Welcome to Episode 157 of the Think UDL podcast: Perfect Intersection with David Pyle. David Pyle is an artist, educator, writer, and entrepreneur who has spent his career at the intersection of art-making, business, and learning. Currently, he serves as a Continuing Appointment Instructor in the Arts Management and Green+Gold programs at Colorado State University, where he teaches courses like Law and the Arts, Community Engagement and the Arts, and The Perfect Intersection: Art-Making as a Way to Learn (and Do) Anything. Trained in music, painting, chemistry, and education, he spent more than three decades in marketing, communications and leadership roles with some of the most iconic brands in the artist materials world. His book, What Every Artist Needs to Know About Paints and Colors (Krause, 2000), reflects his lifelong curiosity about how creativity, science, and art-making converge.
In 2020, he launched Pyle Creative Studio, where he now supports community art-making initiatives and develops content and community-building strategies with creative businesses.
At heart, David is passionate about helping people explore the intersections between art-making, science and other disciplines to shape the world around them.
In today’s conversation we discuss visual thinking, art-making as a way to learn to do anything, storytelling and surprises!
You’ll find the resources mentioned in this conversation in the resource section just before the transcript on ThinkUDL.org. As always, thank you for listening to the Think UDL podcast!
Resources
Find David Pyle on LinkedIn or email him at david.pyle@colostate.edu. You can also see his artistic work on David Pyle’s personal website (watercolorandphoto.com) or peruse his YouTube channel CreativEnergy with David Pyle
Learn more about his work Teaching with Art or read about his class and teaching strategies through this recent article: CSU Instructor explores redefining community, science through art
Transcript
1:00:57
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Universal Design for Learning, visual thinking, art making, storytelling, interdisciplinary learning, creative intersections, student engagement, teaching strategies, learning variability, Colorado State University, David Pyle, Temple Grandin, Montessori method, leadership in the arts, creative solutions.
SPEAKERS
Lillian Nave, David Pyle
Lillian Nave 00:02
Welcome to Think UDL, the universal design for learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind. I’m your host, Lillian Nave, and I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it, and why it even matters. Welcome to Episode 157 of the think UDL podcast with David Pyle. David Pyle is an artist, educator, writer and entrepreneur who has spent his career at the intersection of art, making, business and learning. Currently, he serves as a continuing appointment instructor in the arts management and green and gold programs at Colorado State University, where he teaches courses like law and the arts community engagement and the arts and the perfect intersection art making as a way to learn and do anything. He’s trained in music, painting, chemistry and education, and has spent more than three decades in marketing, communications and leadership roles with some of the most iconic brands in the artist materials world. And his book, what every artist needs to know about paints and colors reflects his lifelong curiosity about how creativity, science and art making converge. And in 2020 he launched Pyle creative studio, where he now supports community art making initiatives and develops content and community building strategies with creative businesses at heart, David is passionate, and that is what drew me to him when I met him at Colorado State University. And he’s passionate about helping people explore the intersections between art making, science and other disciplines to shape the world around them. In today’s conversation, we discuss visual thinking, art making as a way to learn and do anything, storytelling and lots of surprises. You’ll find resources mentioned in our talk in our resource section on the website just before the transcript on the think udl.org web page. And as always, thank you for listening to the think UDL Podcast. I’m so glad to have David Pyle with me, who I got to meet recently at Colorado State University. Welcome David to the think UDL podcast.
David Pyle 02:42
Thank you, Lillian, what a pleasure to be here. I love talking about this stuff, and you did such a great job with us at Colorado State. I’m really taken by what it is that you’re doing and the opportunity to talk about how some of the things I’m doing and how they fit and can potentially support your community and your audience.
Lillian Nave 03:00
Yeah, you know, there are a lot of intersections between our work, I must say. And we’re here to talk about some beautiful intersections and perfect intersections. Okay, so, but before we get to those things, I’m gonna ask my first question, which is, what makes you, David, a different kind of learner?
David Pyle 03:20
Oh boy. And it’s always hard to think about yourself in a clinical context, isn’t it? And, and I don’t know that I had put a lot of thought into that until I started working at CSU and on some of the content and projects that I’m working on there, particularly as I’ve been working with students and trying to think about the the coursework that I create for them, and the in the and the engagement that I try to create for them. And I always put my try to put myself in their shoes. Yeah, how, how would this fit for me? And the only way that I felt like I could really answer that was to try to look a little more deeply at what kind of learner I am, or what kind of learner I’ve always been. I can, I’m, I’ve, this is my fourth, fifth, sixth career. Maybe, depending on how you can, I’m having more fun teaching than I’ve ever in this setting, than I’ve ever had before. But early in my career, I kept thinking, Well, I’m changing my career here, so maybe this is what I want to be when I grow up. And then I do something for a couple of years and get bored and switch to something else, and I do that for a couple of years and switch to something else. And for decades, I thought, well, at some point I’m going to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I realized not long ago that in fact, that back and forth, that switching was, in fact, what I always wanted to do when I grew up, that I’m really, really interested in exploring lots of different avenues, lots of different intersections among avenues. And the only way that I could have done that in a way that kept me happy was. By making lots of changes and exploring lots of different things, and the language that I can put around that comes by virtue of some of the work that I’ve done recently with temple grand and I know you’ve had a had a chance to talk with Dr Grandin, and she’s helped me, and has taught some, has done some class teaching with me as well. And Her most recent book, visual thinking, I think, is a really fabulous exploration explication around how do we think. And certainly there’s been lots of really terrific work done around that, but she does a really great job in that book and in some of her other work as well, I think, really bringing to life what it means to be a visual thinker, and that really resonated for me, so that all along I think I’ve been a visual thinker and a visual learner. I also though am pretty comfortable thinking verbally, and I also am pretty comfortable thinking mathematically, too. So I’m not exactly sure how all of that fits or how all of that took shape. But if I’m gonna put a stake in the ground and say I’m primarily one way of thinking or one way of learning than another, I’m primarily a visual thinker and a visual learner.
Lillian Nave 06:13
Okay, well, and and you follow your curiosity, yeah, it’s, it sounds like you need to have a lot of freedom in order to, like, follow whatever that passion is. Because if you’re made to stay in one one place or one direction or something that’s not very, oh gosh, engaging or interesting, there’s not going to be a lot of learning happening.
David Pyle 06:39
And I got pretty adept at recognizing that early on and then just changing. So, yeah, gotcha.
Lillian Nave 06:45
So, all right, so a lot of learner agency too, which is a huge tenant of Universal Design for Learning, is making sure our learners have that type of agency and be able to have some choices in what they do. Yeah, perfect. I mean, we, sort of, you know, met almost by chance, so I appreciate that you came up to me like I never would have met you if I hadn’t come out to Colorado, state and and then we sort of bonded immediately over lots of similar thinking. And then when I got to see what you did, I was floored. I love it. It’s so fun and creative, so I wanted to bring that to lots of people. So anybody who’ll listen, let’s bring it to him. So let’s talk about this perfect intersection class that you teach and how you teach it. But first of all, what prompted you to design this class?
David Pyle 07:40
Yeah, so this class has taken shape, really, over the course of the last 35 years. Okay? And it started when I was in college and university, and I started my career in music, studying music. Didn’t finish a degree there. That’s going to be a continuing theme here. I didn’t lots of degree work, and spent lots of time studying at university, but didn’t finish many of the degrees that I started. Okay, started in music, went to went to visual arts, painting and drawing. I did get a degree in painting and drawing, and then went into chemistry, studied or chemistry, and in particular organic chemistry. And fell in love with organic chemistry. Studied some physics as well, so a little bit of math, but in particular when I was studying chemistry, all of these bells started going off for me that were triggered by, in particular when I was studying, when we were studying in organic chemistry, hydrogen bonding, and how that works within a variety of systems. And some of that is so elegant and so beautiful that I remember thinking, you know this, this turns my crank in the same way that listening to box mass and B minor turns my crank Okay, or box Well Tempered Clavier or Jackson Brown, the pretender, and I kept wondering, why? What is it about these two studies, these two ways of thinking or thinking about particular subjects, that was so interesting for me and so interesting in much the same way? So that just continued so to try to make a long story less long, that intersection between art and science fueled everything that I did afterwards, and that intersection between art and science opened some really fun doors for me professionally. So I spent a number of years working in the art materials and craft materials industry and working in the art making communities. And was was director of marketing, and then a brand director for one of the largest art materials brands in the world. Then went into publishing and media in the art making and crafting and creative space. But all of that was focused around, how do you how do you look at intersections in. Interesting ways. I spent some time teaching as well. I spent some time in the classroom. Went through some Montessori training, spent some time teaching in a Montessori elementary classroom, which was really, really instructive. I’ve told a number of people in business and in a managerial context that, in fact, that experience in the Montessori elementary classroom was the most valuable learning experience I had for management, because of all that you learn about who we are and how we see ourselves. Because at that age, at that young age, I mean, we’re who we are, we’re pretty much fully formed by that by the time we’re six or seven, I think as adults, we’ve just become more adept at subterfuge. So at that age, when you see kids engaging, you can really see what happens when you put people in groups. You can see what happens when natural leaders emerge. You can see what happens when kids who aren’t comfortable, how do you help them become comfortable? And some of this ties in with a lot of the work that you do with UDL. And you can also see what happens when there’s a little bit of care. Little bit of chaos that’s introduced. And I became a big fan of introducing a little bit of chaos, particularly in a management setting, because there’s nothing like a little bit of chaos to stimulate creative solutions, and it’s easy to tip over. There’s a fine line between the right amount of chaos and too much and too much chaos, then things fall apart, as we’re seeing as we see in some of our leaders and leadership today. But a little bit of chaos can be a fabulous stimulant for creativity, and I took that back into management setting. Ultimately, the way to answer your question, I’m finally getting there. Lillian, thanks, okay. Is when I came to work at CSU four years ago in the arts management program. The classes that I was teaching, like law in the arts and community engagement in the arts really resonated with the people who are running the Green and Gold program, this interdisciplinary, interdisciplinary program at CSU, and they asked me if I would be interesting and interested in potentially teaching in that program. And I said, Sure, what do you want me to teach? And they said, you can teach whatever you want, as long as it’s interdisciplinary. So I gleefully rubbed my hands together and said, hot diggity, this is a chance for me to take all of this stuff that I’ve been working on in my career in developing content and materials specifically around the intersections between art and science and other disciplines, and turn it into a course. And I had done lots of writing about this stuff along the way as well, so I had a topic, or I had, I had a name for the course, because it I had started it as a book outline about 10 years ago, and I said, Okay, I’m going to teach the perfect intersection. Art making is a way to learn and do anything. And the team that runs the Green and Gold program said, That sounds perfect. I said, Okay, let me, let me, let me go away and put it together. And it’s been, it’s been a it’s been great fun, and it’s been very well received and over enrolled, and lots of really great feedback from students, as well as from the College of Liberal Arts here at CSU, did I finally answer your question?
Lillian Nave 13:11
I think you did. You did absolutely. I appreciate it, but you’re you’re so personable, and I got that too, because you let me take a look at what you produce for your students, which are some videos, and I’m not talking about regular videos that that a faculty member might make, like a lecture in front of a zoom. No, these are fun. You you take on personas, characters you have. You’re wearing silly headdresses. Well, maybe not so silly, but hydrogen bonds that you’re wearing, you become James Bond, you become all of these characters that help us to understand these beautiful, perfect intersections between chemistry and art and those types of things. So maybe you could tell me a little bit more about the videos that you make for your classes, and kind of, maybe some examples what they’re like, kind of thing.
David Pyle 14:08
Yeah, so the videos came about, and really the foundational, the heart and soul of the video project and of the book, and all the all the writing that I’m doing around this is based on something that I had always, I think, understood intuitively, but really came to life for me going through that Montessori program. And as you probably know, Maria Montessori believed that storytelling is perhaps the most powerful way to help make a lesson land. So the arts, I think the job, one of the key one of the job, jobs of the arts is to create context and meaning. And storytelling is an art form and and the Montessori method includes lots of different storytelling elements, many of which were. Developed by Maria Montessori. And one of the things that that we do, or you do, if you go through a Montessori training program, is you really learn how to take those stories and and make them ring true, and make them in an artful way, make them so that they’ll resonate for you, for young people, as well as resonate for you as an instructor as well. So I really tried to make certain that everything I do in the classroom and any of the materials and content that I’m creating is storytelling based. So I spent a lot of time. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to become a better storyteller, and then I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out, how do you translate that into that video format? So yeah, I’ve done things like you mentioned James Bond. I’m sorry. I have to correct you. The character is not James Bond. Character is bond, hydrogen bond, yes. And you may have noticed if you, if you spend any time going through that video, that my British accent comes and goes, you know, I figure, what the heck?
Lillian Nave 15:57
Okay, yeah. We also know that students like that that if something like disrupts it, right, if a cat comes in the middle of a lecture, they love that part. So it’s okay if your accent comes and goes
David Pyle 16:09
absolutely and I think that underscores the fact that the students like it when we can show as teachers or leaders or facilitators that we’re human exactly, and that sometimes things don’t go according to plan. And not only is that okay, that sometimes things don’t go according plan to plan, but in fact, it’s a good thing. Yeah, sometimes when things don’t don’t go according to plan exactly.
Lillian Nave 16:33
And that’s a good thing for folks who are listening and might hear, you know about all the amazing things that you do, that they don’t have to be perfect, you know, maybe I just want to try something a little silly or a little bit interesting, a little bit more engaging. It doesn’t have to be perfect that it’s an idea that you can go with.
David Pyle 16:50
Yeah. And in fact, not only is it okay if you’re not perfect, in fact, I think it’s a good thing when you’re not perfect. One of the thing I’m going to digress here just quickly, because I’m starting to think now one of the courses I’m teaching this fall is leadership in the arts. And part of that course, we talk an awful lot about, how do you be an effective leader? How do you be an effective manager? And again, one of the things that I learned coming out of that Montessori environment experience was that how important it is to not be perfect, and that you can use that to your advantage. And one of the things I talk with my students in the arts management program about is, if you screw something up, talk
Lillian Nave 17:26
about it. It’s okay. Yeah, we can learn from it. We can
David Pyle 17:29
learn from it. And that sets a really powerful example as a leader, that you can learn from things that don’t go according to plan. And I’ve been guilty when I’ve started, when I’ve taken on new teams are taking on new management roles. I’ve been guilty of setting things up, or maybe I do screw something up. I don’t, I may not, hopefully I don’t screw something up that goes really badly wonky. But I want to put myself in a position where I have to call out that oop. I screwed that up. Sorry. Here’s how I’m going to learn from it, and here’s how we’re going to go forward. So I try to not just say that, but I try to illustrate it, and to live it as well and show it. And that’s very much part of the dialog and the process in the perfect intersection, course, with these with these freshmen as well. Because those, man, those young people, they come into that environment, I’ve been surprised by how many of them come into the environment very fearfully.
Lillian Nave 18:26
Yes, yeah, it’s overwhelming, and they feel underprepared, or I don’t belong, and they’re really worried about making a mistake. And what do they go into they’re just waiting to be evaluated, yeah? Ah, you know, that’s literally nerve wracking,
David Pyle 18:42
yeah, and so, so I try to make a point of showing and showcasing when some that, and pretty quickly showcasing that things don’t always go according to plan, and that’s okay and I and I asked the students on the first day, particularly with the freshmen. And I do this with all of my classes, but with this class in particular, one of the very first things I’ll do within the first 15 minutes is ask them, so what’s going to make this course the most valuable course that you can possibly imagine when you’re done at the end of the semester, and they get and they’re surprised by that they think, and I’m sure this. I’m guessing this is not inconsistent with with the experience of many, or most of your listeners, that those freshmen are coming in and they’re expecting, as you said, to be evaluated. And they want to, they want to know as quickly as possible on what benchmarks are they going to be in value evaluated. And they want to understand that, understandably, they want to understand that as quickly as possible. So I try to, I throw them a curve at the very beginning and say, what is it that’s going to make this successful for you? And then I’ll ask them, How do you think we should grade you? What do you want the grades to be based upon? So so that gives them a chance to really think about how. How this particular experience can resonate well for them, and I think that also aligns nicely with the principles that you work on so so effectively. Lillian around, how do you how can we come into this environment and work with young people or older people in a way that really is designed to best meet their needs, rather than our needs. As a teacher or an administrator,
Lillian Nave 20:30
yeah, you make it really fun. I think you really flip the script, because they’re coming in and thinking, you know, this is serious work, and it is, but their conception of serious work doesn’t necessarily include all the fun and interesting things and engaging things that you do. So like, when I looked through all your videos, you had you dressed up as Fred Flintstone to Yeah, to talk about charcoal and cave paintings, and you were throwing your a tennis ball with your dog too to talk about, yeah,
David Pyle 21:06
that illustrates, that illustrates the principle of uncertainty with Werner Heisenberg, yeah, illustrating how my dog can solve for the Principle of Uncertainty in physics. He does it every day when he catches a ball out of midair, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we and we Right, yeah. You asked about what, what some of the various characters and some of the other things that we do in the videos and the storytelling elements. So, yeah. So there’s also a video where we grind cochineal beetles and and, do you know what happens in a room as classroom, when you grind bugs and make red pigment.
Lillian Nave 21:43
No, I’ve never been in
David Pyle 21:44
the room. It is. It’s the the whole room, just you people take a collective breath, and it just goes deadly quiet, and then they start asking questions. And that happened. I did one of the first times I ever did that with young people was when my kid, my son, was in, I guess he was in third grade, and I took that demonstration into his third grade class. With those third graders, we’re grinding bugs, and I’m making red pigment, and we’re showing how, how that can be turned into how that translated into into cave painting. The whole class gathered around as we’re grinding those coach, Neil Beatles, just goes deadly quiet, except for this kid standing next to my son, and he turns to my son and he says, Chris, your dad rocks. Oh, great. And that was, that was, that was a really, really great moment. Oh, of course
Lillian Nave 22:40
it was That’s amazing. Yeah, and and and, and your students are thinking that too, like, this is really cool. They might be, they it may not be. Your dad is amazing, but it might be, this is really cool. I’m learning by doing. I’m learning by engaging. But you know, you prime them with the videos, which are super fun. And, yeah, that connect that, you know, connect the ideas with some with that storytelling, I guess is what I’m getting at, yep, and then you were wearing the, it was like a little skull cap that you had, what velcroed balls to the hydrogen bond. Is that what that was, yeah, and that was, that was with hydrogen bond, okay, hydrogen
David Pyle 23:27
skull cap, depending upon how you place the ball, as you well. So when you put the skull cap on my head, becomes the oxygen, and then I place the balls. And the balls can be the hydrogens, and two hydrogens, then you’re H, 2o right? You take off one hydrogen, then you’re just O, H, which is a hydroxyl ion, or if you add a third ball, then you’re an acid ion. So then you can all, you can have all kinds of different characterizations with those, yeah,
Lillian Nave 23:54
and yeah, it was just all of these were super fun and fascinating. And that storytelling, you know. And even, just like, you know, how we were talking about how paintings, as an art historian, I love this whole analogy about how paintings will gain weight over time. And I really had only thought about the fact that they seem to dry and crack like that’s the stuff that I, you know, took a conservation course in graduate school, and, you know, we’re worried about the paint cracking and the board shifting and stuff like that. But I never even thought about that chemistry part, about the, you know, chemical reaction that’s happening that’s pulling that oxygen, hydrogen, yeah, that’s creating this, but it’s gaining what, 20% more weight over time.
David Pyle 24:51
Yes, it oils as they oxidize, as they dry. Can gain weight by up to 20% so and again, I’ve been incredibly. Incredibly fortunate, and I’ve had such a fun and interesting career all along the way, and I feel incredibly fortunate that I’m having more fun now, as I said, than I’ve ever had before. But some of the some of the things that helped fuel all of this was when I was managing those art material brands, I had the opportunity to do things like become friends with and go hang out with the chief conservator at the National Gallery.
Lillian Nave 25:23
Indeed. Wow, that’s awesome. And hang
David Pyle 25:27
out in that lab. And you walk around the corner and hear their they’ve got a they’ve got a Mark Rothko up on the rack, and they’re working on that awesome or they’ve got a Hieronymus Bosch over there in the corner and working on that. So I got to see firsthand not only what the Conservatives were doing, but became really fascinated with why they were doing what they were doing, and with with the various different kinds of instrumentation that could be used to figure out how to treat a particular painting, and that that helped me to to explore more deeply why you might need to treat a particular painting the way you do, which again, creates that wonderful intersection between art making and the chemistry, or the physics. And yeah, so what you were so what, what you were referring to, is, there’s, there’s, there’s a video. And then I also, in one of the class units, one of the modules that I teach, I go in and say, Okay, here’s the deal. Oil paintings are going to gain weight by up to 20% when they dry. Why? Yeah, let’s figure it out. And then we’ll have a conversation. I’ll try to drop a variety of different clues, and then, pretty dependably, at some point, after about a 20 minute discussion, somebody is going to say, oh, it’s because oil. We say oil is dry. So when you think, when you hear that, you think, Oh, that means there’s water, evacuating, water leaving the film. But there’s no water in the film. So no, they don’t actually dry through any evaporative or evacuation process. They dry because they’re breathing. They literally are breathing in oxygen. And they add so much oxygen into the film that the film, the oil itself, can increase in weight by up to 20% that’s a lot of oxygen. It is. It is, and are museums in danger of toppling over because of those, those getting fat oil paint we
Lillian Nave 27:26
need to reinforce the walls? Yes, absolutely. See, this is great. It’s like a detective story. It’s great. So the storytelling part, I thought, is so fantastic. But then you have then students are coming to class, and and then you’ve got them actually doing a lot of things to be engaged. Now, you already did talk about how they were ground grinding bugs to make some paint, but I know you do other things. Are they making paper? Like, how is this related to, you know, these other intersections? So what is it that you’re doing, that you’re guiding the students, because you say art making as a way of knowing. I find this fantastic. Yeah.
David Pyle 28:06
So two things there. Lillian, so in terms of the actual stuff that happens in the classroom, yes, on the second day we make paper, I bring in paper pulp, and we talk about the actual process of making paper, how that ties in with history, how that ties in with the guy who gets the credit for being the inventor of paper, a unit in the service of the Chinese emperor who supposedly an ad 105, the emperor said, Hey, Ty Lune, I’m tired of working on silk, or I’m tired of working on bones. Go invent paper for me. So, so we talk about, how does invention happen? I mean, did Ty loon actually then say, Okay, I’m going to figure out how to invent this paper stuff, or did something else happen by accident? And does invention and creative stuff happen by accident because people are paying attention? So that’s that’s a very early part of the discussion is, if you just learn how to pay attention and learn how to observe. Can really magical things happen, and art making teaches that. So I purposely the title of the course is centered on art making, and that’s very, that’s very, that’s very, that’s very intentional, because there’s lots of stuff and lots of lots of you know this, Lillian, there’s lots of resources out there that are designed to teach people how to be artists, quote, unquote, artists. Well, how do you get to be an artist? How many paintings do you have to sell to be able to put that on your business card? Right? What’s the quantifier? Yeah, if you’re a performer, how many times do you have to get paid to perform before you call yourself a professional? And in, again, in one of the classes that I teach in the arts management program, I use this as an introduction to one of the classes, and I asked that question. And pretty quickly, the students get to a point where they just they realize that there’s something wrong with the question, how do you get to be qualified as a quote, unquote artist, and what threat, what? What’s the threshold? Man. Last year, when I asked that question, after some fun discussion, I had a student who piped up and he said, 30% I said 30% of what he said, 30% of your income has to come from art making or professional performance, and that’s how you get to be an artist. Okay, where the heck did that come from? He said, I don’t know. I just made it up.
Lillian Nave 30:20
That’s what we’re doing. We’re making stuff up exactly to answer that question.
David Pyle 30:25
But culturally, we ascribe such importance and such value to being a quote, unquote artist, and that that gives us special dispensation to look at the world in an interesting way, when, in fact, I believe, and here’s where I’m going to if my wife were here, she’d probably start kicking because I can, because I can get, because this is where I can really get on my high horse. I believe that it’s the art making, this the power, not necessarily achieving something so that you can call yourself an artist. Art making teaches us how to observe. It teaches us how to pay attention. It teaches us and helps us learn how to pay attention to each other and to engage with each other and to see the world in fresh and interesting and very creative ways. It’s the art making that does that, rather than the crossing some threshold or having 30% of your income come from art making as a quote, unquote artist. So I’ve really tried to focus everything on the idea that I’m teaching about and helping my students explore the idea of the power of art making, rather than having to be a quote, unquote artist. Again, I’m getting really long winded here. So the idea behind paper making, as an example is, how do you think about the process of making paper, and what that means, just the process of making things, and how paper can be a foundation. It’s a support in lots of different ways. It’s a support for all kinds of creative exploration. But also the chemistry of paper making is absolutely magic, because you can’t have paper unless you create, unless you facilitate the creation of hydrogen bonds from water to cellulose fibers. And then ultimately, what you’re trying to get to is to replace those hydrogen bonds that that occur from water to cellulose fibers, so that those get replaced by cellulose fiber to cellulose fiber hydrogen bonds. And there’s a really elegant and beautiful process by which that happens. And we demonstrate that, and I put on that funny skull cap, and I have the students toss those velcro balls, and i Catch them. Catch them and
Lillian Nave 32:36
on your head. You catch them on your head. Catch them on my head, with your head, not with your hands,
David Pyle 32:41
and catch them and then use that as a way to illustrate how that whole process unfolds. So, so ultimately, this is all about again, I’m not, I’m not teaching. I’m not trying to teach the students how to be artists. I’m trying to teach them about how to think about art making as a way of engaging with the world.
Lillian Nave 32:59
Yeah, and that process of art making is, to me, is what makes one an artist. Like you can call yourself an artist once you’ve you’re making the art, not we have made all of these things about you have to be a professional, right? You have to get paid to do this, or there has to be some sort of outward, exterior moniker, or something that tells you that you are. And this really reminds me of a big, you know, turn the page moment I had when I was teaching, when I was teaching, just straight up art history. And you kind of go, you know, 1400 to the present and or ancient to the media, to medieval. And I love ancient art. That’s my whole field. Was the Greek art. And so the modern stuff, I also love. But there were some parts that I’m like, Eh, not so much. Like, there’s this, this crazy guy named Marcel Duchamp and Dadaism, right in the 20th century, right?
David Pyle 33:56
And they turn in a urinal upside down and signs
Lillian Nave 33:59
it with a fake name, puts it in, calls it a fountain. And I remember when I was a student, being so upset by that, and just sort of not, not more than flabbergasted, and just mostly annoyed, right? Because I felt that what my view of art was, was it needed to look like the things like Greek art. It was real, great craftsmanship, so incredible realistic paintings and those sorts of things. And it took me years before I really, really appreciated Marcel Duchamp for opening my mind into thinking about how everybody can be an artist. He’s the one that taught me that it’s like, you know, it is not a privileged class, although the whole art making and how people became famous, is this a long another whole course I taught, but it changes. It puts everything on its ear when we think about really, like, who decided that, right? Who decided that? Marcel Duchamp’s like, you don’t, you know, you don’t have to say who’s the artist and who isn’t anti establishment. And like, you have an idea. You should go with your idea. You have something creative. I’m empowering you to think of yourself as creative. And it took me so long to do that, but it was a big, visceral change, and I really appreciate that what you’re doing is, first of all, you’re interlocking a lot of those silos that happen in a university, like you can either do chemistry or you can take a course over here, but they don’t, you know, in the arts, they are separate, and they’re different professors, and you go on this track or that track, and you’re bringing it all together. And second of all, you’re bringing that question to the students, which I wish I had too early on to start thinking of, Oh, what is this preconceived notion that I have about what makes an artist, or what makes somebody artistic? And you’re letting them experience it and empowering them to feel that, that they can be an artist in the way they’re making art for your class.
David Pyle 36:07
Yeah, and I hope that’s the case. I think that’s really well said. Lillian, I hope that the students and the feedback that the students give me is that, is that, that that generally seems to be what takes shape, that they come out of this experience thinking not just about art making, but thinking about themselves in very different ways. We I had a class session once that totally took me by surprise, and I will say that when I asked the students, what I what they think each of them needs, what needs to happen for each of them in the course to make this the best possible course they can imagine, other than tell them what’s most what’s most important to me and that I want out of the course, and that I want to be surprised, I try to set up every single session and every single exercise, every single discussion, in a way that there’s going to be surprises that happen for them, and there are going to be surprises that happen for me. I love being surprised. One of the things that has surprised me overall about this course is I thought that, since the title includes art making, I thought that the majority of my students were going to be students who were thinking about an arts career, whether it’s visual art or performance. Actually, Lillian, about 80% of the students come into the course are science focused, really?
Lillian Nave 37:24
Yeah, and they want to see that other side, I think, to their studies,
David Pyle 37:29
they are hungry, or how can things be put into a context that’s meaningful for them in a creative way, so that, I think there’s lots to be drawn from that, but I think the thing that is most underscore, that is most the focus that is most clear for me around that is that means I have to keep each session, and I need to keep the content organized in such a way so that it really does draw powerful parallels and highlight those powerful intersections with the creative process that you can engage in looking at anything. And one of the exercises that I do with them is we do a drawing exercise very early on. And it’s interesting that some of the kids are like, Oh, I don’t draw. I can’t draw. I can’t draw a straight line. So you don’t have to draw a straight line. This isn’t about that and and in the fall, we do it pretty early in the semester, so we can go outside and draw in the in when the the January class starts, we go, we’ve got a wonderful museum at CSU called the Gregory alicar Museum of Art. And we’ll go over the museum, and we draw on a museum. But what I asked the students to do is have a sketchbook, and on one side, I asked them to just draw whatever caps it catches their interest. Whether it’s when we’re outside, is it a tree? Is it students walking by? Is it an acorn in the grass in the museum? It’s, you know, maybe it’s a work of art that catches their interest, or maybe it’s students gathered in a particular area, and that’s on one page. Then on the facing page, I asked them to list everything that they’ve noticed that they didn’t think they would have noticed if they hadn’t been drawing nice. And the and the drawings are really fun and and there’s a but there’s a couple of things that happen. One, since they start thinking about, Okay, what am I noticing? Then that takes their attention away from Am I good? Yeah. Am I drawing? Well? And we talk, and before we go in, I talk with them about this. It’s not about teaching you to draw well. This is not about teaching you to be a quote, unquote artist. This is about helping you learn how to see, learning how to observe. So, so the drawings that come out of it, I think are really interesting, because they can be very energetic. There’s lots of lots of fun stuff that takes shape in them, because while they’re thinking about, what am I noticing, it takes away that pressure to be, quote, unquote good. So those drawings are really fun, but then the lists that they come up with. With are spectacular and and it was through that process, when I first taught this course, that I had a student who was neurodivergent, and she had talked with me about that very early on in the course, and she did a really, really interesting drawing that was full of detail. And then her list was two pages the things that she had noticed. I think, I think she ended up usually students who, you know, students may list three things that they had that they thought they noticed, that they would have noticed otherwise. Some will list eight or 10. This particular student, I think she was around 22 or 23 items that she noticed, and it was such a powerful experience for her and for me, because she talked with me afterwards about how she always wants to doodle during classes, or she wants to draw during class. And she said, I’ve gotten in trouble so many times for that. I said, Well, you’re not looking you’re not going to get in trouble in this class for that. She said, Well, that’s, that’s, I could tell but, but she talked about how her go. She’s learned more about herself. She’s come to recognize and it’s been affirmed. It’s been affirmed for her, that she retains more if she’s drawing, yeah, and she’s doodling if she has to take a quote, unquote, if she has to take a formal test later on down the road, she actually retains much more from the sessions where she was doodling than if she had been told she’s not allowed to draw during class. And then other students, as a result of that experience started drawing and doodling during class
Lillian Nave 41:40
as well. Oh, it’s allowed. It’s amazing students who were not
David Pyle 41:43
defined as neurodivergent. But, you know, we had a class where one of the students brought in clay, brought it, and so bunch of it, bunch of students were playing with modeling clay during a during a class, and just that stemming I know that is that whatever the note the specific nomenclature is for it is such a powerful thing, and to give students permission to use that is really cool and really fun to see what happens when, when you do that,
Lillian Nave 42:13
it is it’s amazing to see what our students can do if we just allow it, right? Yeah, and that does bring me to like my the next question, because you have a lot that you’ve learned from your students, because you have designed that they kind of take over at the end. And you ask them about their perfect intersections, and you give them wonderful flexibility opportunity, and they can kind of go in any authentic direction they want, where they get to choose that perfect intersection by the end of the course. So could you tell me describe some of those examples of what their final projects look like?
David Pyle 42:51
Yeah, the course is designed. So the first 10 weeks of the course, I’ve prepared exercises or experiences that we do together. And you know, we’ve talked about some of them, we also look at things like quilting as a way of exploring identity and building community. We’ve one at one of the sessions that I enjoy teaching the most is where we look at Joseph Albers work and the interaction of color. And certainly, you know, Albers work, the fabulous work that he did at Yale and his wife would be remiss in Annie Albers and Black Mountain College, the fiber designer, maybe the most either, maybe the preeminent fiber designer at the 20th century. Their work tying that into the Well Tempered Clavier by Johan Sebastian Bach and how that defined relationships within the scope of music and the keys, and then how all of that relates to Werner Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty. And that’s a session that just kind of blows students’ minds. And then I say, Okay, now you guys take all of that. You take everything we’ve talked about, and you’ve been thinking about things that you’re interested in, and how an art activity or an art making process can help tell us, tell stories about what you’re interested in, and you give me a date that you’re going to come in and you’re going to make a presentation to the rest of the class. And that’s what they do the last five weeks of the course. That’s awesome. It’s is their presentations.
Lillian Nave 44:16
You are definitely going to get surprised by yourself. You have designed it so you get to be surprised. I love it.
David Pyle 44:22
It’s magic. And the thing that’s the most fun is, yes, I get surprised, which being selfish is just a blast. But what’s the most fun is watching them surprise themselves. So a young woman did a fabulous presentation, particularly after the session that we had with Dr Grandin, because Dr Grandin will come in and she’ll teach a session with me in each of these semesters. That is so awesome. He does a session on visual thinking, and she makes a very powerful case for saying that she couldn’t do what she’s done as an engineer if she hadn’t learned how to. Draw, or if she hadn’t learned how to sew, for goodness sake, or if she hadn’t been a theater kid where she did learned how to, you know, do all the theater, all the set work, and do costume design and everything else. Anyway, here I’m, I’m digressing again, but, but this student just that really resonated for her, because she she loves to crochet. She loves fibers, but she’s also she also thinks mathematically. She sees herself as very strong mathematician. So she said, how does that stuff fit? And I said, you figure it out, but I bet you can find a really powerful intersection between knitting and crochet and thinking mathematically. So she did a brilliant presentation around you. Using using crochet as a way to explore math, use using math to create patterns and all kinds of different really, very sophisticated mathematical patterns. And she went really deep mathematically with this, starting with crochet. Had another student who’s in animal sciences, and she was so taken by the whole drawing exercise that she came in and she did an absolutely brilliant presentation on equine cognition, horse cognition, how do horses think? And she illustrated that through drawings. And she did a whole series of drawings comparing the human brain to the equine brain and where the different thought centers and functional centers within each of our brains are located, and how they compare. And used a series of drawings to illustrate how horses which I didn’t realize this, I love horses, but she she helped illustrate how horses have a are much more, have a much greater acuity and and much stronger intensity tendencies toward emotional response than humans, because the emotional center in their brain is much larger. And I said to I can’t, I can’t imagine that anybody could be more emotional than human beings. And she said, Oh, no, horses. So, so she used drawings as a way to do this brilliant presentation. I had another student just this last semester who built a series of quilt patterns based upon chemical structures. And she’s, she’s going into chemical engineering. So she took some of the most interesting chemical arrangements and then arranged set those up so that she could create quilting patterns that were based on those various organic chemistry structures, on those on those molecular structures. What else I had? It? Had a student do a really interesting presentation on golf, and illustrated how the parabolic shape of how a golf ball travels. So we were able to start to start with golf and get into Geometry. Okay, nice, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I can just, I can go, I can go, there’s, there’s just more. And every one of the students comes up with things that are just really, really interesting and, and it’s, it’s, this is a word. This is a word that I think is overused, but I think it’s appropriate. Here is they feel so empowered by having a chance to explore deeply how the work or the ideas that they’re interested in can be articulated, and you can create context around those ideas or those principles, or those those disciplines in a way that they hadn’t really thought about before, but could really help them understand them in a way that was new and fresh, and use those storytelling elements to help their classmates understand them in new ways as well.
Lillian Nave 48:50
Yes, wow. What. What great final projects where I would be looking forward to it as a faculty member, but also the other students like this is going to be interesting for them. It’s not just the PowerPoint, you know, type of thing for a final project. And I must say that when you were telling me about your course, and then I got to kind of look through what you’re doing for your book and the videos and all the things, the materials and resources that you have for it. It did make me think that this is exactly what I hope, or I believe, that being in a college setting should allow everyone to do, which is to spend some time to really deeply think about the world and themselves and deeply think about thinking and connections in this world. And whereas college means a lot to a lot of people, and depending on who you ask, it’s going to mean something different. And yes, we want our students to have productive lives and be able to get jobs when they finish. And I. That we want them to have certain skills as well, but I do think this is one of the core skills of that liberal education is to think about deeply how we exist in the world and how we can, like just sort of take a microscope and a telescope all at once, and kind of look at the world, and you’re just giving them the opportunity to do that in, like a First Year Seminar, kind of thing. You know, these are for freshmen and sophomores, and just that opportunity to explore and gain these skills and think about the world differently. And yes, we need to have certifications. And yes, we need to have you’re certified in Excel or whatever it is, or you can take this test to get into your next job or career. But this also just makes my soul very happy to think about how you’re making learning really come alive and for our students. And, yeah, that’s what I just love talking about it.
David Pyle 51:07
Thank you. I love talking about it too, obviously. And I’m, I’m glad this makes you happy. Yeah, it makes me happy to talk about it. I think all of those pieces that you tied together, Lillian, I really well said, one of the things that surprised me early on with teaching this course and working with the students was I assumed, going into this that what I was teaching was about the intersections. Was about you thought, when you, when you, when you drew, when you were drawing on a piece of paper, or you’re writing something on a piece of paper, and we talk about paper making, and then hydrogen bonding and chemistry. I thought that was all just going to be about an interesting intersection between hydrogen bonding and chemistry. I thought that talking about each of these things was really just going to be hopefully about opening a way of thinking around art making. But actually, what’s happened is that I become much more mindful of the fact that really, what the course is about is, where do ideas come from? Yeah, how do we think? And if we’re going to think, well, and if we’re going to get good at generating ideas, we have to have fuel. You have to have fuel for those ideas to take shape, and for those inner intersections to take shape. And this course is really about, how do you find that fuel, and how do you create that fuel, and how do you how do you learn how to think deeply and generate ideas that are going to be meaningful for you and your world and your life. We do have a conversation that I usually try to organize midway through the semester around Is it okay to not know what you’re doing right now in your college career? Uh huh,
Lillian Nave 52:46
that’s a great conversation to have. And I hope they all said, Oh yes, it is okay. Well, well,
David Pyle 52:52
that, and I tried to do it around halfway through the semester, because by that time, everybody’s really gotten to trust each other. And yes, if things have gone well through the course they’ve they trust each other, they trust me, they trust they trust themselves, and can talk pretty openly. And, and they’ll also, and universally, they’re saying, we feel so much pressure to pick what’s our main and I got to get done in four years, or what’s going to happen to my scholarship money. And, and there’s so much pressure to to find you, you you use the word silo, there’s so much pressure to find a silo in which they’re going to operate, stay clearly focused within that silo, and then just get done. And I realized that this may be sacrilege on my part, as an instructor and working within a within a university setting, but I’m going to say it anyway, it’s okay to not know where you’re going to be at that point. You have to give yourself time and and I try to lead the discussion away so that they’ll they’ll get to a point where they can say it’s okay to not know, and it’s okay for me to be exploring different things, because when you explore and when you look for creative intersections, then surprises can happen, and you can learn things about what you want to do and how you want to contribute in interesting ways. And that may be the most powerful thing that we can take out of any university experience, is learning how to think
Lillian Nave 54:17
absolutely it’s exactly what we hope, I hope, that our graduates, any college graduate, that that they have had a chance to learn about their own thinking, that it’s not just a race to get the degree qualification, but that there is a marked change that has happened, especially if they’re traditionally aged students. You know that 18 to 22 to have that at that point in their lives, to open up into new ways of thinking. It’s when you if you do go away to school, you’re no longer you know, in that home state or hometown, and you have to kind of do things the way you think it should be done. It’s not based on other people’s decisions. For. You, or perceptions for you, or or whatever, and then to really open up their own thinking to be the, yeah, the thinking selves that they’re going to be. And I just, I think it’s like, what a privilege that we get to participate in that for young people,
David Pyle 55:18
it is such a privilege. We are so fortunate. And one something that really jumped out at me when you, when you spoke, when you did your presentations at CSU, is, I think you really embody the principle that UDL, yeah, so there’s some work involved in trying to figure out, how do you structure the structure thing so it’s going to resonate on an individual level for each student. But actually, depending upon how you approach it, depending upon your overview on it, it actually makes teaching more fun. Yes, absolutely. It makes it so much more rewarding to be thinking about, as you said, you know, flip the script. It makes it so much more rewarding to be thinking about, how do I create an environment that allows students to engage in a way that is truly going to resonate and truly be meaningful for them based upon their background, based upon how they’re wired, based upon how they see the world and where they want to go With within the world, as opposed to thinking about, how do I create something that’s that is structured very tightly? And again, the students can either swallow it or not, yeah, but to then be thinking about how, how can you create an environment where there’s that level of individual engagement is just, I mean, the only word that really resonates for me. It’s intoxicating. It’s just, it’s so powerful. And you, I think, help that to take shape, and you help, help us to think about it, I think, in really, really clear, informative ways, and then also just the spirit that you bring to it just, just underscores that. Lillian, so, yeah, I think what you’re doing is terrific, and really appreciate how you the perspective that you bring to it as well.
Lillian Nave 57:07
Well, I really loved, here’s a little love fest. That’s what it is I loved. Colorado. State University has a really great program. There really great teaching effectiveness framework, really great tilt team, which is your center for excellence, or Center for Teaching and Learning and really, really fantastic work going on there. So I definitely feel an affinity for, like, the kind of course you’re doing, of course, because it’s art making and it’s in the humanities, and it’s this interdisciplinary thing. But like you said, it can be applied to anything. I just have conversations with STEM faculty, you know, with exercise science, with with anything that it’s possible. It might seem daunting in the beginning, but look at the fruit that comes from planting that little seed.
David Pyle 57:53
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I hit you mentioned tilt, I just have to say that I don’t think that I would be teaching what I’m teaching or approaching it the way that I’m approaching it, if it weren’t for the tilt team, I’m using that as a call out for for Sue and and Jen and sorry, I shouldn’t be calling names, because then I’ll forget
Lillian Nave 58:12
somebody. There’s so many of them. They’re so good.
David Pyle 58:14
There’s so many. It’s such a great team. But when I came to CSU four years ago, after spending so much time in in industry, it was the tilt team that really made me feel welcome and really made me feel like, yes, you could, you could, you can bring something to this community, David, that can work. And I don’t think that I would have gotten that level of validation or that level of support any place else then, then what I got from that group.
Lillian Nave 58:40
Yeah, this is it’s just a wonderful story right now of just bringing your best self, and you’re being encouraged to bring your authentic self to your teaching life. And that’s what a great Center for Teaching and Learning should be doing on every campus. That’s exactly what they’re doing at CSU. And your students benefit. I get to benefit our listeners now are benefiting. So just thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on the thank you deal podcast and for sharing these great ideas with me and my listeners.
David Pyle 59:12
David, well, I’m honored, and I’m flattered and a little embarrassed, but not that embarrassed, but just really, really, I love talking about this stuff, as you can tell, it’s a pleasure and really fun that we’ve connected. Yes, and I think the work that you’re doing is so powerful and so valuable, and really love how you go about it. And I look forward to when we cross paths
Lillian Nave 59:33
again, absolutely. Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. The work I get to do is a lot of fun. I can tell I get to talk to cool people. Yeah, thank you.
David Pyle 59:40
You bet. Thank you so much. Lillian,
Lillian Nave 59:45
thank you for listening to this episode of The think UDL podcast. New episodes are posted on social media, on LinkedIn, Facebook, X and blue sky. You can find transcript. D’s and resources pertaining to each episode on our website, think u, d, l.org, the music in each episode is created by the Oddyssey quartet. Oddyssey is spelled with two D’s, by the way, comprised of Rex Shepard, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez, I’m your host, Lillian Nave, and I want to thank Appalachian State University for helping to support this podcast. And if you call it Appa-lay-shun, I’ll throw an apple at you. Thank you for joining. I’m your host, Lillian Nave, thanks for listening to the think UDL podcast.