Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Peace Essays

Butterfly-Timid

What a leader learns from his or her students is just as important as what he or she give that student. It is the small victories in education that make the job worthwhile. To teach others about how to do anything (like finding a solution to a journey of peace), we take small steps before the apprentice can jump from the nest and fly.

Butterfly-timid, she found courage at drawing board

     After witnessing the upsurge of TAAS scores for our local young people, two things came to mind: 1) if standards are set and con­sequences are upheld, individuals will rise to the challenge, and 2) scores can come up and a rounded education can still be achieved.

     Of course, in a democracy we need individuals who can read and write, earn a living, and vote with intelligence. But we also need leaders. Reading, writing and math are only a small part of leadership training.

At Hillcrest Professional De­velopment School the school population is a snapshot of the district: 40 percent African-American, 30 percent Hispanic, 30 percent Anglo and other.

The Art Center of Waco has had three artists in residence at the school the last two years: two visual artists and a photographer from the Texas Commission on the Arts                                 Artists in Education program.

     Art forces one to think in a broad spectrum. An idea does not have to be set into one discipline. Thinking out of the box can free the mind and spirit to explore new ideas and talents which may lie dormant. In our society, art is out of the box.

     What the Art Center artists learned is that even bright stu­dents are afraid to take chances in their thinking, since failure is always a possibility. If they do not know how something will look until they do it, they are fearful to begin.

      We know that what our society needs is leaders. Leaders are never afraid to make mistakes as long as they are learning from the process and adjusting as they proceed. Art is essential to leadership training.

     Here is a story about a little girl at Hillcrest PDS who had no problems with academics, since she was reading and writing be­yond her grade level. She was in kindergarten in terms of age but in second grade in her reading and fourth grade in her math skills.

     She sat quietly as the resident artist drew examples of four kinds of portraits: Cubist, Greek, Afri­can and Oriental. Slowly, the artists took the children through the process. Each child had done his or her signature and ab­stracted it in terms of Cubist thinking.

     They had talked about an Aphrodite marble statue from 5^th century Greece, and Ivory Coast mask, and a seated bronze Buddha, identifying each culture with its form and exploring the cultural meaning behind each work.

Broke into tears

Some time had been spent in preparing each student to try his or her hand at drawing in these three universal cultural ways.  As soon as the students were told to pick up their pencil, this little girl broke into tears.

     The teacher said that this happened when any new experience was introduced.

     As an aid the artist told her, “First, you shoot the arrow; then you paint the targets.”  Do first things first.  Targets not yet drawn are easy to see once the attempt is made.  “K.I.S.S.”. we told her. “Keep it simple sweetheart!”

     Pick up the pencil.  Think about where the first line is placed. Start drawing. Do not be afraid to ask for help. It took six days to get this child to try, for her to jump into the unknown. And here was one of the brightest possible future leaders.

     Finally, when she tried, she was excited about drawing. It was a new way to explore the unknown. She also tried some new ways of writing about her drawn subjects. Later I was told that she lived in one of Waco's housing develop­ments and her parents were concerned about her safety, therefore keeping her inside.

     This is the same girl who screamed when, outside to draw, a butterfly had landed on her shoulder. She said she was afraid it would "sting me."

     This was not an isolated inci­dent, although it was an extreme one. It was surprising to see so many bright students who would not take chances, who would not jump into exploring an idea before: they knew the "answer" from the teacher.

      In our age, leadership for the future is what our schools must create. In an information age, leadership never has all the data needed to make a decision.

      Data gathering can never re­place knowledge (how to make the data meaningful). It was exciting to see students take "a deep water plunge" before they had all the answers. They learned through art that decisions are the end of a process, not the given in its inception.

      For all of us, in our data-filled age, first you shoot the arrows and then paint the targets.

And once the student has flown, the teacher crawls back into being an artist, a citizen, a statesman, a craftsman, a dancer or just an ordinary human being, trying to find out who he or she is and share that knowledge with others (so that they can find their own true self). One way to explore this inner self is poetry. It gets straight to the spirit.

The Glimmer of Lights-Together Alone

At the keyboard of life's last thousand years,

I weave a spell of reality around the word

And refresh the winds of time

So that memories are now and again.

On a hill of time watching the millennium

Grind to a stammering stop, at a way station

In the journey to dusk, I nap anew.

So it slows to its end. It grinds to slower

Pictures of what has journeyed before

Like the old flicker films slowed motion    

And people expected less but got more.

So my life is sliding to a termination,

A germination of all that has gone before.

It is the glimmer of lights that keeps me going

On this journey of wonder, a passage of ticks.

So it all comes together in a familiar scene.

It comes from recalling this approach with caution,

With expected magic, with winning ways and by

Ways that no one foresaw in the mist.

So it comes in shrouded wisdom of burlap

And sits at my grandchild's smile-filled face.

Never noticing things outside her inner circle

Of pleasure. Her corners turn up with a twinkle

So she knows I know and she goes as I go.

Two generations apart with one heart

Linking our time together, our dreams unwrapped

At the end of the second millennium of man.

So kind to each other, caring for the other,

Near the second millennium of woman.

What is there to know that is not known?

What is imagined that has not been dreamed?

So we wait the stroke of midnight, together alone.