I was recently introduced to designer Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. His 6th point is:
Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
Teaching Artists love questions. We are in the business of questions. We challenge. We disrupt. We imagine that everything can be different from how it is right now. We are not that different from the children we teach, those of us who teach children. “Why? But why? BUT WHY?!?” And, we know that our work is not necessarily about finding the answer. It’s about continuing to ask the right questions.
This is why I adore this “A Day at the Park”, a comic about the power of questions featured on Comics that Say Something. Read it and then, I have some questions for you:
- In a society so desperate for answers, what is the point of continuing to ask questions?
- How do teaching artists ask questions in ways that bring about change?
- How do teaching artists inspire and support their students (both youth and adults) to ask good questions?
- How do support teaching artists to continue to ask questions in the face of others who insist on the promotion of “static” answers?
Make sure to put Saturday Sept 28 in your calendar! At our TAG General Meeting, we will be asking a lot of questions while creating opportunities to ask even more in ways that serve the communities in which we live and work.