Candy as reward in school

You might not agree with any of the sides in a debate as much as you support one. The teachers' strike that started in June 2014 lasted into October. This was a grim reminder for parents of their helplessness in the power struggles between the politics of society and the politics of its unions. Finally when teachers were back in class the sense of relief was accompanied by renewed awareness: we - parents - have a considerable responsibility to keep our eyes open to make sure our interests are not compromised.

A few years ago when our daughter was in grade three we’ve already had a short exchange with her teacher. Last year, with another teacher, there wasn’t much discussion on that topic but we had a sense that there’s still something going on. Not too bad: our daughter is really careful and responsible. When it comes to school and candies, school and sweets, I’ve noticed that the challenge of keeping our kids away from stuffing themselves is a complex one. We have Halloween and Christmas, this event and that. And we have teachers handing candies as rewards in class.

I’m sure we all want to see our kids encouraged by their educators to excel. But again, I don’t enjoy the realization that candies are used as rewards by teachers. For me and my wife candies and sweets should stay out of the toolbox. When I say toolbox, I mean the various methods teachers use to engage with students in class.

I would be more than happy to realize all parents, staff and admin agree with us. However, reality usually has its own way of living. There is a debate over this issue that can be seen through quick browsing on the web. The following is a small sampling.

“As parents, we help our kids develop the lens through which they see food. Will they see snacks as something to do when they watch TV or are bored or will they snack as a way to refuel between meals? Will they seek sweets as a reward for their hard work or look for other constructive ways to feel good?” (source)

"Giving children candy as a reward is like saying, ‘Here is something that is not very healthy for you as a reward for being good.’ Does this make sense?” (source)

Just Say NO to Food Rewards (source)

Student rewards…that aren’t junk food! (source)

Eliminating ‘candy bribery’ in schools (source)

Other Links: PDf detailing constructive rewards; PDF of an article in oposition to candy giving in class; Debate platform with room for comments and voting;

Many kids, maybe to a degree all kids, see school and teachers as a source of authority even if one to challenge. The use of candy as reward is nutritionally unhealthy and morally questionable. Rewarding with candy can backfire on many levels in the future. However, my guess is that this topic is one that parents and educators alike are a bit confused with, maybe embarrassed or even unaware of its importance.

Nevertheless keeping this discussion open and ongoing is an opportunity to better understanding between us, members of a fragmented community with a mutual interest: successful growth and development of our kids.

Your Inner Mars Bar

This is a story from when our daughter was about six.

Inbal heard me talk about chocolate when we’d finished dinner and learned to know that I was just talking about it. We were not going to have any.

Suddenly she just started crying and nothing really made sense. No matter what we said she kept crying and the tears, pouring out her eyes seemed like a leaking roof on a rainy night. In an effort to find a way out of the tragedy I told her (knowing it won’t work but what tha heck) that I like sweets too. 

"I walk past the candy bars at Safeway many times" I told here, "There were occasions when I’d purchased a Mars Bar and enjoyed it. But in general, sweets are not healthy food and we try not to eat too many of them. It’s been quite a while now that I pass beside the Mars Bars and tell them: 'today I am NOT going to eat you'.”

Inbal’s gaze changed from miserable weeping to compassionate curiosity:

“Next time when you don’t eat the Mars Bar bring it to me”.

And this was it. The crying stopped.
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The challenge of keeping our kids away from stuffing themselves is a complex one. This post is a side story to another one in response to the use of candy as reward in school.

Drop Shadow - In The Making

I met Michael Shandrick at a design thinking event back in 2011. This whole series of documentation was inspired by a conversation I've had with him a short while ago. We were discussing processes. In response to his description of a script he was engaged in writing, I've asked him about the possibility of him posting the story. He seemed pretty intrigued by the idea. As we were exchanging more thoughts I've realized the same idea could apply to me. This is the fourth post following First Stages, Resurrection and Statement.

Just a minute or two before our walking tour of Vancouver in the Design Thinking unConference

As soon as I embark on the act of executing my thoughts, the process itself is a form of result. However, it is also an exploration. You could even see it as an adventure, where not all the answers are known. The creative process can be planned in detail yet reality imposes hurdles in many forms. Time and money are the most basic of them. Proper planning helps in balancing the many components that the process entails as it unfolds. However, people get sick, accidents happen, new ideas come up. You can't anticipate everything.

The beauty of a process exists in any of its stages.

'Drop Shadow' as a work of art is an analogy to this process. When I had started working on it, the plywood squares I was painting on, represented pixels of the digital world. Technically, I've placed them together as one surface and occasionally shuffled them to add a new layer of paint. That has generated a degree of arbitrariness to the composition. A pixel is like that. It is a sort of canvas that accommodates whatever info is directed in its way. When all the pixels together form an image that makes sense to us, communication exists.

Scale is a fascinating feature of space.

As my world expanded into the urban realm, my interest in reflecting that in my art inspired me to look at "my pixels" with a new sense of purpose. For me, a city is the most complex product of human society. Its most challenging complexity is the fact that we are one of its components - its most important one. Without the city our lives would be something else. Without us, it won't exist, or at least slowly degrade into oblivion (have a look at this).

Reflections happen with smooth surfaces, within computer programs and in your head.

In this process my camera and computer were used as painting accessories. Taking photos of the acrylic squares had allowed me to manipulate the image before continuing to add paint. The desktop monitor enabled an enhanced flexibility in viewing the work and experimenting. Planning and execution progressed very quickly following decisions made over a compelling variety of options. Plywood, as a building material, allowed me to cut existing pieces and further play with their layout.

The side of a building in construction where the concrete pouring "imperfections" are still evident. 

This layering of processes is what I find compelling in everything I do. Whether it is an idea or an object, a present reality or a vision for the future; when I look at them as raw material, my options of action are wide open. The story is the action that connects everything together. Each story sheds a light of its own on our existence.  Light and shadow play equal roles in our sense of space. If for no other reason, naming my project 'Drop Shadow' sounds almost inevitable.

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This post was actually posted on August 28 2014. I had meant to publish it on the date that appears here but simply lost  track of my list of drafted files. Interestingly, in Blogger you can control the publishing date to reflect your interests.

stepping-stones

The block on Kingsway between Wales and Rhodes streets has light pedestrian traffic. As we are installing the last mosaic pieces in the two entries to the park the protective fence is still there. Norquay Park has been a construction zone since July of last year. The few people that pass by either slow down beside us or stop.

They are all curious as to when the park will be open again. They also notice the mosaic pieces and seem impressed with their beauty. Along the progress with installation we’ve gradually been able to get the sense of significance this project has in the upgraded park. The entry pieces have a good impact as gate decorations.

The history of Still Creek is one in many similar stories of urban industrialization, reflection and rehabilitation. Today the Vancouver part of the creek is still mostly hidden in underground pipes or behind chain link fences. From its designation as the most polluted stream in BC in the 1980s, much progress has been made and much more is required. Serious work has been taken to bring it back to a liveable natural element in urban space. The Norquay Park 2010 Clean Water Mosaic project is one stepping stone in a long educational journey.

Funding for our part of the journey came from the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, the Vancouver Neighborhood Matching Fund and Collingwood Neighborhood House. The intention of this collaboration between budgetary resources is to facilitate community interaction. Participation in the building process of the park enhances the sense of ownership over the neighbourhood.

Members in the community were brought together to create a visual reminder for all to enjoy. Twenty pieces were created in this process and are now integrated in the concrete sections of the paths in the park. After entering either from its west or east entries you are welcome to explore the park and find the other mosaic pieces. All of them are a result of many hours shared by community members who participated in our workshops. It is our pleasure to thank them all, seniors, adults and youth for their contribution.

Installing our mosaics provided us with the opportunity to work closely with the architects and builders who were responsible for the function of the park. The result of their work is a fabulous space with a great sense of place.

The conclusion of this project brings me back to its starting point. In the research for mosaic making we met Liz Calvin and Bruce Walther. These two mosaic artists’ work can be seen in many places around and out of town. Without their generosity this project would have looked completely different. A sample of their collaboration can be seen in Downtown Vancouver where a set of eighteen pieces are placed.

Many more contacts were made throughout the process. Yoko and I are grateful to all who helped us get to this stage. Our own collaboration started with mutual interest in this experience and ends with excitement over the accomplishment. Just like the small pieces of a mosaic tile tell a story, the whole set of twenty expands this into space and time. This is a reflection on industrialization and rehabilitation.

always longer than you expect

The concrete was hard enough to step and jump on three days after it was poured. What you don’t see at that stage is the process of curing it goes though that takes about a month. Within that time it’s better not to lay our mosaic tiles in their recesses. Waiting for the concrete slab to cure allows adhesion with the mortar for the mosaic tiles to build up properly.

The plywood board is easily extracted from the recess.
An unwelcome puddle of water is exposed underneath.

By the time we could start it was already the end of October. A day or two of rain, and we need to wait. A few days of sunshine and it becomes colder. Proper setting of our mortar is sensitive to moisture and low temperatures. With the first tile we had started laying we realized that the opportunity was slipping away. The rest of the job will have to wait until spring.

A peanut buttery feel to the mix feels good
and is a suitable consistency.

Each tile will have a stained concrete band that is our choice for transition between the mosaic image and its surrounding gray paving. In order to achieve a clean line we need to fine tune our method of applying the stained concrete into the gap.

We surround the mosaic tile with a strip of masking taped cardboard
to leave room for the grout between the tile and the concrete band.

When we grout this piece we will also have a chance to see what other techniques we have to implement. This is a technically easy stage but it needs the same attention to details as we’ve invested in the process up to now. Grouting can drastically alter the appearance of a mosaic tile. If that happens we’d like it to be for the better. This is why I always tell people and try to remember myself: It always takes longer than you expect.

the best you can

Urban design might sound like a field that deals with inanimate components of the city: spaces, buildings, roads and other built environments. One of the reasons I've joined the certificate program in SFU is my perception of the urban as an extension of the human, physically and socially. I'm happy to find the SFU Urban Design program delivering an approach that runs along a similar line.

The plywood board is later taken away and leaves a recess
where the tile will be installed

The mosaic workshops are wrapping up to their final days of fabricating pieces. Soon we will start installing them in Norquay Park. Most of the concrete that will house our tiles has recently been poured. Each mosaic piece, as an inanimate illustration of water related creatures, is also a reflection of a person or people who created it. We've had school kids, teenagers, adults and seniors participating in this project. I've had the fortune of following some of them go through an inspiring creative process.

The story behind each tile is personal as well as artistic

There are many ways to work on the things you are currently busy with. There is only one way that I can consider to be right: doing the best you can. This is a decision that is inherently an attitude. As soon as you reach that decision, your work is pretty easy. From there you can only improve.

Some of the more compelling results come from challenges
like this somewhat messy start

Guiding people to embrace this attitude is a challenge I wasn't fully aware of getting into before joining this project. I am now looking at our finished mosaics and can't wait to see them in place. Whether it was an hour that some spent with us or a few months that others labored, each brought a piece of their own life into this. The story of each tile starts with an image anyone can see and extends to the world of the people who created it.

Grouting will probably bring this tile
to an even better expression of art.

Urban design deals with the built world and is concerned with us, living its story.

commitment

My perception of the urban environment as a tool for the use of human society brought me to engage with this project. Eighteen water drop shaped pieces are planned for the pathways and two circular mosaic pieces will mark the entry to the park. The collaboration between planning parties is the driving force behind proper urban management. The result can turn into great living conditions.

How does this relate to making mosaics with the public? When we work on laying each small piece of broken ceramic onto the surface of our concrete base, a personal story unfolds. That story will be viewed by other people who visit the park. They will have a chance to go through a journey into their imagination while walking along the pathways. Already I've had the opportunity to notice the many interpretations some of our finished pieces excite.

The light gray areas mark the surfaces where the mosaic tiles
will be placed. Click the image to zoom in
and see the placements for the mosaic tiles.

The architects have a job to do in designing this park. The builders are in charge of putting it in place. When construction is done, it is the public that will be there to live with the results. Having members of the community participate in putting a piece of their lives into the park is a neat way of tying the ends. Our taxes go into paying for this development. Our hands are still there to be part of building it. It's like baking your own cake instead of buying it in the grocery store.

These forms will be sunk flush into the concrete surface.
The resulting recesses will house the mosaic tiles.

As simple as making mosaics can be, the fact that they are going to be part of public space requires a degree of coordination that I find intriguing. Each party has a role to perform. By working together the process promotes an opportunity to make the most out of collaboration. Having a community arts project as part of this maintains a balance between the professional and the personal.

making sense of it all.

community-art

When we will look at the process we are going through these days in twenty years, what we will see is a result. The beauty of a fine process is that it can be seen in a result you enjoy looking at many years later. Our ingredients for this are planning, right team and leadership. From how things look up to now we are on the right track.

This week the two first mosaic pieces were completed. Finishing a high quality 1 square foot tile requires more than a two hour workshop session that we schedule weekly for our groups. Instead of waiting with each tile to be completed by the same person who started it, we moved some of them between groups to add pieces to the partially laid surface. This helped in two fronts: finishing tiles quickly without haste and generating a true sense of communal collaboration. 

We got to a point where one of our biggest challenges is people getting excited and engaged. Usually they just put too little mortar on a tile or lay them so that nothing seems to resemble the intended image. Add genuine interest and you can end up with a bunch of small disasters that no one knows exactly what to do with. This is where leadership comes in handy. We have great leaders helping us in guiding youth in one group. The group of adults seems to understand the need to consult our guidance. Our own leadership is then a matter of balancing between keeping a sense of interest in the work and sensitivity to each person contributing their time and energy to this project.

The demolition of the park that started a short while ago is now transitioning into pockets of construction. By the end of this month we might even see some concrete paths being poured. In those paths we will have recesses to accommodate our tiles. Although there's still a lot of work ahead of us, completion feels very close. 

learning is one thing. implementing is another.

Facilitating a Matching Fund workshop is a constant process of learning. Whoever joins us for an hour or a few sessions has unique skills, expectations and interests. For us that means we need to be many things to many people. How to do this changes from day to day. 

Yoko on the left with
the Renfrew Community Center youth group

Yoko and I are working as a team since we met less than two months ago. I'm really happy with how well we get along. Each of us learns from the other and we both manage to review our process and make decisions following each discussion. Whatever we go through in a workshop generates insights into the steps ahead. This is how we find ways of transferring our knowledge and experience to our audience.

Placing tile fragments on paper is a quick way
to feel the process of mosaic creation

The differences between kids and adults are noticeable in terms of ability to concentrate, understanding of language and amount of energy. What I've noticed as similarities is a generality that I'm taking as fact and nothing more. It is an impression that is followed by change that brings me at the end of a process to re-assess my own perception: Most of our visitors start with hardly any ability to imagine what they'd like to create. Through our guidance and leadership a gradual change is taking place in front of our eyes.

One person creates a design. Another lays tiles.
Some of our results are thoroughly collaborative

We need that change to happen if we want to generate results that reflect our capabilities. There is no question in our own ability to produce mosaic tiles that people can appreciate. The challenge is in helping our audience succeed in making similar, high quality results we would like to see in the renovated Norquay Park. In itself, this aspiration raises questions over issues relating to art, quality, and authority. It also raises questions over how far we can go within the structure of the Matching Fund.

From a crude freestyle laying start,
we moved on to fine details and attentive focus

To judge by where we are at in this collaboration, we have gone very far. We intend to continue improving on that.

mind off; hands on. community building

You can be done with laying tiles for a small mosaic in a short one hour and a half session. When it comes to working with the community this is what most people want on the one hand. On the other, the promise to have them learn is greatly compromised this way.

The hands-on approach allows for a fulfilling experience. The trick is to turn this into a rhythmic succession of learning waves. People can then both make something with their own hands and gain pieces of knowledge through their hands. The opportunity starts with a simple "I don't know how to draw". You never know immediately what makes people say that but with patience and persistence I usually find out that the person had something else on their mind. It could be the task that wasn't to their liking or simply a way to get some attention.

It's hard to predict exactly how a broken tiles mosaic will look like. The hammer strokes randomly produce pieces that are then placed on the design in a process similar to solving a puzzle. Playing with tiles before drawing a design on paper, helps in envisioning a style. This can later on be reproduced with realistic expectations. It would be interesting to see how the image above translates into a mosaic with the broken tiles system.

The same can be said about this drawing. Two variants are the main influence upon the quality of the final piece: the skill level of your audience and each of the participants' degree of engagement.

The sense of ownership that evolves through the process is present within the group no matter what age they are. The real benefit though of this project is getting people to interact in a way that is both fun and educational. A city needs this type of community building to really serve its purpose.

what people will understand

The design process takes us through steps of exploring options before we start fabricating. We'd like to check grout color, both within the tile and surrounding it; seeing the proportion of a tile on site can give a sense of its impact; understanding what to expect is also helpful when working in a team with a wide variety of skill levels. The Norquay Park mosaic project is a Matching Fund operation. Anyone from the community is invited to participate in workshops designed to facilitate the fabrication of mosaic tiles. Yoko and I will later on install them on site.

The color of grout greatly affects the way a mosaic looks. In this example the exact same design of tiles is completely transformed when illustrated with three different shades of grout.

It's also useful to get a sense of how a piece might look as its surroundings age. A quick test can let us make decisions relating to priorities ranging from choice of tiles to selection of colors. Three sidewalks of different degrees of wear were shot for this spread. The image of the tile was gently manipulated to illustrate a similar process of aging.

As we are making progress with the workshops, it's useful to continue exploring some of the techniques we will be using with the public. Some would step into work without hesitation. Others will express difficulties with unexpected issues. "I'm too lazy today" I've heard on the first session. Another one can't draw. The fact that they come to this workshop by their own choice puts things in an interesting perspective. The challenge in education is in what others will understand, not what they don't.

Other tests are made on the way. Some are merely illustrations done on the computer. But it's always working with the real materials when results start to give you a tangible sense of what things will actually look like. Even then, the tools we have on the computer help in saving time, money, and resources.

Then it's time to interact with our artists - the kids and other men and women from the community. They come to have fun, but are about to create a legacy for their own neighborhood.

mosaic-art

These days I'm working with Yoko Tomita, a community artist, on the design and delegation of making mosaics for a City of Vancouver park. We started by discussing techniques and researching possibilities.

Around forty grade six kids from a local school have already created drawings of creatures related to water. The theme we are addressing is 'clean water'. We are going to create 18 mosaic pieces of a square foot surface area where tiles will be laid based on the designs we got from the school kids.

After testing with tiles and materials the first workshop will start Wednesday this week. Collingwood Neighborhood House together with a Parks Board matching fund are sponsoring this project. The plans are posted on the Vancouver website. The most prominent features of the renovated park will be a new water spray area and a basketball field.

We are also about to work on two larger mosaic pieces that will become feature decorations located at the entry to the park. Resources on the web for making mosaics are limitless. Still, as you start working on a piece, every detail involved in the creation of this form of art influences the style and quality of the finished tile. It is fascinating to see this collaboration come to life. I'm looking forward to go through the rest of the project.

tag lines

This week I was asked: If you could be teleported to anywhere for one night and one day where would it be and why? On a drive home before I've seen this question I had been listening to a few words on the radio that dealt with religion. My response was inspired by that radio talk: "I'd be thrilled to sit beside God and get a sense of what it's like to manage a world inhabited by atheists like me".

It is a daily fascination for me to think of what makes people behave the way they do. Very few people I know seem to balance between their perception of life and reality in a way that satisfies them. Somehow they make connections between events that have no functional relation. Based on their conclusions they become frustrated by the lack of results they get from their honest efforts.

God in that sense is the big question mark we are all trying to find the answer to.