Last week I traveled to Minneapolis to attend the National Art Education Association conference, where I also officially completed the School for Art Leaders program that I began last summer.

Throughout the nine months, we met with our cohort online, in large and small groups, and each of us worked on a capstone research project related in some way to leadership. I developed my project around explorations of Deep Listening. I wrote a series of Deep Listening inquiries for the art classroom, which draw on ways that we listen with hands and feet, gestures and movements. I first tried some of these out with my undergraduate students and then shared them with a workshop full of preK-12 Kansas art educators at our regional conference last fall. They offered great feedback as well as insights on how to adapt some of my inquiries for a range of ages and abilities.

At NAEA last week, I had the opportunity to lead a workshop as part of the Research Commission pre-conference. Some of my School for Art Leaders colleagues and I also organized a session on modes of leadership in our organizations, what we refer to as “herding creative cats.” The faculty speaker series I’ve organized this semester on walking and listening is part of this leadership project, creating platforms and incentives for my colleagues to showcase their work. At the upcoming symposium later this month, my students will also have opportunities to lead, moving out of the passive learning role and taking on the development of participatory walking and listening activities.

Although the program is now finished, the ideas will continue to unfold through writing. I have an article, co-authored with Elena Marchevska, about Deep Listening in art education forthcoming in a special journal issue on Slow Academia, and I’ll be incorporating information and feedback from the workshops in writing for my in-progress book.

I am grateful for these communities of educators who are eager to listen, learn, and experiment together. Here’s to more of that!