This project is the construction of a visual analogy. A variety of representational forms - e.g. short written texts, visually-imaged stories, video and audio - will be made public in several forums: gallery exhibition, text/book, web, and CD. How men understand the culture(s) we are inducted into through the early educational process, how we formulate questions, and what questions we are permitted to ask are the nexuses of this project.

School Stories: Analogies and Metaphors

Thomas Rose: Department of Art, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Bryant Griffith: Professor and Past Head, Dept. of Education, Acadia University, Halifax

This project reflects our belief that learning experiences are fragmentary, associative and non-linear. We agree that we inhabit a world of analogy. Our understanding of and interpretation of meaning has to do with our ability to create connections between, and to experience. We do not approach meaning from a rational perspective and understand meaning to be subjective. The irony is the academic history for both Bryant and myself. We both had difficult and less-than-positive educational experiences, and yet Bryant has been deeply involved in education over the past thirty years as a school teacher, professor, and head of the Department of Education at Acadia University, and I have been in academics for more than thirty years as an active artist and professor.

Bryant and I invited approximately 30 men from the age of 40 to write or otherwise produce short pieces exploring their educational experience in or related to the period K - 12. We chose individuals we knew and had some association with, rather than a random sampling. My list was chosen from among artists, architects, landscape architects, and writers; Bryant's were correspondingly from the field of education and policy. This phase is now complete, having received responses from twenty-two individuals. The stories are used as submitted, with no editing or revision, and we plan to use them all, without a selection process. There are categories we will use; some of the stories are time-related and others are space/place-related, and sorting will be on that basis only.

• Events and experiences as they relate to the development of identity
• Development of social skills
• Academic encouragement / lack thereof
• Sports and related activities
• Any other life-forming experience

• We define experience as fragmentary, associative, and experimental
• We agree that we inhabit a world of analogy
• Our understanding of and interpretation of meaning has to do with our ability to formulate relationships between experiences.
• We do not approach meaning from a rational perspective and have a sense that meaning is subjective
• Our early education was dominated by the rote method of learning and by a system which stressed reason and logic

• Dr. George Labercane, Professor, University of Calgary
• Dr. Joe Belanger, Professor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
• Mr. Robert Reford, Educator, LaHave, Nova Scotia
• David Goldies, Photographer, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Garth Rockcastle, Architect, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Tom Oslund, Landscape Architect, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Archie Rand, Visual Artist, New York, New York
• Jim Moore, Poet, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Jim Melchert, Artist, Oakland, California
• John Kilacky, Director, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California
• Tim Miller, Performance Artist, Los Angeles, California
• Keith Wilson, Poet, New Mexico
• Arthur Danto, Art Writer, The Nation, New York, New York
• Tim Rollins, Visual Artist, New York, New York
• William Clark, Ambassador, and Director, Japan Society, New York, New York
• Larry Connolly, Writer, San Francisco, California