Year as an art teacher at Quail Valley Elementary in Fort Bend ISD, Sugar Land TX. Another masters student of mine, Donna Pierce, has been nominated twice for Teacher of the Year at Lake Olympia Middle School, also in Fort Bend ISD. Her undergrad degree is in psychology. I transported this policy to Texas Tech.

We also offer an art retreat at Junction each spring to give Texas art teachers a taste of what's in store for summer. Usually on some weekend in April, Texas Tech faculty head south to give workshops in their specializations, and other people from across the state also may present on topics of interest to art teachers (although they have to promise to give Texas Tech a rousing commercial during their presentations).

One mistake I made in this, my virgin year as Junction coordinator, was that I unwittingly scheduled the spring workshop against the Visual Arts Scholastic Exhibition in Austin. I caught you-know-what at the Texas Art Education Association conference in Corpus and I promise it won't happen again.

“Okay, fine, Dennis, so far you've talked about saving the world and how cool Junction is. What do they have to do with each other?”

Well, I think quite a bit. Your subscription to Trends implies that you spend part of your life teaching art to kids. It also suggests that you belong to your professional organization and thus represent the best in our field. I applaud you. You combine two of humanity's noblest endeavors—art and education—and you probably do it well. The truth is that people such as you—and the good moms and dads of this world—are this century's heroes. This parent/teacher coalition offers our best hope for making humanity less violent. Those who seek to change the world with one grand spectacle die failures. Those who actually change the world walk a trail of small, relentless steps—the trail of loving parents and dedicated teachers.

This leads me to a related truth—the kind of intelligence that matters most today is the kind that makes humanity more ethical. By combining ethics with your art teaching, and by valuing yourself enough to periodically rejuvenate the RDIST within, you make tomorrow's world a safer place in perhaps the only effective way—one child at a time. Bless you.

My eyes shift from the Edwards Plateau and I shake myself out of my reverie. I can see better now. I raise myself a couple inches off the seat of the Harley and snap the kick-starter. (Never cared for those sissy electric start buttons.) I listen for a moment to the welcome rumble under me, then I tool the bike down the side of the lookout onto the hard road. I crank the motor. I expect I'll make other beginner's mistakes as the new Junction art program coordinator. They probably won't be catastrophic though, and by helping the Junction Experience to thrive, I'm helping Texas art teachers such as you to make the world a better place.

To apply to Texas Tech University's Masters Program and/or enroll in Junction courses, contact Dennis Fehr at: