Seeking Answers: Excerpts from My Grant

When thinking about my teaching practice, I would like to learn how indigenous knowledge, spirituality, and consciousness affects the learning of students. Many of my students experience extreme violence and post-traumatic stress, due to gang violence, or living through war in their home countries. I have observed that these students are extremely at-risk, yet still excel when I utilize traditional, indigenous or tribal-based art concepts from what seemed to be grounded in metaphysics, or the nature of being. I began asking myself, why does a student respond more to a project exploring death, as in “Dia de Los Muertos/Day of the Dead” activities? Do students innately sense the deeper philosophical or even existential meaning of what they’re learning when the activity has a higher level of consciousness?

The key questions I have are: What is the relationship between spiritual, ritual, myth, and art from the indigenous/tribal point of view? How do dance, music, visual arts and oral tradition fit into indigenous life? How do indigenous beliefs and practices survive in a post-colonial/globalized world? What aspects of tribal culture evolve and can be embraced by “diaspora” students? What from our indigenous past survives to give us strength and purpose in life? What is the interplay between contemporary Western arts and tribal arts? I am interested in finding out how and why art, music and dance are important to the rituals of the community. I am looking for similarities and contrasts between different tribes. I am curious to see how indigenous people maintain their culture in a post-colonial Philippines.

The passion that drives me in this fellowship is my own realization of how students respond positively and with passion to aspects of their own culture and heritage. I have observed that incorporating Latino and African American curriculum into the way I teach art has increased their communication, thinking skills and creative expression. I want to build upon that success by exposing all my students to indigenous tribal arts and culture of the Philippines, thus enabling them to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between different cultures and their art expressions. I believe this understanding will help limit the black on brown and brown on brown violence happening in our schools today, with non-Filipinos able to learn about their neighbors through the arts.

Getting Ready to Travel

School finally let out on Friday, June 13th and then on Saturday, I was finally able to focus on getting ready for my trip. Up until then, I've been having a hard time multi-tasking between teaching my classes, preparing for this trip and seeing my youngest daughter through her Senior year (and graduation) from high school.

In a nutshell, I was funded by the Fund for Teachers to study the indigenous tribal art, music, dance and culture in the Philippines and to participate in cultural exchange with artists and students.

I am excited, anxious and bogged down with the fine details of trip preparation: buying mosquito repellant, electric converters, etc... In the meantime, I had to pay extra for my airfare, which drastically changes my initial budget. The rising gas prices has doubled some of the airfares I anticipated, and so I am nervous that I will run out of money. In any case, just taking a break from my travel preps to record this... I fly out next week and don't feel totally prepared.