Abstract

Proprioceptive Thinking: A Kinetic Critique of Educational Movements

Proprioception is the concise channeling of kinetic energy that gives each individual a unique understanding of their own body in space. The art of dance is a direct balance of proprioceptive and cognitive understanding that allows one to express themself through movement, both as an individual and representative of a specific culture. As a dancer interested in education reform, this led me to question, the connections between a proprioceptive sense of knowing and the cognitive one. Our current education system models cognitive learning through a rather distorted view of understanding, where students study simply to be correct and properly filled in bubble sheets are indicative of success. These controversial tests focus on overspecialization of knowledge and continue to promote educational inequity through the cultural values and the barriers of achievement that they impose. The educational theorist John Dewey states, “any adjustment which really and permanently succeeds within school walls must reach out and be an adjustment of forces in the social environment”, so how are these standards affecting us, our schools, our cultures? In response, I have created a visual representation of this academic methodology by altering dancers’ proprioceptive kinetic energy through standardized cognition. After taking GIFs of dancers that portray a strong sense of proprioceptive knowledge, I digitally distorted their movement based on their answers to a “standardized test” that I created. Through my GIF installation I hope to bring into question: What standards have we put in play? Do we like their result? How are they recognized as successful? I hope to challenge our current standards for education and consider how a proprioceptive approach to cognition may move us to be more intersectional thinkers in and out of academia, promoting social change.

Callie Nissing

Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities 2016

University of Washington