From Project-Based Learning to Artistic Thinking

This book follows the course of a year-long experiment in which the students were tasked with recreating a McDonald's Happy Meal by making all the components - from food to packaging - by hand from local ingredients. It was meant to test a hypothesis that a very well-designed project in the arts can teach high school students academic skills and habits of mind while increasing motivation, emotional intelligence, creativity and holistic thinking skills.
This book is an antidote to other books that purport to show teachers an exact formula to follow to get amazing results in the classroom. It will help to create a classroom that is more like play, with much more freedom and less scripting in order to engage students at a deeper level, and still get excellent results.
By teaching a project-based history class like an arts studio and having the students redesign an archetypal American product in a very natural, improvisational way Werberger was able to have an energizing effect on their academic learning. This book will serve as a guide for teachers to learn more about the adaptive, creative, and epistemologically fascinating concept of arts-based research.

Raleigh Werberger has been teaching history for fifteen years, in the U.S. and internationally. He taught both Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes and over time began to question the entire premise of high school education. His interest in creating authentic experiences for students led him to experiment with PBL and design thinking challenges. He co-founded a project-based exploratory program at Mid-Pacific Institute in Hawai'i, and served as a Founding Board Member for the School for Examining Essential Questions of Sustainability in Honolulu in 2012-2013. He moved to New York after spending a year at an Arts Residency in Stuttgart, Germany with his wife, a photographer and filmmaker. He is now Dean of Faculty at Darrow School in the Berkshires in upstate New York.

Acknolwedgments
Introduction
The Purpose of this Book
What This Book Can Do for You
How This Book Is Conceptualized
How This Book Is Organized
Chapter 1: Why the Arts Matter in School
The Argument
What exactly is PBL?
The Aqua-Ponics Project
A Modest Proposal
The Advantages of an Education in the Arts
The Arts in Decline
Creating Art vs. Thinking Art
Art Embraces Accident
Critical Design
What is the Value of Student Work?
Use the Arts as a Fundamental Approach
Chapter 2: How to Set the Stage
How Does One Create the Environment for Learning?
So You Want to Be an Artist
Starting with What You Already Know
Learning Abhors a Vacuum
Demonstrating What You Know
Gauging How Far You've Come
Chapter 3: Building a Culture of Learning and Exploration
Infinite Questions
Learning to Take Risks
Learning to See, Learning to Think, Learning to Ask
Learning to Investigate
An Interlude for Feedback Feedback
Chapter 4: Deconstruction
The Importance of the Entry Event
The Event Itself
Unmaking
Unmaking and Remaking
Chapter 5: Deconstruction of Self
Deconstruction is a Path to Self-knowledge
What is the Danger of Teleological Thinking?
The Marriage of the Arts and Sciences
What is Improvisational Thinking?
What Does All This Mean for a High School Teacher?
Chapter 6: Making
The Satisfaction of Making Things by Hand
Design Thinking
The Importance of Having a Guide
The Apprentice and the Mentor
Mentorship for the Project-Based Classroom
Back to the UnHappy Meal: Organization, Production, and Reconstruction
Chapter 7: Bridging Body, Mind and Soul
A Model for Arts-Based Research
First Attempts with Art
Making Art with Meaning
Developing a Personal Vision for Success
Chapter 8: The Exhibit
Curating is Creating
Art and Social Practice
Putting It All Together
The Importance of Showing Work
Chapter 9: Measuring Success
Assessing Progressive Education
Assessing the UnHappy Meal as an Education
Assessing the UnHappy Meal as Art
How About the Audience?
The Aftermath
About the Author