Week+1+-+Summary+Paper


 * The Art/Physical Education Connection **

__Logistics__ During our initial meeting as a group, we spent the first hour hashing out some logistics to guide us each week during our discussions. We agreed upon conducting our group as a professional learning community, complete with a wiki website to enable effective communication and a couple of roles to provide some group stability and efficiency. A group of two facilitators will be selected each week that will be responsible for guiding group discussion and updating the website with deadlines and member responsibilities. One editor will be selected each week, responsible for integrating key ideas into a short paper which will then be posted on the website to allow for continued editing from the remaining group members.

__What is “art”?__ The bulk of our discussion centred on finding some common ground between Fine Arts and Physical Education. A few of our members were initially quite surprised to discover the two groups being combined for 410, so some exploration was necessary to find some similarities before any “big issues” were tackled. (It was unnecessary to spend time on any differences between the two disciplines as the group was more interested in building a strong foundation to guide us in our future discussions.) What followed was a round table sharing of each individual’s idea of the disciplines, beginning with art. After breaking each definition down to its main idea, what remained was a definition of art that combined ten individual perceptions of the word. //Art is an evolutionary, “in-the-moment” representation that creates a bridge between people and can result in heightened emotion, perception, and a sense of community. Art involves a passion for creation that makes the ordinary extraordinary. It is a process (not merely a product) and a state of being that involves truth and beauty of truth. Art has the ability to both dull the sharp edges in life, but also has the ability to call attention to the sharp edges. Art often renders the artist vulnerable and open for critique.//

__What is “physical education”?__ Next, we focused on the words “physical education” and what they mean to us as individuals: //Physical education is a marriage between movement and strategic thinking that involves collaboration, critique, learning, and learning how to play fair. It is a focus on activity, well-being, and the pursuit of life-long health. Physical education allows its participants to release, escape, and immerse themselves in the present moment. It is one way to learn how an individual person’s values have been shaped.//

__Finding some common ground__ What struck the group during the discussion was how similar art and physical education are. First, both involve an aspect of vulnerability. Artists and athletes create, leaving themselves open to both criticism and judgement. A second similarity we discussed was the idea of focusing on the journey, rather than the destination. In other words, both disciplines are associated with processes rather than end products. We agreed that most often the process is more rewarding than the end product. A third similarity was the tendency to view both from a balanced and holistic approach. Both disciplines involve the left, logical side of the brain //and// the right, feeling-centred side of the brain. (Perhaps this was why the logo of the brain was chosen over the others!) A fourth similarity was the passion involved in both disciplines. Each member expressed a discernible passion for his or her chosen discipline during our discussion, which may or may not be experienced during a round-table discussion of say math or science. The most discussed similarity was the feeling of truly being immersed in the moment during art and physical education activities. Both necessitate a focus and attention but yet contribute strongly (and may even be the cause) of this “in the moment” feeling (which has often been described as an “a-ha” moment or flow.) It is interesting that during this discussion there were a number of times where it was noted that a definition could be applied to the discipline not being discussed. There is so much overlap between art and physical education that if a stranger had walked in while any given member was speaking, they probably wouldn’t be able to determine whether art or physical education was being defined! (On this wiki site, we included a Wordle to illustrate this. The words used during our discussion were recorded and inputted to create this Wordle. As you can see, the words we used most could easily be related to either discipline.)

__Our outlook__ As a learning community, the group felt that we satisfied our aim of finding some commonality between our two disciplines. We also spent some time outlining some group guidelines that will help us in future discussions. Naturally, there were a number of questions that were left with us following our first discussion that we understand may not be answered during the scope of this course:
 * 1) Is there a connection between art, physical education, and humanity spending too much time living in the past and future? In other words, can art and physical education play a role in helping children find more happiness in the moment?
 * 2) How can we approach other disciplines from an art and physical education perspective to encourage a truly interdisciplinary perspective in learning?
 * 3) During our discussions, it will be inevitable that our members will view our own chosen disciplines from the other’s lens. As the only mixed group in our class, how can we help the other class members view their chosen disciplines from another lens?