Original post on hcommons.social

Ok, so this is a long one…

The first entry of 2026 in my ongoing series of #ThinkingOutLoud about #ArtsPedagogy touches on Dewey, Vygotsky and scaffolding, and the micro-phenomenological interview as outlined by Claire Petitmengin. And tries to tie it all to film education.

(Feedback is always […]

Original post on hcommons.social

This one ended up being quite long… In my continuing #ThinkingOutLoud series during my #ArtsPedagogy research semester, I examine return to creativity and work though some more takes on it before starting to develop my personal theory of creativity.

Short version: after rejecting theories of […]

Original post on hcommons.social

The more I delve into my research on #ArtsPedagogy and creativity, the more I am convinced of the accuracy of the quote in the screenshot here: in order to understand creativity, we have to realize it’s first and foremost a process. The so-called standard definition of creativity relies on […]

Original post on hcommons.social

Learning about this flute was what put me on the path of considering how closely intertwined the creation of art is with our very humanity (and our closest evolutionary relatives like Neandertals). I have come to the conclusion that that the drive to create art is one of the defining […]

Fumbling my way forward – fredsnotes

More #ThinkingOutLoud about #ArtsPedagogy, as my research inches it's way forward. There’s a structure emerging in what I’m doing in my attempt to connect the practically oriented nature of film schools with educational theory and philosophy.

Baby steps…

filmschoolteacher.info/fredsnotes/2...

Original post on hcommons.social

More #ThinkingOutLoud about #ArtsPedagogy, as my research inches it's way forward. There seems to be a structure emerging in what I’m doing in my attempt to connect the practically oriented nature of film schools with educational theory and philosophy.

Baby steps… […]

Reflections. And next steps. – fredsnotes

More #ThinkingOutLoud about #ArtsPedagogy. I feel like I'm starting to get somewhere and am starting to see the contours of where this can end up. Still lots of work to go, however...

filmschoolteacher.info/fredsnotes/2...

Reflections. And next steps. I spent a few days in Amsterdam last week, and had some very interesting and fruitful sessions with faculty members from the Netherlands Film Academy and Amsterdam University of the Arts. Also, nice to get positive feedback on what I’m working on and affirmation that it’s relevant and interesting for more than just me! In the aftermath, I’m starting to see the contours of where I’m headed next, both with respect to film school pedagogy and the relationship between art and AI. # 1. Research outcome I entered into my research semester with some ideas about how to present the results, but after discussions with members of the FilmEd research group at the Film Academy, these ideas are starting to become more concrete. I firmly believe that theory and practice must go hand in hand in order for either to be effective and useful, and have set myself the goal of giving filmmaker-educators a more explicit theoretical toolbox to draw on in their practice in the classroom and workshop. As I’ve observed previously, there is relatively plentiful material on «how to» for filmmaker-educators (and artist-educators), but there is much less material available on questions of «why». A few years ago, I wrote a handbook for teachers at the Norwegian Film School. Like many other tools, it focussed more on _how_ than on _why_ , although I did refer to the work Heidi Philipsen had done while researching the Danish Film School. It was quite specific to the peculiarities and structures of our own film school, and perhaps not so useful for anyone else. I last updated it in 2018, and have more or less considered it a dead end. When I spoke about this handbook in Amsterdam, however, I was immediately challenged: why not repurpose the handbook idea, and create a resource for filmmakers teaching at European and international film schools where they can find relevant educational theories to apply to their teaching practice, both in order to lift the quality of their teaching and in order to have a vocabulary with which to discuss their teaching practice with others. And, with the challenge came a deadline: fall 2026, when European film schools will be gathering in Łódź, Poland for a planned thematic gathering of GEECT members. Which begs the question: what would such a handbook look like? # 2. Handbook for film school teachers In 2005, the Norwegian Film School, with the support of CILECT, published _Training the Trainers_ , a series of 10 booklets written by Dick Ross and accompanied by a curated DVD; aimed at filmmakers who were becoming teachers. It was (as it’s now out of print) a highly-regarded resource at film schools around the world, with practical and useful advice for those looking to find a way to turn their professional experience into classroom activities. Other examples of the same genre exist, and my own handbook would fall into a similar category. What _Training the Trainers_ does not do is relate practice-based film school education to the existing and extensive body of educational and cognitive theory and philosophy. As I’ve written about earlier, I have been studying both Dewey and Vygotsky, and subsequent theorists who have built (and are building) educational theories on or inspired by their work. In this body of work, there is much that is directly relevant to film school — indeed, any practice-based fine art — education. The core is understanding several factors, including: 1. The cyclical relationship between practice, experience, reflection, and planning. (Yes, much like Kolb’s learning cycle). Or, as John Dewey wrote: "One does not learn from experience. One learns from reflecting on experience" (_How We Think_ , 1933). 2. The social aspect of learning, which includes Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, and the concept of _scaffolding_ as developed by Bruner et.al. after Vygotsky was translated to English. In other words, what learning theorists know as «social constructivism». 3. New theories of cognition, as signalled by theories of embodied and 4E cognition. Understanding cognition is key to understanding how fine arts education can be structured, so as to ensure students learn holistic approaches to their artistic practice involving the interplay of mind, body, and environment. 4. Phenomenology and, as a related field, perceptual learning. The arts involve the senses, both in the artistic creation and in the reception, and understanding how our senses work as our primary connection to the world is especially important in artistic education. 5. The role of emotion needs to be addressed as well. Not only does art speak to the emotions, but classroom situations and interpersonal dynamics are effected by emotion, which can help or hinder learning. This is not an exhaustive list, but does reflect the strands I am pursuing now. Reconciling these strands can be challenging, as some of them seem to conflict with the others. For example, one criticism often levelled against the classical learning cycle, and the notion of "reflection in action" as articulated by Donald Schön, is that it treats reflection as something separate from action or experience, even as it seeks to demonstrate the importance they have for each other. In other words, it appears to build on an understanding of mind based on the mind/body dualism. This seems directly at odds with 4E cognition and related theories, which seek to erase the separation of mind and body, and, indeed, our environment. I am certain there is literature on this, although I have not come across it yet… (If anyone reading knows of any, please do let me know!) But I think regardless that reconciling the cyclical connection between experience and reflection with the extended and embodied mind theses, where a case can be made for certain types of experience — specifically acts of creation — are, by their very nature, reflection and experience. And so, I am left looking at: reflection _on_ experience, reflection _through_ experience, and reflection _as_ experience. Also, the role of our senses and of emotion in reflection and experience. Finally, if emotion is emerging as a key for me in understanding arts pedagogy and creativity, what does that say for the role of AI in creative processes? (More on that in a later post; I need to chew on it first.)

More #ThinkingOutLoud about #ArtsPedagogy. I feel like I'm starting to get somewhere and am starting to see the contours of where this can end up. Still lots of work to go, however...

filmschoolteacher.info/fredsnotes/2025/09/21/re...

Original post on hcommons.social

As part of my #ThinkingOutLoud on #ArtsPedagogy, I’ve written a little (ok, perhaps not so little) pedagogical bio to both help myself organize my thoughts and also make it clear where I am coming from for anyone who might read my ongoing posts […]

Original post on hcommons.social

Like just about everyone else I know, I seem to spend a lot of time thinking, reading, and talking about #AI. And, given that I work in fine arts education, it's inevitable I think about how AI affects the arts, and how the arts affect AI.

As part of my work in #ArtsPedagogy, I'm visiting the […]

Thinking out loud v.03 Finally getting started… The students are in place and the semester has started. I’ve done my duty as far as participation is concerned, and now I’m settling in to the home office. It’s time to make a plan and ensure I can keep up with both my pedagogical research and participation in MishMash as that work gets off the ground. Before the summer I fixed up the home office, so it’s less like a multi-storgage room for all the things we don’t know here to put and more like a working space and home library. I’m pretty pleased with the results, and early indications are that it’s a good space in which to work. The first order of business is making a prioritised reading list for the coming weeks. I’m currently about a 1/3 of the way through _How We Learn_ by Stanislas Dehaene. The most recent book I completed is _The Entanglement_ by Alva Noë, and the arguments in it informed some of my arguments in the piece on the key role the arts and fine arts education play in society I wrote for Norwegian higher education magazine _Khrono_ a couple of weeks ago (sorry; Norwegian only). As of now, the next titles on the reading list are: * _Sourcebook of Experiential Education_ — part I: Philosophers and Educational Theorists and part III: Psychologists and Sociologists * _Strange Tools_ — Alva Noë * _The Phenomenology of Perception_ — Maurice Merleau-Ponty * _Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change_ — Maxine Greene * _Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious_ — N. Katherine Hayles * _Practicing Embodied Thinking in Research and Learning_ — Schoeller, Thorgeirsdottir & Walkerden (eds.) * _Teaching to Transgress_ — bell hooks * _Movement Matters_ — Sheila Macrine and Jennifer Fugate (eds.) * _Foundations of Embodied Learning: A Paradigm for Education_ — Mitchell Nathan * _Toward Wide-Awakeness: An Argument for Arts and Humanities in Education_ — Maxine Greene * _The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition_ — Lawrence Shapiro and Shannon Spaulding (eds.) I expect this list will develop and change almost daily… Having music is an important part of how I work. My tinnitus becomes much easier to ignore if I have background music on, and so I spent some time last week organizing my digital music library. Here I suppose thanks are due to Apple, as the Music app for some reason made a mess of the location of my music files which meant I had to rebuild my digital library developed over 25 years completely from scratch… (Who me? Sarcastic? Never!) I seems all external obstacles are cleared away, and now I have no excuses. I’ll spend about 25-30 hours a week on my research and about 10-15 a week on MishMash — at least for now. I figure out how to adjust that when other things intrude, like the presentation and panel discussion I’m doing at Oslo Pix festival on August 28th. At least, since it’s about AI and the film industry, it’s related to the MishMash work.

Thinking out loud v.03 – fredsnotes filmschoolteacher.info/fredsnotes/2025/08/19/th...

I muse about #AI, #ArtsPedagogy, #ReadingLists, and the joys of rebuilding a music library. Finally, my #ResearchSemester officially begins!

Original post on hcommons.social

In my second instalment of thinking out loud about #ArtsPedagogy for film schools, I touch on drawing, sensory learning, experience, and the audience. I big reach for a short blog post, but a useful way to both train myself to write down what I’m thinking and also to record the connections in my […]

Why We Ar/t/ – fredsnotes

Some thoughts on art and why it’s necessary for a healthy, functioning society.

Why We Ar/t/ – fredsnotes filmschoolteacher.info/fredsnotes/2...

#ArtsPedagogy #Art #Society #Innovation

Why We Ar/t/ I have worked in and around the arts for most of my adult life, primarily music, theatre, and film. I _know_ art is important, not jut for me but for most of us — and for a healthy, functioning society. At the same time, art is not instrumental. It does not provide easily quantifiable benefits, where a «return on investment» can be calculated and presented in a spreadsheet. The benefits we — both individually and as a society — accrue from art is valuable precisely because it’s _not_ quantifiable. It is intangible, but at the same time foundational. One of the most damaging effects of neoliberal new public management has been the increasing emphasis on the measurable and the quantifiable. In our eagerness to ensure the taxpayers money is spent «wisely», we have become unable to judge value, choosing instead to focus exclusively on costs. And in so doing, we forget what makes us human, we forget what makes us grow and reach for the unknown. As Alva Noë points out in _The Entanglement_ , humans have been making art for as long as we have existed. Cave art dated to over 50,000 years ago, musical instruments created by Neanderthals from around the same time demonstrate that the need to express ourselves is part of who we are. One cannot separate art from humanity and still retain that which makes us human. Artistic expression is not just the domain of artists — it is integral to our daily lives, and we all demonstrate this through the myriad of choices we make each day as we decide how to present ourselves to the word. Brian Eno and Bette A. show this clearly in _What Art Does_. Recent cognitive science also shows that art is not just an isolated aspect of our humanity, but has profound impacts on all aspects of our existence.[^1] That the practice of creating art is profoundly important to the artist is obvious. Perhaps less obvious is that the act of viewing art and participating in cultural activities is also profoundly important to every member of society. Here we come back to Noë, and can see that since (one of) the function(s) of art is to both make us aware of social and cultural norms _and_ to challenge them, art is crucially important for both personal and societal development. Without it, we would be trapped in another essential aspect of our nature, the desire for continuity and predictability, and would stagnate. In higher education in Norway, there is also a paradox at the moment: like many countries, the Norwegian government wants to support education that “meets the need of the future workforce” and at the same time encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. They do this using the logic of the spreadsheet and the quantifiable, and thus believe that funding programmes tied to jobs there is demand for _today_ will somehow ensure we are also preparing ourselves for meeting the challenges of _tomorrow_. And in this worldview, there is no reason to emphasize education in the arts, and so funding for arts programmes can be cut drastically. The problem, of course, is that newer research shows[^2] that the benefits of the arts extend far beyond the cultural and creative industries — in fact, the research shows that having a vibrant and active artistic and cultural sector feeds innovation and growth in many, if not all, sectors of society. And thus, cutting public funding for the arts and culture, reducing investment in fine arts education will, over time, reduce the innovative and growth potential of all sectors of society. # Footnotes [^1]: See, Anderson, Miranda. “4E Cognition and the Mind-Expanding Arts.” European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education 7, no. 02 (March 22, 2024): 7–64. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7451462. [^2]: Sacco, Pier Luigi, Piotr Bialowolski, and Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska. “Culture and Creativity, Skills Building, and Growth: What Have We Missed?” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 12, no. 1 (February 21, 2025): 236. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-04200-0.

Some thoughts on art and why it’s necessary for a healthy, functioning society.

Why We Ar/t/ – fredsnotes filmschoolteacher.info/fredsnotes/2025/07/25/wh...

#ArtsPedagogy #Art #Society #Innovation

A brief overview – fredsnotes

In the spring, I gave participants of our fine arts pedagogy course a glimpse into what I’ll be researching. While it’s developed since then, I still like the map.

A brief overview – fredsnotes filmschoolteacher.info/fredsnotes/2...

#FilmPedagogy #ArtsPedagogy #TheoriesOfCognitionAndLearning

Original post on hcommons.social

In the spring, I gave the participants of the fine arts pedagogy course at INN a glimpse into what I’ll be researching this fall. While the connections have developed since then, I still like the map and refer to it regularly.

A brief overview – fredsnotes […]

Original post on hcommons.social

I have the priviledge of taking a whole semester for my research this fall, and intend to blog / think out loud as I work my way through #Pedagogy, #Philosophy, #Art, #Filmmaking, #ExperientialLearning, #4ECognition, and a host of other topics — yes, including some thoughts on #AI and how it […]

Well done BA2 🙌powerful #installationart pieces for the end assessment for our Explorjng Creative Practices module, presenting important social issues in public spaces @strath-ioe.bsky.social #creativity #artspedagogy #thecampusisthecanvas #creativeassessment