4/365 Let’s Learn to Draw

If you, like me, are as enamored with pretty much anything RSA Animate brings to the web or have had the pleasure of being at a conference facilitated by my friend Stacey Weitzner, when you’ve probably had the thought, “I wish I could do that.”

Making my way through the ole “ETC” folder of PDFs I’ve been meaning to read for longer than I’d like to admit, I finally read Brandy Agerbeck’s Brandyfesto (and you should too).

I’ll offer you three reasons to read it rather than pulling it apart for you. At 26 pages, it’s a brief read.

  1. While teachers are often heavy in the linguistic and logical/mathematical intelligences to make their way to the front of the classroom, we’re often pledging to bring other intelligences to our teaching and our students’ learning. Agerbeck goes one better and asks her readers to try their hands at developing their kinesthetic intelligences.
  2. Quote 1: We get far too hung up on product. It’s only one part of the whole. Build a practice you enjoy. Do the work. Do the work some more. Observe and admire your progress. Develop that challenge you. The product will follow.
  3. Quote 2: As a noun, I listen to conversation and look for its shape.

I know more has been written on the art of graphic facilitation, but this was the first piece I’ve read that asked me to join in as I considered its place in learning.

Agerbeck’s Brandyfesto brought up two thoughts for me:

  1. I wish I could do a brief “book club” examining it with a team of teachers.
  2. I can’t believe how much I missed as a classroom teacher in not asking my students if I had any graphic facilitators in the room.

What do you think?

One of my favorite RSA Animate videos: