The Agile Professor - Creating an Agile Learning Environment for Classrooms and Schools

One way of setting the table (quick) is for our selves, another way (flowers) is for a loved one, another is for the routine (place settings) family meal, another way (spectacle) is for guests, and another way (random) for parties. Each form reveals an intention and provides insight into felt relationships between all the things and processes, the person who makes the placements, and the responses of the people at the meal.

The description or definition of a type of relationship between objects/processes is in itself a new class of relationship between those same objects/processes. This is a form of relationship that is derived from the participant/observer. This form and the evolution of the form may be understood as learning.
Another example:

First: I have students bring three or four objects from home to paint in primary colors including white and black. The purpose is to develop a pair of tondo (round) paintings from a still life.

Second: I put a blank canvas on the model stand, 6 feet by 4 feet, and have students place the painted objects (12) one after another in turns until there are twelve objects on the surface.

This step has three parts, the first is to move one object of the twelve into a better configuration with the rest. Taking turns the students then move two of the objects to sweeten the relationships between all the objects. They are then instructed to move two objects and subtract one from the surface if desired. Another person with their turn can bring back an object someone else has removed. The configuration of ten to twelve objects is now complete. It is a 3D configuration or sculptural setting.

Third: The next step is to draw lines of force between the objects on the surface of the canvas. Each person using a charcoal goes in turn. Two turns are used to draw these relationships with any kind of line that serves.

Fourth: Then we remove all the objects. What remains is a drawing on canvas that is unique in itself. The drawing refers to the objects that were once on the canvas but is now an object in its own right.

Fifth: Have each person place a dot where they believe the center of the drawing is. Then to place four marks on the perimeter that would be where the circle would be if it were to be painted on a tondo form.

Sixth: After these points are set down we replace the objects that had been removed. They are placed in a new way, keeping in mind the sculptural relationship between the objects and the drawing in charcoal that is on the canvas.

Seventh: After the colored objects have been placed and shifted for better relationship in a similar way to the first cycle of placements a final piece of drawing is done. Each person has a chance to draw a complete circle around the objects in any way they choose. This completes the process of building a still life.

Eighth: Realize the objective of painting two tondo forms from two vantage points 180 degrees from each other. Zoom in if need be and paint a detail of the still life or zoom out to get everything on the model stand.

The process is reviewed and discussed with the students in order to help them understand the flexibility of change and how the relationships between objects can be described by the lines which in turn establish a new order of relationships.

The conclusion is in effect that: to describe or define a relationship between objects will probably require a new arrangement of relationships between those same objects.

You can see how the drawing elements show a relationship from a former placement between the objects as the lines would normally touch the objects. Now the objects are placed a second time and the drawing exists as a separate entity equal in its influence to any of the objects.

This is something we all do when we set the table for a meal.
In this exercise the drawing or lines are comparable to words as descriptions of relationships. The description or definition of a type of relationship between objects/processes is in itself a new class of relationship between those same objects/processes. This is a form of relationship that is derived from the participant/observer. Over time this form reveals an evolution of relationships. This evolution may be understood as a form of learning.