Bridges- Photograpy & Education

Education, its elements, and all its details is much like photography and I'd wager, equally as complicated in content and practice. Art in any form can serve as a metaphor for a group of students and an assignment or purpose. You begin with raw materials, unfamiliar, diverse, somtimes, too much of one thing and not enough of the other. The canvas is empty and it's the teacher's and her students' mission or calling to create something just as an artist would. There is a tremendous amount of love, innovation, time, effort, heartache, and of course a finished product. What is most fascinating about art and teaching is that they, are in a sense, a gamble to a certain degree because some "pieces" are effective for some but not for others. The piece is the lesson for the teacher. On any given day, the teacher and student experience that moment where something has become meaningful and memorable. We can call it a photograph. It's a permanent fixture in the mind, in the soul.