Paul Sproll

While we were at RISD Chris Rose was kind enough to introduce us to a couple other members of staff including Paul Sproll. He was a really interesting guy to interview as he was British born and bred however after his degree at Corsham he then took a year long fulbright Teacher Exchange. This experience in the USA then led him to take further art education in the US. He now has a PHD from Ohio State and is head of department at RISD in a program quite unusual - teaching and learning in and through the arts in schools, museums and community settings. So one of his main focus' is Education. He expressed how teachers needed to be practicing in their fields as well as teaching, even though that can be difficult. He says teaching in art education cannot just be theoretical students need to meet people and that needs funding so possibly in the US that is where private schools benefit. Therefore by being government led maybe schools in the UK have more restrictions and the US has a much more "malleable hierarchy"? To end he talked about how the most important thing he knows is that "anything is possible" a lovely note to end on an extremely interesting interview. Thank you.