A week ago, I almost considered my Lego Star Wars collaboration art/space station making experience a 'failure.' I was expecting a single, impressive, coherent space station-inspired sculpture, which is far from what I got. The sculpture wasn't a sculpture at all. Instead it was a seemingly unconnected mini-sculptures and several handfuls of single Lego bricks.
After a few days, I decided that collaborative Lego project was not a failure, I just had a bad objective. My (unverbalized) objective never stated "the students will work together to make a single Lego sculpture," nor should it have. Brianna and I intended to learn about the process of youth collaboration, not to necessarily to get academically perfect artwork. Beyond our collab studio project objectives, I wanted my boys to have fun, learn to work together, and think outside the box (or, in this case, the directions booklet). In these ways, the Lego Star Wars project was a huge success. My students enjoyed it, it fit seamlessly into my lesson plans, and Brianna and I learned a lot. Not to mention, I think the pieces that did come out of it are pretty darn cool.
Overall, I really appreciate Brianna's original request to make our project education-oriented. My interest in art education is more focused on the nerdy human development aspects of the curriculum, rather than necessarily preparing professional and revolutionary artists. Brianna's idea for our project really enabled me to explore and apply my nerdiness AND produce art rather than just go back and forth drawing with Brianna.
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