New Century Learning

This is from the website of the school I will be teaching at in Barcelona. I thought it was very Altermodernesque.


New Century Learning
Our children live in a culture of YouTube, blogs, iPods, MP3s, cell phones, and the Internet. The advent of these tools has profoundly affected all aspects of life, especially, what it means to be a democratic citizen.
At BFIS, we believe technology, coupled with thoughtful instruction and supervision, will enable students to communicate, investigate, and create in contemporary modes where new literacies are essential. New literacies include:
Appropriation: the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content.
Collective Intelligence: the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal.
Distributed Cognition: the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities.
Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources.
Multitasking: the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
Negotiation: the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.
Networking: the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information.
Play: the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem solving.
Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes.
These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom.
Committed to learning that is driven by inquiry, problem solving, and communication, BFIS must provide the resources for students to evolve in these critical ways— as culture makers. To realize this, the schools’ infrastructure must support global learning by offering access to state-of-the-art applications and tools. 
Beginning Spring 2008, the New Century Learning (NCL) initiative, a three-tier strategy of tool upgrade, professional development, and technology integration will be implemented over a three-year period. NCL will be foundational to realizing our mission of cultivating multi-literate, global citizens of the twenty-first century.
It is both timely and significant that the European Commission has named 2008 as the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. Its purpose is to celebrate the continent’s cultural diversity while also highlighting the need for greater intercultural communication.
Similarly, at the end of January, BFIS and the American School of Barcelona will be co-hosting with the US Consulate General, a round table symposium for directors of international schools in Barcelona, along with their country’s respective cultural ambassador. The event, “Preparing Global Citizens for a Collaborative Future,” will take place at the North American Institute. Its goal is to forge new collaborative relationships based on the exchange of resources, knowledge and practices that are consistent with the development of true global citizens.
The world is in need on an educated citizenry who will choose to live, learn and lead in ways that support life. Benjamin Franklin and other members of the international school community are uniquely positioned to collectively impact this vision. We have the opportunity and responsibility to cultivate such open-minded citizens.
Our goals for this symposium also include the generating of a range of inventive ideas and action items such as partnerships with major cultural institutions, a youth leadership round table, interleague sports, and a city-wide arts festival.
It is befitting that BFIS take the lead in convening—for the first time—Barcelona’s international schools to define a sense of hopefulness for the future. It is part of what schools do when they strive to become extraordinary.

Information on International Schools

Teach International Education http://www.tieonline.com/ ($40 annual fee and worth every penny)

International School Services http://www.iss.edu/index.asp

Search Associates http://www.searchassociates.com/

Benjamin Franklin International School http://www.bfischool.org/ (This is where I'll be teaching and they have a great website)

Other Helpful Information
I also know of Queens' University in Kingston, Ontario (where I got my job) and Hunter College in New York City. The largest International Teacher fair is at the University of Iowa.

Most schools have you commit to two years as a minimum, occasionally you'll see one or three years, and but you may continue to sign contracts beyond that if you enjoy the location. Middle Eastern countries offer as little as 6 month commitments and pay really well as they have a harder time finding qualified candidates to teach there and have a high percentage of American military children.

When you see a percentage listed next to a school that is the approximate percentage you are able to save. This is their way of giving you a better idea of your salary in comparison to the cost of living in that location.

Families and significant others who are teachers as well are often welcome and even preferred by some schools as they often view that as a reason for you to stay at your position longer.

I plan to use this blog to document my travels so stay tuned!
Also, if you have any additional questions for me I will be checking my regular email more often than this blog so send me a message at tiffanyemerick@gmail.com

Take Care!

The Wheel!

Ceramics Round 3

In The Raticant, Bourriaud poses questions regarding globalization, multiculturalism, and postmodernism and the place these words have within the context of the art world. For example, why is it that globalization has so often been discussed from sociological, political, and economic points of view, but almost never from an aesthetic perspective? What is happening in the world is reflected in the art world and in dialogue with the contexts in which artworks are produced, creating a global vocabulary and dialogue. According to Bourriaud, within the context of postmodernism, multicultural ideology is 'a machine for erasing the origins of the "typical" and "authentic" elements that it propagates. The postmodern scene is one of contradictions where there is a play between universalism and preservation of the primitive, creating a tense relationship between colonizer and colonized. Modernism was even more far removed in its attempt at universalism because of its roots being purely western and rooted in industrialization. With the global and altermodernism landscape of today being embraced by most, is in a tough to consider the potential negative of cultures overlapping so much that cultural identity and tradition is in danger of being lost. We can defend diversity only by raising it to the level of cherished value which again can feel condescending. So, what do we do? We become radicant, setting ones roots in motion, growing new roots as it advances, denying them to completely define ones' identity, translating ideas, transcoding images, transplanting behaviors and exchanging rather than imposing, where journey takes form in contemporary culture.

As far as projects, all is well but the pressure is on. My boots have been bisque fired and I'm still planning to test tiles with Iron Oxide. I'm happy with my slip casted water bottles. I feel like they will be very marketable and am looking forward to treating each one very differently with glazes and plan to do a bit of experimenting. I have made twelve, two of which I trashed and ten of which have a quality of craftsmanship I can feel proud of. The wheel has been really frustrating for me but I have managed to make two cylinders for my mugs. Centering takes me a half an hour and is still not second nature but I'm feeling increasingly more comfortable with the whole process. I am enjoying it and wish I had more time with it but such is the nature of this course. I don't know if I have access to a wheel in my classroom in Barcelona but if so, I plan to take the time to master it next year!

Ceramics Round 2

The article The Margins discusses the age old debate of art verses craft within the medium of clay and how the materiality of clay affects the content of a piece. In the article Ceramics is broken down into three main veins, technical, historical and conceptual. A main purpose of this article is to discuss a shift in artists being trained in a specific medium that they produce work within to considering the material as changeable and able to combine with other mediums to attain a conceptual idea where the material is chosen because of the way in which it supports the concept.

The article Altermodernism is about a show at the Tate Triennial 2009 curated by Nicolas Bourriaud. He claims that Postmodernism is dead and labels where the art world is and will continue to be as 'altermodern'. The word is complex and has many different angles including being a reaction against standardization and commercialism and an embrace of globalization and its economic, political and cultural conditions. He refers to the experience of altermoderism as one of wandering- in space, time and mediums. The eight components or 'continents' of altermoderism are 8 Continents of Altermodernism are energy, travel, borders, exiles, archive, viatorisation, heterochronia and docu-fiction. The later three being words constructed by Bourriaud. In talking about these continents he says, "our civilization, which bears the imprints of a multicultural explosion and the proliferation of cultural strata, resembles a structureless constellation, awaiting transformation into an archipelago.” I'm not sure how much I feel like altermodernism has 'stuck' in the art world as what artists, curators and critics uniformally refer to as the art movement we are currently in. I say this because the term was foreign to me until reading this article that was written over a year ago. However, I do feel that it well describes what is happening with the world at large as well as the art world. This generation is less multicultural and more global, aware of the differences of others from the beginning. However, there is still an issue of access. Most are now able to access the internet and all of the amenities that come with it but for those that don't, it becomes an issue of privilege rather than availability.

Weekend Warriors!

Ceramics Round 1

After making clay and test tiles and experimenting with different routes toward a conceptual theme for my first hand built project, I think I have come to a place of clarity. For this piece I am hand building a pair of life sized boots with coils. It has been difficult to shape the toe to ankle, front portion of the boot but have succeeded. I think I'll wait to share more about the concept of this project until the wet critique for those who are not sure of what I'm making my boots for.

The readings we did for this week were fitting. I enjoyed Miwon Kwon's 'One Place After Another' about site-specific art and locational identity. I was most interested in the paragraph where socially conscious and politically committed art public art is addressed. The article addresses the idea that these sort of pieces become domesticated by their assimilation into the dominant culture, which is a notion I have not really considered. I also enjoyed our conversation about reproduction and art verses craft. I've not come to a conclusion on how I feel about the craftmaker not recieving any credit when an artists idea is done through the hands of another. This is a loaded issue and an age old debate and my feelings fluctuate about the issue.