Sukiya Living—Education

The first Fifty-five Years: Education Inbound

Education I

Being Taught

Few other topics are as crucial to the notion of Sukiya Living as is education, which is complicated on several levels. What does it mean "to learn" or "to know," English, the oboe, philosophy, Japanese gardens, suiseki or Sukiya Living? It might be productive to address my education chronologically, because the more subtle educational modes seem to depend on those which are earlier and more basic.

The answer to the old question, "What do we learn in school?" is really not far off the mark— "reading, writing and arithmetic." The only essential precedent to these is learning to speak and understand the natural language into which we are born. The answer to the question—"How do we learn English?" remains illusive. Having been born with a certain genetic learning potential, living in an environment where the language is pervasive, having no conspicuous language impediments and being provided with persuasive incentives, normally we do not, nay cannot fail to learn the language. At what age could the language be said to have been acquired? Linguistic basics are in place by age five; our understanding is well along by age 25, at which point any sensitive person appreciates the depth and complexity of the language; and if not, the language learning process is at an end.

One value in language acquisition is that it provides a model for very complicated learning, i.e., this could even be extrapolated, to the extent that most things rest on a "lexical" base, upon which the subject being learned depends. This has long been used for most basic learning—e.g., first you memorize the multiplication table and then you get on with it. This kind of education might be referred to as—atomic-education from the ground up, which is constructed from a basic set of elements that are combined in usable fashion. Informationally-based subjects may be learned thusly.

This model is applicable to learning the oboe—here is the musical instrument; here are what the notes are; here is how you string them together; and here is what constitutes the basic elements of music. This is a standard learning model. Analogously, this could apply to learning Japanese gardens, suiseki and Sukiya Living. This is little more than simple mechanics—one has to learn to crawl before s/he can learn to walk; you have to know the alphabet before you can learn to write. Unfortunately, this alone is not nearly enough.

From mechanics we can move upwards toward the basic stages of epistemology. How is it that meaning arises from words, notes, stones and trees? This might be accommodated using four terms—choice & execution, setting and time. When I completed my PhD, I had spent 28 consecutive years in school. One might justifiably ask, "Through all of those years, what was I doing; and what did this have to do with learning?" If we are honest, it seems that upwards of 90% of the education in American schools is devoted to baby sitting. This may not be all bad. Since our receptive egos begin to shut down before the age of 25, I recommend to my students that they stay in school as long as they can; or until they begin to figure out what they want to do with their lives when they grow up. After graduating from college, it is unlikely that this can be accomplished as soon as in five years; and unfortunately no one has even this much time. Thus, back to the baby-sitting: a culture could do worse than providing time and the environment for its population to figure out their lives. However, ideally one would hope for more positive input from formal education than we have now; in this sense, there has to be more than baby-sitting.

After the acquisition of the basic elements, one of the next educational components could be said to be identifying and becoming familiar with salient universe(s) of discourse. Renoir, in spite of his questionable artist significance, did have something to say about education; he said that an art student learns to paint in the museum, not in the classroom. In addition to getting the students to the museum, concert hall, theater and the library, the greater challenge is getting them to the important stuff once there; and then finally, what to do with these resources once having found them. Unfortunately, contemporary American culture has taken care of this one quite well—Post modernism simply claims that all of this is irrelevant; case closed.

In addition to learning the universe of discourse, also critical to the educational process, is the acquisition of discipline, without which one can accomplish nothing. While art, imagination and creativity cannot be taught, discipline very likely can be. Reflecting back some 55 years, I might ask— "What happened while I was still in high school to cause the transition from my being mildly interested in music, to being sufficiently motivated to practice 2,3 or 4 hours a day?" Whatever this turns out to be, it is overarching, i.e., one can do nothing without it; and once acquired it is transferable to anything else in one's life. This is crucial, because few people remain in the area in which they begin, and where they likely acquired the discipline necessary to do whatever they choose. And the other side of this coin is that many people do not appreciate the potency of this discipline-transfer phenomenon; thus several of my Japanese garden friends are certain that no one can acquire competence in Japanese gardening failing to have apprenticed in Japan. This position is in error.

Choice & Execution

Providing the conditions for these four concepts to become operative is in itself a challenge. Likely, every ambitious student needs at least one committed mentor even to get into the arena of serious education. A mentor brings a great deal to the table, not the least of which is a crucial personal relationship, which functions positively relative to parental surrogacy. Of the most important decisions of one's life, those related to education are in the hands of one's parents. Basically all of our educational destiny is externally determined, nearly to the extent of one's genetic makeup. Ironically, one must jump through so many hoops imposed by others, before beginning to live one's own life. We might identify that point of real educational "beginning" with the concept of "choice," i.e., when one takes the first steps toward personal control of his/her life. Following this, choice conjoined with "execution" retain potency throughout one's life; these could be regarded as the "carrot" pulling oneself ahead; also as the "arrow" moving one along life's path. It is by means of this pair that one takes stock of things, decides how and where to go, if and when to change directions and pursue a new path. While it may not constitute its entirety, both choice and execution are conscious; one simply cannot escape with the excuse - "I didn't know;" or "I wasn't responsible."

This suggests another serious aspect of choice - more than 40 years ago I came to realize that one makes very few real decisions in his life; further, that the first of these is not likely prior to the age of the late teens or early twenties. My first real decision was to apply to Curtis; next was that to have children, interestingly, not to get married; however, it was a crucial decision to get divorced. The decision to leave music was real and significant; the decision to stop drinking a year after my mother died was important and all too conscious. The move into Japanese culture and art was significant. Likely the last of these seminal decision was to mentor residential students (to be considered below). This arch of "real decisions" is life defining and determining. Once the choice is made, then the real work of execution begins— not only getting it done, but doing it the best possible. This is the "climbing the mountain" side of the task. The timing and nature of one's decision making are likely correlated directly to one's potential for self-teaching.

Setting

While it might not be the primary dimension of education, the educational setting is extremely important, e.g., I firmly believe that even if one did not attend a single class while matriculating at Harvard, one's education could still be excellent. And as a corollary, regardless of how great your teachers were, one would be hard pressed to receive much beyond a mediocre education at Ohio State University. This comes with a bit of anecdotal evidence—I graduated from the best music conservatory in the country, The Curtis Institute of Music, where one's primary teacher was thought to carry upward of 75% of educational import. On balance, my primary instrumental teacher at Curtis was a net negative in my educational experience there. This fact notwithstanding, the education at Curtis was quite astounding. On the other hand, my other undergraduate degree was from the University of Iowa; this education and its accompanying experience were markedly less than stellar. What is operative here is not merely the reputation of a significant educational institution; rather more importantly is the fact that the best institutions are precisely where the best students are; and this educational phenomenon likely exceeds the true value of the teachers. In addition, many teachers greatest educational value is contained within their written work, and not their classroom presentation. Another anecdotal tidbit—I took a graduate course with Arthur Danto at the University of Pennsylvania; I would likely have learned more if I had spent the classroom hours reading his books. Which reminds me in passing - the educational exception to my baby-sitting conviction is graduate school, simply in virtue of its being primarily participatory and thus self-generating.

I have long been a staunch believer in "geographical determinism." Just as you are what you eat, so too, you are where you live, work and are educated. Iowa City was a wonderful place to grow up; but it is really not the place to provide one's identity. It is likely the case that, to that extent that one's geographic choices are blocked, so too is a significant degree of one's identity. Geographic isolationism entails provincialism; which is likely true even if one is born and lives in New York, Paris or Tokyo. Educational success in the geographical sense, demands that one go to school somewhere other than where s/he was born and raised, must live abroad some time and must have traveled the world. Once again, we might return to the Harvard/Ohio State examples. There are two phenomena afoot here— where one is born and raised, and where the "center of the universe" is located for your specialty. So, this does add a twist to one's being born in Boston and going to Harvard. I would argue that the earlier point still holds—provincialism is deadly; and even Boston can be provincial. And analogously—it seems that the Curtis students from Philadelphia and South Jersey did not do all that well.

Time

Education simply must not be hurried; it really does take time; and time needs educating. This is still too narrow—it is simply life itself that demands the time; especially in order to figure it out. The nature and priority of time changes through one's history—while this may be a silly example, it may reveal something. When I began Curtis, I was practicing 2-4 hours a day; by the time I graduated, I would not allow myself to practice in excess of 30-45 minutes a day. In the shorter durational period, I was accomplishing substantially more. One criterion of being a professional is time management and efficiency. Time is a multi-dimensional, highly complex phenomenon. This includes—history, process, and many aspects of life, culture and art. Again, time is an unbelievably rich and complex concept; my apologies for giving it such short shift.

Education II

Learning the Real Stuff—Self-generated Education

How do you learn the things you like to do the most; and those things which you do the best? You teach yourself! I recall in the early-90s, discussing with students in my aesthetics class the timber-frame house that my brother and I built in upstate New York and the article that I had written about it in the first annual edition of Fine Homebuilding. A student who seemed impressed asked, "Where did you learn to design and build houses?" Without hesitation, I responded, "At Curtis." By this time in my life, I realized that once one had acquired sufficient discipline and had actually gone through the process of learning something serious, then this disciplined-learning was able to be transferred to other areas of interest. It could be asked further, "Where did I learn to do Japanese gardens and suiseki daiza?" I taught myself; and herein lies the rub—my friend David Slawson, the well known Japanese garden designer, would vigorously deny that such a transfer is possible.

While the logic of learning is the same, since the subject of suiseki-daiza-making is more straight forward than Japanese gardens, let us address that first. My father liked to putter around wood-working; he really never did much with it, but nevertheless, he really loved wood. I am reminded that my paternal grandfather had a farm with 40 acres of timber on Old Man's creek outside Iowa City; when I was young, I spent a good deal of time there. That timber was flush with old-growth Walnut trees, which my grandfather, with the help of his three sons would cut, mill, dry and save. Growing up, I recall regarding this walnut lumber as money in the bank; I still have some of those "valuable" walnut boards.

In the 80s after I had begun bonsai and became interested in suiseki; I read The Japanese Art of Stone Appreciation (Suiseki and Its Use with Bonsai) by Vincent Covello's and Yuji Yoshimura. At the end of the book there was a short section on constructing the suiseki daiza; as it turns out, much of this information was incomplete or inaccurate. I remember saying to myself, "Oh, I could do this." I got some cheap pine boards, and gave it a shot. As a matter of fact, that first year of daiza-making I must have made some 150 daiza. They were pretty awful; and I think that I may have two left, simply for nostalgic and historical reasons. During my three visits to Japan, I carefully studied Japanese suiseki daiza, in order to figure out how they were conceived and constructed; and even more important was the issue of the spirit and soul of suiseki and its daiza. Returning to the states, I plunged into constructing my first Japanese garden. At the same time, I returned to making suiseki daiza, but this time it was totally different than it had been the first time around. Now, I was very serious; I approached the suiseki daiza exactly as I would have approached a new and difficult musical composition that I was determined to learn how to interpret and perform in my former life of music.

Positive results began to come fairly quickly—I resolved that the species of wood necessary to create serious daiza must be exotic hardwood (Brazilian rosewood, ebony, teak and old mahogany); in order to construct these small wooden objects, I needed a few basic tools, and finally I realized that in order to do this correctly, I needed to approach the entire process in a manner that was very systematic, rigorous and disciplined. In other words, a return to my mind-set, directly from those formative years back in Curtis. Also, I wanted the daiza to be more creative and imaginative than were the standard Japanese and Chinese daiza; so I concentrated on this as well. Thus the evolution of the daiza design.

Beyond the conceptual (design) dimensions, the rigor of the discipline was most apparent in working the wood. A good example of this is realized in finishing the daiza—hand-sanding, I use five successively finer grits of sand-paper to sand the daiza. When this is completed, I finish with tung oil, often 25-30 coats. Recently, someone admiring my daiza said that she could not believe the craftsmanship evident in the daiza. She asked, "Where did you learn to do that?" Again, without hesitation, I responded, "At Curtis." Actually, this was just another way of saying, "I taught myself." (See my essay, "Mechanics of Constructing the Suiseki Daiza," under, "Suiseki Writings.")

Virtually everything that one accomplishes that is creative and/or new is self-generated, self-created. What do you do when you reach the point of maturity and independence and you are on your own, and want to do something new? For a myriad of positive reasons, you teach yourself. As a matter of fact, this is precisely the criterion that I would use when I was mentoring my students—one can be said "to know something" when s/he is able to take one's acquired knowledge, and then teach oneself something new that is equally challenging as the original. At the moment, the best three students that I mentored are still gestating in their late 20s.

While it is more complicated, the principles are the same for learning Japanese gardens. The complexity gap is filled with preparation, reading and study. After the three trips to Japan and studying 30-40 Japanese gardens, I read dozens of books on Japanese gardens. I sought out what few Japanese gardens there are in this country—looked at them, evaluated them, critiqued them. As a matter of fact, I worked in the Japanese garden in Fairmont Park in Philadelphia for two summers. This experience was most valuable for a couple reasons—it became patently evident that this was indeed the best Japanese house in the States; however, it also became painfully evident that this garden was terrible, and very likely unsalvageable—the design was weak and flawed; and the maintenance had been minimal to nonexistent. Then, my own training Japanese garden was in Philadelphia; I dare say there were some very nice elements in that garden. However, I made a lot of mistakes, but this was a great learning experience. When I arrived in Columbus four years ago, I hit the ground running. Again, I made mistakes; but they were a bit smaller; and they were and are, always correctable.

In the broad sense, what precisely have I taught myself? First, and in the present context, this is out of the blue—while in graduate school I taught myself candle-making. After my parents started a small candle company, I began making art-candles. In the 60s, I opened a small candle shop in Philadelphia and wrote two books on candle-making. These admissions have previously not seen the light of day.

Second, I taught myself how to teach. My Apologies for the arrogant sound of this; I intend no such thing. There is no question that everyone "teaches him/herself to teach;" the problem is that most do not do it very well. I was teaching an impossible subject (philosophy) in a hopeless situation (a visual and performing school of the arts). My learning curve for teaching was abetted by my music. My wife at the time was a harpist and the two of us performed regularly for my students. I used to say that the students would have to be deaf or insensate not to be moved by my playing for them. I taught them philosophy by playing for them in a way that I could never have communicated with them in the classroom. Although it took some 20 years, I finally realized that this was simply too easy and that I had to do it in the classroom at least as well as I did performing for them. And I think that I accomplished this. However, the real ground for the arrogance at the beginning of the paragraph is based on the mentoring, to be discussed below. An easy shot for a critic here would be to argue that my mentoring was as easy, if not more so than was my performing for the students. Living with the kids is, educationally like shooting fish in a barrel—yes, but......... I suppose in all honestly I would have to admit that ideally, a teacher should be able to do in the classroom what I did with residential mentoring. Surely a necessary condition for success here is providing the ability for your students themselves to teach well.

Third, I taught myself suiseki. Since I have written a great deal on this, I will hold my comments here to to minimum. While it is not a necessary condition that one be innovative or creative for one "to teach" himself, this is the criterion to which I would appeal with regard to suiseki and Japanese gardens—I introduced a new concept of the suiseki daiza. Normally regarded as sufficient here would be teaching oneself the craft of woodworking the daiza.

Finally, I taught myself Japanese gardens. Here, as was the case with suiseki, the distinction between the craft and the creative dimension might be relevant. For suiseki, the craft is working the wood, which is teachable. The analogue for the garden would be working the elements of the garden—e.g., horticulture, bonsai, stone setting, ponds and aqua-culture, basic stone work (paths and ground stone) and basic "Japanese gardening 101." In the "Money" section of "A Japanese Aesthetic" (Sukiya Living #6), I ask, "What is the categorical barrier keeping Americans from doing their own Japanese gardens?" One primary answer is the conspicuous absence of a sense of the "craft of the Japanese garden," without which the task is impossible. This is important—the least that is expected from a "professional Japanese gardener" is competence in the craft; at times this may not be apparent, because this craft itself is complex and demanding. It is no surprise that the novice is at a complete loss here—the problem is two-fold: 1) basic competence with individual elements; and 2) a sense of these relating to one another; the latter of which remains a challenge even for the initiates.

Since I returned to writing 10 years ago, I continue to struggle with it, but I keep plugging along. I have two rather homely criteria that I bring to bear with respect to my writing—1) is it understandable? and 2) is it correct? I bring these same criteria to my garden—is it clear and is it "correct"? By this, I mean—is there an evident concept for the garden; and do I bring this to fruition? I believe this is both relevant and achievable. One could argue that I have failed at either or both of these criteria. I think that the prospect of our having this discussion is fairly good prima fascia evidence that I have had some success here.

Education III

Mentoring

My thoughts on education began coming together with my mentoring residential students during the last decade that I taught at the University of the Arts. Why did I do this? It was part of my effort to figure out what education was, what I received during the course of my education, and how I might provide this to a group of well deserving students; and to do it in the best possible way that I could.

What had transpired in my life that helped accommodate this? I was 55 years old; I had acquired a basic understanding of art; I had some notion of what education was or could be; I had given considerable effort to what parenting is. In my personal life, I had stopped drinking; and, after nearly 40 years, I had taken some positive steps toward becoming unencumbered by relationships with women, which prior to this point had been the bane of my existence. While possibly none of these was necessary for this task of mentoring, the set may have been conjunctively sufficient with the inclusion of the situation, motivation and opportunity.

My six-bedroom house was virtually empty. The educational challenges at school were few and far between. I had been to Japan, I was teaching a Japanese culture course, I was doing bonsai and suiseki and my first Japanese garden was under way in the back yard. I had a pool of over 100 students a year from whom to draw four or five to ask to invite into the house; these students were of the caliber of the best students their age in the country

On average there were four students at a time in the house, which was a good number - part of their program was their talking seriously to one another. The agenda in the house consisted of our eating together at least four times a week; during and after which we would talk about pretty much anything under the sun; all matters of art were of immediate concern; the students were particularly encouraged to discuss their own work, their classes and their exchanges at school with their fellows. We attended concerts, museums, the theater, trips to New York, and Washington. Regularly we went to the Barnes Foundation Art Gallery and the Longwood Gardens. In the evenings we would read Shakespeare plays, poetry by Eliot, Rilke and Dante. We would invite colleagues and friends for dinner and readings. The students would share and critique one another's work. Their working in the Japanese garden was especially important; they seemed to delight in pulling weeds and cleaning the stones. Also, they always took pride in entertaining their friends and family at the house.

Educationally, what was the house for me? My objective was—in the best of all possible worlds, what environment would I like to have had the opportunity to experience during the course of my undergraduate years? This was it. To have access 24/7 to a professor who I admired and respected and from whom the feeling was mutual; and that I could engage this person about anything, any time. We discussed a good deal of pragmatic philosophy, much of which was personal and familial. While it may not always have been to their advantage, the students knew that they were in a situation of privilege and occasionally this crept out to their friends and other teachers; at times, this became a bit tricky. Whenever appropriate, I would go to bat for my kids with my colleagues and the school administration, which was a benefit for them. They learned a good deal of practical psychology and politics; they got a sense of how families work and how institutional education works; they learned that these often had little to do with parenting and learning. As much as anything, they began to learn what education is and can be. When Adam, one of my better students came to me, he was doing a double-major, taking education courses so that he would graduate with some prospect of a "financial viable career." He, to say nothing of his mother, were shocked at my suggestion that after leaving his tenure with me he could decide and do pretty much anything that he wanted to do "as a career;" needless to say, he dropped the education major. As a footnote, Adam's first job upon graduation was as a waiter at Le Bec Fin, the finest French restaurant in Philadelphia for over $50 an hour. In less than a year he left there, from whence it has been onward and upward for him.

As the old saying goes— I learned more by mentoring, than I taught; but a large part of this was in the satisfaction that I taught a lot. In this I was working toward my educational identity and legacy. What, in particular was I teaching? How to be in, nay even more, how to create a world in which one could live, thrive and be proud to bring one's children into. This was bringing my own education full circle—tying it up at the end. This arch that involved nearly 70 years time was indeed what and how education could be. Again, the criterion here is surely, as it is in parenting, that the proof is in the pudding; I will be very surprised if these students do not do extremely well with their lives. Possibly the more important thing for me is that I did it the best that I feel I could have; and that is extremely fulfilling. My older daughter once observed, "Dad, I don't know how you have the patience to do it." It is perfectly clear to me why and how I did.