Bridging photography and learning

Pondering the bridge between graphic design and education last week had to do with process, organization, and attention. More specifically, the interaction between the work and the audience. This week, examining the link between photography and education, I'm more apt to consider the work and experience of the the creator. The process of choosing a subject, capturing it, and improving upon it certainly has an analog in the core of sound pedagogy: choosing a topic (or group of content standards), creating a whole lesson, and then improving upon it for the following year (or semester). I believe that some of the aesthetic concerns of the photographer are also shared with a talented teacher: framing information and assignments in ways that are interesting and accessible for students to engage. Students in a classroom are as fickle as the audience at a photography show: taste in art can be as varied as complex (and layered) personality types and learning styles. This means that not every piece/lesson will appeal to every person/student. Our goals then as educators must be to make our lessons (and the experiences they create) as accessible as possible to the widest field of students, allowing us to give more attention to support those who require it.