Monday, September 15, 2014

Re: Evaluation of The 2014 Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School

To Whom It May Concern:
Picturing Milwaukee, the 2014 Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School is a coming
together of various disciplines to participate in an aesthetic, relational exploration of local
neighborhoods within Milwaukee. Being a firm believer that interdisciplinary work is a
much-needed catalytic, reconstructive force within urban art and design education, I see
the Field School as a rare and unique opportunity for students and educators to study the
layered views of Milwaukees neighborhoods. In this years Field School, focused on
Washington Park neighborhood, all participants were given the opportunity to teach and
learn the complex and layered views of the cultures and environments where they live
and work with.
The Field School curriculum design may be carefully considered as a form of curating.
Its educators include professors of the university, scholars and professionals who
specialize in the fields of Architecture, Urban Studies, Historic Preservation, Art History,
Oral and Public Histories, and the Digital Humanities. Certain professors, national
scholars, community scholars and professionals are arranged to present and interact with
the students in a particular sequence. Presenters bring their content expertise and their
chosen method of interacting with the students to the Field School. Students discover the
many versions of a seemingly single narrative neighborhood. Students explore the
multiple layers of the urban fabric as they unfold and they draw connections between
various disciplines. Such framework prompts students to learn skills in measuring
homes, collecting oral histories, interpreting qualitative data, creating documentaries, and
disseminating research, to name a few. In talking with students, I understood their view
of the Field School as an opportunity to, experience the coming together of communities
and ideas, in hopes of understanding its people and places.
Though the curriculum was carefully crafted from the onset, it was continuously left open
for the emergence and growth of new learning strategies and possible learning moments.
Often, the entire Field School group met at a designated location, some days it was a caf

and some days it was Washington Park Partners community center. This congregation
occurred either at the start or the completion of each day. It was here that the most
changes to the curriculum arose. Together learners and educators reflected on particular
experiences and how those collective or personal experiences may have influenced their
own beliefs and attitudes towards the research. The day was evaluated, and the
transformation of future curriculum was made possible by reflecting on interactions and
transactions that took place that day between student, scholar and neighborhood. The
subjects, places, and themes to be investigated the next day were, in turn, generated from
the previous days findings. And so, the Field School curriculum is a balancing of
opportunities seized and those left for another day. It is always in the process of
development. This type of emergent curriculum is essential in a post-modern education.
It is within the Field School that students gain an understanding in deconstructing takenfor-granted assumptions of culture and identity as a muddled, multi-layered process and
phenomenon.
The learning artifacts that students produce at the end of the six week immersive
experience is evidence to the ways in which students are encouraged to more deeply
consider people and place. Pedagogical strategies of the Field School embrace authentic
learning, where students are encouraged to make a product that is to be shared with the
world in a useful and tangible way. The Field School program emphasizes and evaluates
participatory action research-orientated activities. Such activities reach beyond simple
knowledge acquisition and apply a multi-layered, reflexive approach to understanding
environments. The buildings are understood through a technical lens (how it is made), in
addition to the context in which it was constructed (historical, social, cultural), and the
personal investment that is necessary to make the built environment meaningful.
Learning in this scenario is student orientated and interest-driven. Students were given
opportunities to connect the ideas and knowledge that they gained in the everyday life of
the Field School to the social spaces they dwell in. Students were allowed to make sense
of concepts and ideas based upon their own frames of reference. I was witness to a
greater degree of fluency and expansion of concepts, after students had completed all
stages of the Field School. Students were making mindful connections between
seemingly divergent worlds through the many explorations of Washington Park.
The Field School is a community-based study emphasized in collaboration. Students and
residents became co-creators of democratic engagement within academic research.
Students of the Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School learn by doing and research
ideas are often generated from conversations with the community members and residents.
Students are required to report their research findings on the neighborhood to its residents
and community members. I sat in on community reviews where students present their
recapitulated narrative derived from a residents oral history. Sitting in front of me, was
the same resident critiquing, analyzing, and re-thinking the students interpretation and
their own words. Thus, the academic research that happens as part of BuildingsLandscapes-Cultures Field School is very specific to its chosen communities, often
informed by citizens of the community. Both student and resident participants frequently
gather to share the knowledge that they have. One of the primary goals of the Field
School is to see where the shared stories can take you.

The 2014 BLC Field School in Washington Park is the first year, in a three-year
long project. It is exciting to think of possibilities that may emerge in the next two years
of the Washington Park BLC Field School research project.
Sincerely,

Anna Grosch
Community-Based Art Educator
Advanced Opportunity Program Graduate Fellow
Peck School of the Arts
Department of Art and Design
argrosch@uwm.edu
262-510-3095