Remembering Ourselves or Remembering Our Productivity: Student Art as Technologies of Memory
Mark T. S. Currie, PhD Candidate, University of Ottawa
Looking at this drawing of the Eiffel Tower, I have to say, that while I’ve never been to Paris and seen the tower in person, I’ve seen it many times in photographs and movies, and I don’t remember there being a “10+” in any of those images. Is this a new addition that I’m not familiar with? It’s an interesting choice. I’m no city planner or architect, so I’m no expert, but I don’t know that I would’ve — sorry, what’s that? Oh, it’s not part of the tower or the surrounding scenery? The “10+” is the grade given by a teacher on a student’s art for a project? So, the teacher didn’t really want students to create art; they wanted them to produce a commodity. And if, in years to come, this student ever looks back on this drawing, what are they going to remember from this experience? As it is a school project, indeed, it’s going to be graded, but by putting the “10+” directly on the art, the teacher has put a sort of price tag on it, giving it a numerical and quantifiable value and muddying the possibility of finding aesthetic, emotional, personal, and/or memory value.
When students are asked to create something, whether it be through drawing, painting, writing, building, or anything else, the creative process isn’t just about developing different creative skills. The point isn’t to push students into becoming professional artists or writers or architects. They might pursue these things, and that’s fantastic, but for all students, no matter which direction they go in life, these tasks of creativity are about developing their own visions, trying new forms of expression, and uncovering avenues within themselves in their always-ongoing act of becoming. The drawing of the Eiffel Tower, then, can one day be looked back upon as an artifact of the student-artist’s development as a person — a marker for remembering where they’ve come from. I assume that “10+” is a good grade, so there is a memory of the student achieving academic success, but the position of the grade on the page — standing out in the thick blue ink and usurping the primary focus — overshadows potential memories that show the self (at least for this student) as diligent and dedicated, focused and fastidious, and willing to share a vision with others.
Thinking about the drawing of the Eiffel Tower triggered memories of my own experiences in creating art at around the same age. In Grade 8 (approximately 13 years old; I’m currently 36), I drew the tree shown here. When I drew this, I don’t think I looked at the process or the final sketch as something that would be a marker for memory. At the time, it was just an assignment for art class, and, perhaps like the student who drew the Eiffel Tower, I just wanted to receive a good grade on it. I feel safe now saying that I did a decent job on the sketch — it looks like a tree — but over 20 years after drawing it, I don’t recall the grade I received for it and nor does it matter now. This tree carries with it meanings other than my academic productivity.
My parents were kind enough to frame my tree and it now hangs in their hallway alongside my sister’s tree drawing (she had the same assignment in her Grade 8 art class two years later). I don’t think I’m being modest when I say that the quality of my tree drawing is good for Grade 8 but at a level that only parents might display in their home. However, the drawing represents something that transcends aesthetic value. Sometimes we don’t realize and see in the moment our own development and the ways we uncover aspects of ourselves. It takes our own looking back. The drawing is now what Wertsch (2002) would call a technology of memory, operating in the mediation of meaning-making that, in this case, creates a recollection of myself as a person who challenges himself, grows through experience, and fosters relationships through sharing creative expressions.
Not everything a student creates will be framed or even posted on the fridge. The point isn’t that we need to save every doodle or draft to remember our past journey and understand our ongoing selves. The point is that there is potential for our creations to have self-shaping effects long after we put down the pencil or paintbrush or whatever tool we’re using, and students should have the opportunity to experience those effects. The Eiffel Tower drawing could’ve been a technology of memory for the self. Instead, the “10+” took the memory spotlight and exemplified the education system into which students are immersed or forced (depending on your perspective), where it’s not about creating for the sake of being creative or using creative expression to provoke connections. It’s much more about getting the grade; it’s much more about honing skills and competing to be better than the rest. It’s wonderful that the student who drew the Eiffel Tower received a good grade (as they should), but a teacher shouldn’t be making the grade the thing and stripping students of those possibilities for saving and sharing creative expressions and memories of themselves in experiences of becoming.
References
Wertsch, J. V. (2002). Voices of collective remembering. Cambridge University Press.
University Press.
