Ciscle is best known in the art world, but the basis of his education lies elsewhere. He attended military and Catholic schools as a youngster and enrolled at a Jesuit college, Loyola, in Baltimore. He flunked out the first semester. Undeterred, he reenrolled in Loyola’s night school and received permission to take classes at six additional colleges: Goucher, Johns Hopkins, Mt. Saint Agnes, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Notre Dame, and Towson. He graduated as an English major, with budding interests in theater, psychology, and art.

Ciscle earned a master’s degree in human development and learning at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. There, he wedded education theory to hands-on experience through a program for city youth that emphasized self-directed learning. It reinforced notions he’d gleaned from the writings of psychologist Carl Rogers, who questioned the existing system, because “it’s all based upon a distrust of the students. Don’t trust them to follow their own leads… tell them what to do, tell them what they should think, tell them what they should learn. Consequently at the very age when they should be developing adult characteristics of choice and decision making, when they should be trusted on some of those things, trusted to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes, they are, instead, regimented and shoved into a curriculum, whether it fits them or not.”

The North Carolina teenagers working with Ciscle set their own agenda and determined much of the curriculum. He saw, firsthand, that their instincts could be trusted. “They determined what we would do,” says Ciscle, “while I provided inspiration and resources. As a result, they all learned something and developed as people, which was the goal.”

 It dovetailed with the outlook of Scottish educator Alexander Sutherland Neill, another of Ciscle’s early influences. Neill was fond of saying, “When I look at the world I’m pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic.”

As Ciscle’s interest in art grew, he considered becoming an artist himself. In fact, he studied with sculptor Isamu Noguchi, before determining his talents were more suited for curation and education. He eventually opened the George Ciscle Gallery in a Baltimore carriage house in 1985. Unlike many contemporary galleries that cultivated an aura of exclusivity and elitism, Ciscle welcomed everyone and embraced a wide range of artists, from art-schooled conceptualists to self-taught visionaries. Feature writer Linell Smith recalls that the gallery “introduced many Baltimoreans to a new way of encountering art” and succeeded as “a space that invited you to drop in and strike up a conversation with an artist’s work.

A gallery patron named “Dale” penned a letter to Ciscle that acknowledged such qualities and noted perceptively: “Encouraging and bringing out the best in people is a trait that will reward you.

Ciscle closed the gallery after a four-year run to explore other ways of presenting art. He hit on the idea of taking a gallery to the public rather than expecting the public to come to him. In 1989, he founded The Contemporary, which had no permanent home and provided Ciscle with limitless possibilities for mounting exhibitions in unlikely places and connecting with the broader community. The Contemporary presented shows at a former Greyhound bus terminal, a vacant Oldsmobile dealership, a convent, bank, parking garage, botanical garden, and the bed of an old pickup truck, as well as more traditional venues like the Maryland Historical Society and Morgan State’s Murphy Fine Arts Center.

The goal, according to Ciscle, was to “heighten community awareness of what art has to offer daily beyond the museum walls. This is vital if we are to engender within our community, a belief that the arts have something to say that is timely, meaningful, and valuable.”

Ciscle stresses the importance of connecting to the broader community, which shouldn’t be confused with careerist networking. He opts for opportunity over opportunism, knowing full well that the former’s optimism figures to be more impactful than the latter’s cynicism.

As a MICA professor from 1997 to 2017, Ciscle introduced his Exhibition Development Seminar (EDS) and Curatorial Practice (CP) students to an array of arts and education groups around the city. “We learned to include the community as soon as possible,” says Melani Douglass (CP, 2015). “First, we spent time getting to know people in all places. We went to say hello and introduce ourselves and listen. From the beginning of our education, the community was involved, so it was only natural that the community would be engaged once we started building out an exhibition or, in my case, a nomadic museum.”

Cisce encouraged students to mount exhibitions off-campus and explore partnerships with community organizations and grassroots groups. As a result, CP shows were mounted in a Laundromat, a vacant lot, a Latino restaurant, an arboretum, and other non-traditional venues, as connections were forged with activists, advocates, business owners, performers, healers, and clergy from various faiths.

When unrest erupted after Freddie Gray’s death in 2015, the epicenter was less than a mile from the MICA campus. In fact, the CVS store shown burning on CNN was within walking distance of the school. Tellingly, Ciscle’s students didn’t retreat into a sheltered ivory tower. Instead, they grabbed brooms, shovels, and trash bags and helped with the clean-up effort; others initiated makeshift art classes for neighborhood youth while schools were closed. Such actions weren’t part of a curriculum, but they were a natural outgrowth of community engagement, be it organized or improvised.

 “George encouraged us to put our ear to the ground and the table and the door and listen to what was happening in the city,” says Douglass. “This made us connected, which is deeper than networked. We became a part of each other's stories. We became a part of the city's story.” 

Ciscle advocates for hands-on situations that enable students to learn firsthand from community experts and/or museum professionals. His undergrad EDS students, for instance, worked side-by-side with curatorial mentors and museum staff during the development and installation of major shows not only at MICA, but also at the Baltimore Museum of Art (Kickin’ It with the Old Masters) and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African-American History and Culture (At Freedom’s Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland). Ciscle’s approach upends the typical internship-style model and ensures that students aren’t just running errands or doing the bidding of curators, educators, or staff.

A 2007 City Paper article noted how, in the EDS seminar, students take charge … 

They're divided into teams, given a mentor whom they can consult, and told where they need to be by when, but not how to get there. They contact artists for  commissioning and requesting existing works. They design all the paper products    to be associated with the show. They plan and execute all the art education outreach and public programs scheduled during the show's run. They map gallery floor plans and wall elevations. They design and build the web site. They write the show's catalog and all accompanying wall text. And, ideally, they do this without needing Ciscle at all.

They also learn the importance of collaborative process and adaptability, while developing useful skills, and, hopefully, a fondness for lifelong learning. The goal, Ciscle told City Paper, is to “[provide] this learning experience for these young artists….  It's about what they can learn and what they can apply to themselves as artists and people in the world.” 

The article questioned why this approach isn’t utilized more often. 

Chaos is to be expected, even welcomed, which presents challenges for everyone involved. It’s rooted in uncertainty, chance, and potential that, when embraced, arcs towards possibility and opportunity. As noted earlier, Ciscle’s approach can generate doubt, misgivings, or even outright opposition. His first cohort of CP students rebelled. Some students claimed they were being used as guinea pigs and threatened to take their grievances to MICA’s administration. “You’re not teaching us anything,” they grumbled to Ciscle.

What did he do? He embodied the proverbial saying, “apply light, not heat.” Ciscle listened, didn’t become combative, and stayed the course, knowing from experience the doubts and questioning were a key part of the process, an indicator the students were shedding passivity and taking more control. “They can criticize my teaching style,” he says,” but separate the curriculum from me. The curriculum isn’t going to change. It’s going to grow; we’re all going to grow.

 “I’m not teaching them to be a doctor or lawyer. In law school or medical school, there’s no room to play, no room for uncertainty. But this is a creative field. Whatever you do with this degree, you’re going into it creatively. There has to be chaos, uncertainty, and risk.”

Ciscle recalls the CP student revolt happened before winter break, December 15th to be exact. He remembers because he and the student who initiated it celebrate that date, annually, as a transformational day. It’s when she took real ownership of her education. 

Students, too often, focus on outcomes and, as a result, evaluations (even informal criticism or recommendations) are weighted with stifling finality. They signal endings instead of new beginnings and can curb effective communication. Ever mindful of that, Ciscle prefers an open-ended approach, using targeted questions to facilitate back-and-forth exchange. “I will not simply give students the answers to what they’re looking for,” he says. “I would rather provide them with a series of questions and let them be guided by the answers they generate.”

It may be for something as straightforward as a color choice. “Rather than saying, ‘You can’t use red for that,’” Ciscle explains, “I’ll give them 10 questions about the color red and let them figure it out. I won’t just tell them.”

This approach also applies to more conceptual, abstract issues. Ciscle has been known to ask students: Why do you need to do this here? Where do you see yourself in the work? Where are you in all this?

Once, when a group of students was floundering and making little progress on a project, he posted a note that read: When are you going to panic? “That really got their attention,” he recalls, “because I was basically saying they needed to evaluate, for themselves, how far along they were in the process. I was asking them to question if they were, in fact, where they needed to be.”

Ciscle operates from a baseline of integrity and trust, key components for successfully implementing his approach. Knowing that unexpected challenges will inevitably arise and some situations may get messy, he assembles a team of like-minded mentors and advisors to assist with problem solving. They provide additional perspective and, ideally, help students broaden their potential, connect with needed resources, and envision new solutions. 

I brings to mind something that Bang On a Can, the long-running contemporary classical group, once articulated to their supporters: “When things are tough all around us, we dream.”

It takes integrity and trust to allow for that, which Ciscle keenly understands. “I try to let the students know early on that we’re going to help them achieve their very best,” he says. “They understand that I am not going to let them look foolish. We all want them to succeed and make us proud by sharing what they do with the public.”

Establishing trust hearkens back to Principle #1, with regards to also trusting yourself and your abilities. Ciscle retired from MICA in 2016 and began volunteering with The Arc Baltimore, an organization supporting people with developmental disabilities. He works one-on-one with Arc clients and connects clients with artists and arts organizations. Ciscle connected artist Dave Eassa with the group. “In the beginning, there were moments where I felt I was without the tools to navigate” says Eassa, who mentors Arc clients. “In a situation that was so new to me, I had to trust that I knew how to do this, how to show up for the person I was mentoring, and myself, in the best way possible.

 “It is a practice to keep doing this kind of work. It challenges us all to think differently, throw pre-conceived ideas out the window, and step into what could be.”

Just as Ciscle discourages students from modeling his past curatorial work, he doesn’t want educators replicating his curriculum or pedagogy. In fact, he has an almost physical aversion to the thought of such imitation, however well intended. “I run in the other direction when I sense someone is trying to copy me,” he says. “Remember, we’re trying to create individuals, people who can think and figure out things for themselves.”

 I am one of those people. 

In 2011, I was volunteering at a MICA film program—actually, I was shucking oysters at intermission—when Ciscle struck up a conversation about the Curatorial Practice MFA he was just getting off the ground. Familiar with my arts writing, he asked if I’d ever considered teaching at MICA, and I told him the thought had never entered my mind. To make a long-ish story short, I taught CP writing for five years and advised students on their thesis projects for another two. During that entire time, Ciscle visited my class once. He let me design the syllabus and plot my own course, offering constructive comments and encouragement along the way. His door was always open, and he was accessible on any given day.

Thanks to Ciscle, I now consider myself an educator, in addition to being a writer and editor. I’ve also gotten into curating and even exhibiting my own artwork, pursuits that were unfathomable to me prior to his tutelage. I’m not a Ciscle clone, far from it, and I’ve grown in ways I’d never imagined. 

While writing these paragraphs, I’m aware they violate a key tenet. I had purposely written myself out of this piece, but Ciscle questioned the omission. When I explained that I’m most effective when I’m the most invisible, he smiled knowingly. 

I went ahead and added my biographical information, though I suspect its inclusion runs counter to the pedagogy’s overall spirit. I justified it, knowing that I wasn’t copying George Ciscle.