Learning Outcomes I recently read an article, The Death of the Art School (Topkan, 2026). It described how art schools are collapsing under financial pressure and increasingly operating like businesses, where students become customers, education becomes a product, and measurable outcomes replace experimentation, risk, and collective inquiry. What struck me most was not only the argument about art schools, but the recognition that this shift begins much earlier. I see it in my own teaching. I...

Reflections on the 15th Anniversary of March 11 How young people in post-tsunami Tohoku reshaped my understanding of art, education, and community. Otsuchi, 2012. A town still carrying the visible traces of the tsunami. Fifteen years ago, on March 11, I watched the earthquake and tsunami unfold on television. The television had become a live stream. The footage kept coming. Wave after wave of devastation along the northeastern coast of Japan. Entire towns disappearing into the water. At the...

I recently came across an essay in The Atlantic titled “Stop Meeting Students Where They Are,” in which a college professor reflects on how students’ capacity for deep reading has been underestimated. After years of abbreviated assignments and declining attention spans, he returned to assigning whole books — and discovered that students did rise to the challenge when given time and encouragement to engage deeply. The essay argues that we often underestimate what students can do. Meaningful...