"So imagine a commitment to learning that involved making regular learning walks with high school students as a normal part of the "school" day. Now, these learning walks should not be confused with walking tours, which are designed based on planned outcomes. One walks to point X in order to see object or artifact Y. The points are predetermined, hierarchical in design.<br />
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Instead, learning walks are rhizomatic. They are inherently about being in the middle of things and coming to learn what could not been predetermined. Learning walks are part of the "curriculum" for instructional seminar (which I described here)."

[My comments cross-posted here: http://robertogreco.tumblr.com/post/7182110515/walking-and-learning ]

"Directed by Peter Rhoads<br />
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Sister Corita was a remarkable, fire-breathing Catholic nun who, during the course of her neverending fight for social justice, gave artistic legitimacy to screenprinting. Filmmaker Aaron Rose, along with the Corita Foundation's Sasha Carrera, set out to show that–even though she's gone–this beloved teacher-printer's message and medium resonate today more than ever."<br />
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[Posted here: http://tcsnmy7.tumblr.com/post/3643305776/i-recommend-watching-this-short-video-about-sister ]

"Aaron Rose's Documentary On the Nun Who Stormed the Art World<br />
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If The Sound of Music and Sister Act taught us anything, it was that Catholic nuns are expected to pray and sing, in that order. But the story of Sister Mary Corita Kent rewrites that script. A teacher at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles from 1947 to 1968, Sister Corita was a Pop Art pioneer. Her silkscreen prints created an arresting new visual language for spirituality in the early 60s, praising the Almighty by co-opting typograpy, advertising slogans and the bright colors of billboards and local streets. Though she would often work in collaboration with her students—who she encouraged to mount group exhibitions such as 1965’s decidedly anti-Vietnam Christmas show, "Peace On Earth"—she would spend each August creating her own art work…"<br />
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[Posted here: http://tcsnmy7.tumblr.com/post/3643416683/breaking-a-habit-sister-corita ]

"Corita’s cultural contribution spanned several decades. Although she described herself as an artist rather than a design professional, her 1960s work spanned both fields. Graphic strategies such as lettering and layout were central to her artistic voice. At the same time, she had no qualms about accepting commissions for magazine covers, book jackets, album sleeves, ads and posters, although even here she should be seen less as a jobbing designer than as an artist with a distinctive and easily recognisable graphic sensibility. As Harvey Cox said, “The world of signs and sales slogans and plastic containers was not, for her, an empty wasteland. It was the dough out of which she baked the bread of life.” 12 At its best, her work proposed a symbolic template that blurred the boundaries between art, design and communication, between a life of worship and the everyday life of her time."

"This, plus a schedule, forms the totality of my syllabus this term.<br />
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1. Give it your best. Work hard. Be respectful. Show up on time. Be physically & mentally present. Anything less than your best is a waste of your time, mine, & that of your classmates.<br />
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2. Show the work every day. Tight feedback loops allow for an iterative process…<br />
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3. Question everything, propose answers. Everything is an investigation. There are no nevers…<br />
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4. Momentum matters. Creativity is equal parts momentum, insight, and craft. We will move fast to build stamina. Art is long, life is short.<br />
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5. Don’t wait for permission. Go off and try it.<br />
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6. Every classroom is a lab. Investigate. Experiment. Report back to your peers.<br />
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7. Assignments are incomplete until one is competent…<br />
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8. Grades are a false metric…<br />
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9. Getting better. The point of all education is to get better…<br />
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10. Rules are stupid. Be smart. Be respectful. Work hard. Reflect often. Strive for insight. Work to get better."

"In the late 1960s, in response to directives from Vatican II as well as participation in therapy experiments run by researchers from the Esalen Institute, the Sisters followed the guidance of Pope Paul VI and conducted an extensive review of their structure and proposed changes in how they prayed, worked, lived together and governed themselves. However, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal James Francis McIntyre, was opposed to all of the sisters' proposed changes, leading to a public dispute where he ordered the removal of all Immaculate Heart Sisters teaching in Los Angeles diocesan schools, and finally presented the Community with an ultimatum: either conform to the standards of traditional religious life or seek dispensation from vows. In the end, 90% chose to dispense from their vows and reorganize as a nonprofit organization (501(c)(3)), The Immaculate Heart Community, a voluntary lay community."

"I do a bit of that myself, but I keep what I perceive to be a more valuable, important morgue file: one made of the best writing on the web I come across. I take this list and revisit and reread it every 4 to 8 weeks. You could almost consider it a playlist of text: it’s very select (I artificially limit it to 10-15 articles), I typically read them all in one sitting, and the order and pacing is very purposeful. Most revolve around what it’s like to be making things in 2010, and a lot of the people that I respect the most have pieces in it. It’s almost a pep talk in text form. I visit it when I’m down, when I’m lazy, when I’m feeling the inertia take over."

"When you think about pop art and counter culture, in all likelihood, you don't immediately think of a convent in Los Angeles in the 1960s."

"To be disciplined is to follow in a good way...To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way...Consider everything an experiment...Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail. There is only make...The only rule is work..."

"Corita’s work stands for its sheer graphic invention, the riot of letterforms and color, and the immediacy of its connection to her time and place. One can certainly choose to ignore the specifics of her religious messsages, especially since in her met

"Admired by Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller and Saul Bass, Sister Corita Kent (1918-1986) was one of the most innovative and unusual pop artists of the 1960s, battling the political and religious establishments, revolutionising graphic design an