full interview_jesse pasca_1.mp4
Jesse Pasca [00:00:00] I'm Jesse Pasca. I teach visual arts to sixth graders here, seventh graders, and the upper school. And this was my architecture class. I teach architecture, art history, and various studio and fiber classes.
Speaker 2 [00:00:17] So tell us what this project is.
Jesse Pasca [00:00:20] So this project came out of probably some thinking that I've done as an architecture teacher, having worked with David Rockwell architects and having visited their studio in the past. And they have this wheel that has different materials on it. And even when they get a serious project, they spin it. And they do a mashup. They do sort of a randomization of things. And that type of elasticity of thinking. Is so needed with teenagers, and because they really wanna get things right, and they're using often what they've always had. And I was like, I need to have them have fun and play in their understanding of space. And with talking with Jaja and Catherine, the first grade teachers, they do a building project with the first graders, and I was, like, maybe we can link up, and then maybe later on, we can come work with your students. And that's how it began.
Speaker 2 [00:01:20] Okay, so elevator pitch, what's the deal?
Jesse Pasca [00:01:31] By meeting with the first graders and being tasked and charged by first graders with the impossible at times. How do my students then conceive of space, reimagine space in ways that they haven't thought of? How do they think about materials in ways they haven t thought of and in their understanding, especially in upper school, of a deep understanding of space it s only further, coupled with that sort of random, unexpected piece. That they have a personal connection to. They wanna, they want to serve their clients. They really wanna please those first graders. And that really gets them into iteration and imagination in ways that they wouldn't have otherwise. So it's a phenomenal project.
Speaker 2 [00:02:18] So this exercise, I just need to have it really basic. You're a senior, are they seniors? No, they're upper schoolers. So we have 10th, 11th, yeah. This exercise, the upper school kids are architect, are the architect, and first graders are the clients. Okay, got it, yeah, yeah yeah. And then I'm gonna talk to you about some of the deeper stuff. Fantastic.
Jesse Pasca [00:02:35] So in this situation, the upper school architect students, they are. So in this situation, the upper school students are the architects and the first graders are the clients. And their job is to take their clients' general ideas and then bring life to it. And they did that through a series of iterations. They came in, they showed their designs, they were both told no good, wonderful, and they iterated. In part with the first grade clients and in part away from the first-grade clients and they are now in process of building the models and the designs for the work.
Speaker 2 [00:03:16] You said something earlier about play. Talk about play, before you say it.
Jesse Pasca [00:03:20] I think all learning comes from play. I think we take what we know and we try it out in a new context. We combine it with something else we know, and we see if it can do something. I think that's play. I think it's why we learn so rapidly as little ones, and it gets harder and harder. I think the catchphrases of thinking outside the box is really just another word of Let's play. And so I want to create the conditions for my students to be playing.
Speaker 2 [00:03:52] So one of the things that people talk about in terms of education in America is that stuff has become sort of siloed. So-called arts and the soft stuff. Just talk a little bit about that. Do you try to overcome that or what?
Jesse Pasca [00:04:09] Well, the idea of siloing disciplinary understanding sits in silos, I think, is tragic. I think I'm super lucky as an artist and as an art teacher. We explore everything. We have conversations about everything because everything could be utilized in our studio. And architects, in a way, it's the most perfect form because it lives in the real world. And it draws on all the ideas in all the other fields, from space to music to light, you know, to art, you know everything, the economics of it as well, right? So I think I'm really lucky. I think we are, this comes out of the sort of industrial model of education that was prevalent even in the early 20th century. And I'm surprised that we have moved more towards siloing. Rather than away from it, especially when we start seeing that... Computer scientists who are coding are leaving computer science to go into genetic coding, because that grammar is the same, and yet they're completely shifting into the biosciences. So I think we need to broaden our thinking.
Speaker 2 [00:05:29] I love what you said about architecture. Can you just talk, say that again, just a different way of it. I don't know what I said. Whit Park, yeah. This is the last question. Architecture seems to be a special discipline in terms of pulling together the arts and the sciences and engineering and all that. Just talk about that again.
Jesse Pasca [00:05:56] I mean, I think architecture is the most complete form because it's functional, it relies on all the esthetics, all the beauty, it has to be functional, and it can help, the design can help people live better lives and deeper lives in the way that they want. And I'm not an architect, I'm a studio artist, and I may make beautiful things or provocative things, but the livable, a built world allows for really a greater conversation. That's one quick question. Can you teach creativity? I would never ever say I teach creativity. I would say I create conditions that are optimal or I try to create conditions that are optimum for creativity to happen. I do that through materials, prompts, ideas, questions, and you allow students to space that they can express themselves, and when you affirm threads, they just blossom.
Speaker 2 [00:07:12] Is so creativity, is it in all of us? Sorry, can I get that? You know, we need to, no, we probably need to do it. This has got to be the last one. This is the last, sorry. So I, I, sorry, maybe I'm being, No, no it's not you, you're great. Right now it's just, it's, it, it needs to. Yeah, we're good.
Jesse Pasca [00:07:27] I think creativity is in all of us. We as a society might have to adjust to the expressions that come from individuals that might not fit within that framework. But I do think we all have the capacity to create and make sense of our worlds in different ways. In visual ways, in musical ways, and in poetry in all.
full interview_jesse pasca_2.mp4
Speaker 1 [00:00:00] So our series is about how art and science come together as part of creativity. Can you connect the dots for us in this project of yours, this architecture project?
Jesse Pasca [00:00:13] Sure, I think the spirit of this particular assignment has to do with play and how something is put together, how materials work. That's how we start saying, oh, we can do this here. Can we do it here? And they try things, and the students try things. So I think just from a simple play standpoint That's how scientists find things. They make discoveries. They notice there's a little difference in how something interacts. And then they want to ask, can that repeat itself? And artists are asking the exact same thing. Can this repeat? Can I do this? What do I have to do to control the variables? And they think the students in this case, like some of my specific learning objectives, and they're a little more narrow, or like how do they start understanding space, right? What happens when one... Physical form occupies a space, what other spaces are created with that and just starting to build a schema for them as young architects. That was really important for me and some of the playfulness of the kind of design program I think really helped them really have to explore scale and internalize that in a way that you know especially for my underclassmen It's really difficult. I don't know if that. Fully addresses the sort of science piece, but it's the process of finding the things that are repeatable and understanding one's place in relationship to material space and form.
Speaker 1 [00:01:59] What did you take away from this whole process in terms of teaching and creating in the room?
Jesse Pasca [00:02:10] I think. Watching consistently how the first graders and the upper school students work together, I think I can trust in the questions, the prompts and the interests of students even more than I probably do. I think that what comes next is something that as a teacher I always encourage students to think about what else could you do, or what might happen. But the first grade clients were able to really indicate what could come next for the architects. And then the architects were able to ask those questions and then also invite some of their own. So I think it's a combination of setting up good language and frameworks for students to keep pushing themselves, but also to trust that they have the capacity to do that and not to stifle their creativity because some of these outcomes... There's no way I could have envisioned them and I think letting that space emerge is a takeaway that I can even do less sometimes and things will emerge.
Speaker 1 [00:03:29] What is the importance of having art and science in the curriculum rather than siloing? Thank you.
Jesse Pasca [00:03:43] I think as an artist and a scientist, I think some approaches are different, but really the entire, the entirety. The physical world is at your disposal and to silo it. Prevents discoveries, possibilities, and activities from happening. And to bring them all together allows for connections that we already have discovered but may rediscover, or we haven't discovered yet. So I think it's a must to keep them together.
