ITI Articles

Our policy in each area of our programme at The Learning Connexion (TLC) is to build something of world class. We’re putting ourselves on the international stage and making an impact.

Some of our recent footprints are:

• World first rapid-cycle art workshops for engineers at Cornell University in New York State (and similar sessions at the Saybrook Graduate School in California);
• Staff member Susan Knaap selected for the 2005 Florence Biennale Exhibition (featuring internationally renowned artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude);
• Tutor Peter Adsett awarded a fellowship to the McDowell Community in New Hampshire (Janet Frame is the only other New Zealander to be recognised in this way);
• TLC video documentaries sold to Television New Zealand;
• Staff member Graeme Tuckett in the winning team for the nationwide 48 hours film competition;
• Finalists in the Creativity Gold section of the Wellington Regional Gold Awards;
• A massive TLC presence at the 2005 Affordable Arts Show, which moved nearly half a million dollars worth of art; and
• Our usual four on-site student art exhibitions, which are among the most successful in New Zealand.

Additionally we are pioneering work to enable deaf students to participate in our diploma. We want to create something of value for deaf students throughout the world. In a separate initiative we are designing a course of extramural study specifically for prison inmates (in response to the serious need for rehabilitative options).

Our specialty is experiential learning with its associated ‘right brain’ thinking. Through helping people access and connect with multi-functional ways of acquiring and using knowledge, we help people build on their traditional academic study. At Cornell University we weren’t trying to develop artists – we wanted to stimulate senses, foster intuition, provide a taste of holistic learning and re-connect education to the complex needs of people.

How do we know these things really work? Some indications are emerging from Pip Cotton’s PhD research for Massey University. His rigorous interviews with a group of TLC students have come up with the following:

• More open to new ideas (88%)
• More commitment to work tasks (82%)
• More imaginative (85%)
• Responding to things more intuitively (80%)
• More confident (94%)

These factors are likely to be helpful in any area of learning. We’re interested in establishing a research project to investigate the long-term effects of our teaching in non-art areas. Anecdotal experience over eighteen years suggests that something of considerable value happens for a wide range of students studying with us at The Learning Connexion.

For those who want to do art, the evidence is already in. Our programme offers a unique opportunity to advance your art and design your future. For non-artists, many of our students will testify that their TLC experience is energizing and life-changing.