02. Thinkers & Doers

I’ve always been a lover of school. It’s exhilarating to be surrounded by freshly purchasedbooks, a rich variety of supplies, desks with different forms and functions, and colorful posters with fonts as bold as their messages. So, it’s almost no surprise that after my would-be illustrious career in video games, I’d follow my heart to teach in a classroom. Well, that vibrant career as a concept artist definitely didn’t come to fruition (yet), but my heart led me to some pretty amazing places. It propelled me to New York and New Jersey for grad school, back home to Florida to cook then design, and onto a campus that I once thought, “I wish I was at the other university instead”. Now I call my current classrooms my home.

My formal teaching career is in its very early stages—a year and a half. My informal teaching career (a semi-fancy way of saying the learning and knowledge-sharing I’ve done throughout my life) is more expansive, but it’s still developing—almost 29 years. I include those years because a lot of my informal tutelage influences my formal approaches (and, unsurprisingly, vice versa). This “life-learning” and “life-teaching” appeared when I would constantly crank out art and then, later, get entangled in my own thoughts.

I believe those two decades led me to my current dilemma: teaching the doers
how to think and the thinkers how to do.

I mentioned before that my uncle inspired me to draw when I was a kid. What really sealed the deal was getting a classic fighting game called Darkstalkers. To add some context—this was during the 90s, arguably the golden era of fighting games. Arcades were booming, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were household names, EB Games, Rhino Games, and Babbages were around, video games came with booklets (my favorite part), huge printed strategy guides were in style, and subscriptions to Gamepro or NintendoPower were the norm. I was 7 when Darkstalkers was released on the Playstation in ’96 and I was so excited to play it! I remember looking through either the booklet or a magazine and drawing every single character. From that moment on, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. From 7 to 17, I drew characters, concepts, re-imagined stories of another favorite series (Rival Schools), and created my own characters. In hindsight, I realized that those 10 years were dedicated to a lot of doing. But, was that a good thing?

Once I started my college career, I was forced to take a different approach. Instead of just creating, I had to justify why these creations existed and why someone should invest in them. I hadn’t thought of that before. This was such a harsh wake up call and I think my work suffered from it. Instead of letting my ideas run wild and sketching my bravest concepts, I was caught in a trap of constant reasoning. No longer could I explore my creativity aimlessly. Now, I had to research, center my efforts, and tell specific stories through attributes like height, weight, race, ethnicity, gender identity, abilities, clothing, weapons (or a lack thereof), and how they exist in their environment. Basically, I was world-building. From 18 to 28, I consumed ideas from books, formed my own perspectives after digesting countless articles, wrote numerous revisions to new characters I didn’t care about, and gave actual meaning to the characters I made in the decade prior. Much like the “doing” years, these recent 10 years were dedicated to immense thinking. But, was it for the best? Even now, I’m unsure of the answer. In a strange twist of fate (or maybe the way it’s supposed to happen in this thing called “adulthood”), I believe those two decades led me to my current dilemma: teaching the doers how to think and the thinkers how to do.

That’s when it finally hit me — many students are taught to be doers, not thinkers.

One assignment I gave centered around a mock client/designer scenario. I provided the students with a project brief and creative brief. Their jobs were to diagnose the design problem (logo and website animation) and propose solutions to help the client. I met with them in one-on-one sessions to go over their work from a client perspective, then from a teacher’s perspective. During one of the meetings, a student proposed an interesting idea to one of my problems. I asked him, “What made you come to this decision?” (In layman’s terms, why did you animate the logo this way.) He was completely stunned and after what felt like 30 minutes (it was about 30 seconds or so), he stuttered and said “uh…what…what do you mean?” I asked “Well, why did you make these design choices?” He went completely blank. At that moment, I realized that he hadn’t thought about his decisions. He worked arbitrarily and couldn’t explain to me the reasons behind his choices. That’s when it finally hit me—many students are taught to be doers, not thinkers. For the rest of the day, I thought, “is this the reason why it’s been so difficult to have them sketch multiple ideas? Is this why they haven’t grasped the creative process?” It’s truly a perplexing situation.

“How do you teach a person to think? Why does a person have to be taught to think in the first place? Shouldn’t we all be able to think? Will I ever get this teaching thing right?” These questions constantly plague my mind. I don’t think I’ll ever “get it right” per se, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out and adapt to inevitable changes. Thankfully, I’ve found solace knowing that other educators have the same concerns and worries. I recently wrapped up an amazing book, To Teach: The Journey, in Comics, written by William Ayers and illustrated by Ryan Alexander-Tanner. Briefly, Ayers shares his experiences as an educator and shares amazing nuggets of wisdom, clarity, and insight. This one has high replay…err…reread value. The entire book is full of quotable material, but one of the many things that impacted me is what he writes in the beginning:

Teaching at its best is not a matter of technique—it’s primarily an act of love.

He later writes another section that hit home:

The work of a teacher—exhausting, complex, idiosyncratic, never twice the same—is, at heart, an intellectual and ethical enterprise…The immense journey of a teacher begins in challenge and is never far from mystery.

As I continue down this path, I’m gradually finding my own balance between thinking and doing. Is it possible to do both, let alone master them equally? Hmm…I think my informal learning will provide me with the answers to some of my questions. I was expecting a nice “happily ever after” conclusion to this post, but that may not be the case. Instead, I’m left with wonder, confusion, a bit of unease, yet a hunger for some clarity. What an interesting way to conclude a semester. Let’s see what happens next…

–Think & Do