How MIT Professor Joshua Bennett is addressing gaps in K-12 literary arts education
In this video interview, the J-WEL Education Innovation grantee discusses a project that combines archival research with collaborative art making.
By Maria Segala
Through its Education Innovation Grants, the MIT Jameel World Education Lab aspires to develop the building blocks, ideas, and connections that power global transformation in learning. Jameel World Education Lab grants support educational innovations across a rich variety of fields including: linguistics, mechanical engineering, literature, architecture, physics, management, political science, and more. More than $5 million in funding has been awarded to MIT researchers since 2017.
As part of an ongoing series, we are taking a closer look at each 2023 grantee’s projects. In the spotlight today is Joshua Bennett, Distinguished Chair of the Humanities and professor in the Literature department. Bennett’s project, “Minor notes: teaching the archival arts,” aims to address existing gaps in K-12 literary arts education through a novel approach that combines archival research with collaborative art making. Over the past year, Bennett has met with a cohort of high school seniors and their faculty advisors to explore local community archives and compose original works of art inspired by the historical materials they discover in those spaces.
In the following videos, Bennett discusses what excites him most about this project, his hopes for what the students involved will take away from the experience, and what success looks like.
What excites you most about your project?
“I’m learning a lot more about what it means to be a young person in our historical moment, the kind of pressures young people face, but also why some of them are interested in making art and studying history at this point in time.”
What do you hope is the biggest takeaway from your project for the students and for yourself?
“This would be a very different program if it provided individual funding for individual students. Instead…what we’ve decided is that we are an ensemble. We are here to push each other even though we have different disciplines and practices and interests. And we’re here to give open and honest feedback…to lift the work to a transcendent level…That has been incredible to experience as a group.”
What does success look like for your project, and how are you measuring success?
“I hope this becomes a kind of national model…if you have a local university and a high school, you can do this. You can go into a community archive…and make the argument that the kind of art we’re committed to is not just about our emotions or mental state…but it’s about how our emotions and mental states are informed by history, and how we can reach back into our shared past to build and safeguard the future world.”
Interested in learning more about grants from Jameel World Education Lab at MIT Open Learning? Visit the lab’s grants website.
