Learning Like Picasso

I just returned from Spain. While there I visited the Picasso Museum in Barcelona for a second time. I’m glad I returned since there is too much to capture on just one trip.

Picasso was born in Spain in 1881. Throughout his long career as an artist, he created more than 20,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, and other items such as costumes and theater seats. Picasso’s ability to produce works in an astonishing range of styles made him well respected during his own lifetime. After his death in 1973, Picasso’s genius was recognized by most and has permanently etched him into the fabric of humanity as one of the greatest artists of all time.

What is interesting about Picasso is that he earned this reputation after being, what some people would consider, a traditional school dropout. At age 13, Picasso was admitted to the Barcelona School of Fine Arts, where his father was an instructor. Seeing promise in the young Picasso, at age 16 he was sent to Spain’s foremost art school in Madrid, the Royal Academy of San Fernando. Very soon it was evident Picasso disliked the academy’s formal instruction so much he decided to stop attending classes. Instead, he filled his days inside Madrid’s Prado, at the time Spain’s most famous museum, studying the works of the Spanish masters.

As I was touring Picasso’s museum, I couldn’t help by wonder how many young learners have had potential nearing Picasso’s, but never had the chance to demonstrate their excellence. They never had the chance because they were trapped inside a traditional school system built on language arts, science, math, social studies, foreign language, physical education, and other elective curriculum, along with scope and sequences and pacing guides, and topped off with high stakes testing. How many kids never realized their true passions of learning because they couldn’t spend the time needed to explore, commit, and excel at those passions?

What would learning look like if all kids were asked one question to begin their learning adventure – what would you like to spend time learning today? Most adults are fearful that kids would answer that question with an activity adults judged as a waste of time. I’m sure Picasso’s Royal Academy of San Fernando teachers felt the same way when young Pablo stopped showing up for what those adults considered their most important classes.

What would happen if meeting individual learning goals became the most important priority, and all support and expertise were directed to achieve those goals? Pablo Picasso found support and expertise outside the traditional Spanish educational system. For those of you who say, “Well, Picasso was an artist and artists usually have different support systems than other learners,” I say all learners deserve these types of support systems. Mathematicians, linguists, scientists, athletes, foreign language learners, choral singers, band members, social media practitioners, video game players – they all deserve time and support to improve their practice. This is what long periods of time should be spent on, not 45- or 90-minute periods divided so that all required courses, as decided by state legislatures and school board, can be covered in a semester or two.

What would happen if all dropout recovery programs started with Pablo Picasso’s life story in mind? Picasso was basically a traditional educational system dropout but attained status as one of the greatest visual geniuses the world has ever known. What might be different if today’s dropouts were greeted with a strength-based plan that took advantage of what that dropout currently could do and then added to that profile? Instead, what we usually do with traditional school dropouts is send them back into the same type of school they left in the first place.  

I’m not saying every young learner will become a Pablo Picasso. What I am saying is that Picasso, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Ellen DeGeneres, Brad Pitt, Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney – all dropouts – developed the necessary skills to achieve excellence in their chosen field, and depended on out of school learning to do it.

Til tomorrow. SVB