Maps and Mapmaking

Introduction

Ernest Boyer, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching from 1979 until his death in 1995, refers to experiences that all people share as Eight Human Commonalities:

(www.messiah.edu/boyer_center/)

1. All people experience the life cycles-from "womb to tomb"-cycles that are marked by celebrations, commemorations, rites of passages, and other special events.
2. All people develop and use symbols-to communicate, to express ideas, etc.
3. All people see and respond to beauty.
4. All people have the ability to remember the past and anticipate the future. We have memories, histories, we tell stories, and we prepare for our future.
5. All people develop some type of social bonding. We form groups from families to political parties.
6. All people have a connection to the ecology of the planet. We all have a relationship with nature and the physical world.
7. All people produce and consume. We work and play.
8. All people seek meaning and purpose in their lives. Beyond simple existing, we also have spiritual lives. We care about ideas and issues and we try to make a difference. We express our moods and feelings in response to these issues.

Students' lives and actions are reflected in these eight commonalities. By using these universal commonalties as a focus of instruction, students are able to see that their learning is vital and is part of something significant, important and relevant to their own life experience. Students need, in the world of increasingly global implications, to be able to see their own personal needs, values, beliefs, and experiences in relation to those of diverse people throughout the world and especially within their own communities. As students move from the personal (how things affect them and their own experiences) to their communities to the global, the students construct invaluable knowledge of their world. They build on their prior knowledge by making connections among their experiences.

I try to approach my art curriculum in terms of these human universalities. I want my students to deal with ideas and issues with which all humans contend. I think exploring how people, from different times and cultures, have explored an idea gives students an opportunity not only to see the similarities and the connectedness of being human but also to allow them to begin to understand and appreciate the different cultural reasons why people are different. Hopefully, this encourages a respect and understanding of diversity. By having the students approach an idea from a global perspective, I hope that they are able then to take the idea and apply it to their own life and own experiences, thus making the unit personally relevant.