Some Thoughts on "The Conversation Game"

While writing a new art curriculum, in search of a way for my students to explore where artists get their ideas, I came upon “The Conversation Game,” which was developed by Marvin Bartel, Ed. D. Follow this link to see the lesson: http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/self.html In the article accompanying the lesson, he wrote about one of his biggest challenges as a teacher:

“I had a problem. I was good at teaching skills, but teaching technicians was not enough. My teaching needed to find ways to communicate this autobiographical nature of art to students in a way that made their own mind, soul, experience, and values available to them and more important to them. Just assigning this was not enough to see it happen. I know there are those who say art cannot be taught, but that did not keep me from trying.”

I have been wondering how I could inspire my students and teach them to get excited about coming up with their own ideas. It sounded to me like this teacher was on the same wavelength. One focus that I have found to be particularly helpful in area is getting students to ask questions. I have mostly explored different ways of getting students to ask questions about artwork. However, the goal of the Conversation Game is to get students to ask questions about each other.

“When students practice the ability to form questions, they are exercising their critical thinking abilities and skills. Learning to ask good questions is learning critical and artistic thinking habits.” Until reading this article, I have been thinking of art as a catalyst for asking questions, not the other way around. Although I have heard artists refer to their artwork as being explorations of ideas and concepts, I hadn’t thought about the fact that this was necessarily advantageous to the artist.

Dr. Bartel stresses the fact that artistic ideas come from all of life, and they come when you least expect it. Part of coming up with great ideas is learning to take a real interest in life, and a great place to start is taking interest in the lives of others. Central to this game is asking questions about other students’ lives, and points are awarded for coming up with the most original questions. I think this approach to teaching creative thinking would be successful, since students might not be as prone to getting bogged down by a supposed need to come up with some grand idea out of thin air. It shows them in a very practical way how one idea can lead to another, and how great ideas start from talking, thinking about, and living everyday life. I also like the fact that it helps the students think outside of their own world, and become interested in someone else’s. This is something that I think we especially need to strive to teach at the middle school level. I am going to use this lesson today with my 6th and 7th grade classes, and am excited to see how it works out. In the future, I intend to use this toward the beginning of the school year.