'Like diving into his mind': West Burlington High School senior Aidan Krell explores school-to-prison pipeline theory through sculpture

Aidan Krell is a team player — and a rebel as well.

Born in West Burlington, Krell, 18, spent 10 years of early childhood in Portland, Oregon, where a local woman encouraged the talents of neighborhood children by offering a free art camp each summer.

"She taught us to develop skills but, more importantly, she encouraged us to use those skills to express ourselves," Krell said. "We didn’t get shamed for coloring outside the lines or creating something that looked different than the model."

That experience sprouted the idea that true art combines talent, skill and meaning.

Krell's somewhat unsettling social commentary "Welcome to School Tyranny" is on display in the "Teen Vice Show" featuring Krell and Kelli Edwards at the Art Center of Burlington.

Krell is a senior at West Burlington High School headed for Luther College this fall on a soccer scholarship as a center back.

In his three years as starting defenseman for Notre Dame-West Burlington boys soccer — the Nikes are 52-6 and helped the Nikes win the Class 1A state championship last season — Krell's sophomore season was wiped out by COVID-19. He was on the all-state tournament team last year and an all-state selection in Class 1A.

"In soccer, we have tactics, but you can't really plan every single thing like in basketball," he said. "There are no plays, so you just go with it and you have to strategize what is going to come at you, too, right at that second."

In other words, it's like being an artist: You make it up as you go along.

"Many people say defending is an art, especially in the soccer world, because you have to go with the flow and if you don't do it right, you’ll lose, right?" Krell said.

Krell has received three honors as an artist: he and Edwards were selected for internship at the Art Center of Burlington; he received a Sadie Simonson Memorial Art Scholarship from Luther College; and he is one of just four seniors in the entire state to receive an Iowa Arts Council scholarship.

"I don’t know whether I’m more proud of Aidan’s dedication to his soccer playing or his art," Krell's grandma Sandy Krell-Andre said.I love watching him play as much as I love his art."

ACB Program Director Brandy Swarz said Krell is a motivated and talented kid well beyond his years, someone who thinks outside of the box.

"I wouldn't call him rebellious; I would call him progressive," Swarz said. "I think maybe some more traditional-thinking teachers or administration might consider him rebellious. I don't think anyone considers him trouble."

Swarz described Krell's art as abstract.

"It's like you're diving into his mind. It's not straightforward; it's very abstract yet you can connect with it and it makes you feel young again, makes you feel like a teenager trying to figure yourself out. It reminds you of being in high school, but it's all very relatable for all ages."

Someone asked Krell if he expects his art to offend some people.

"I'm counting on it," he said.

Krell's work at ACB compares American schools to American prisons and includes a centerpiece sculpture, "Arnold Rockefeller."

Why does Krell think that he, as an 18 year-old Iowa high-schooler, would know anything about prison?

"I do know the similarities. I've read up on history and it does not seem right that it's basically built off the workforce and built off of Rockefeller, who made the whole educational thing back in his day, to have school be like factories," Krell said. "You just pump the kids out, and after they graduate, they go in a factory. It's like, 'go by the bell, do what you're told.' No critical thinking."

John D. Rockefeller created and funded the General Education Board in 1902 to provide funding for schools across the nation and was influential in shaping the school system in rural white and Black schools in the South. The GEB's goal was to promote farming by developing related high school programs.

"I don’t want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers," Rockefeller said.

Board member Frederick T. Gates said, in part: "We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have an ample supply."

School-to-prison pipeline

According to Nancy A. Heitzeg, professor of Sociology and Critical Studies of Race and Ethnicity at St. Catherine University, the school-to-prison pipeline is "the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies. Additionally, this is due to educational inequality in the United States. Many experts have credited factors such as school disturbance laws, zero tolerance policies and practices, and an increase in police in schools."

Krell said he hopes to raise public awareness of what the school system is like from his viewpoint as a high school student.

"It kind of represents the no-trust that we have," he said. "You don't learn trust in a school system because there's authority taking away freedom."

Krell's view is that armed police and metal detectors in public schools only exacerbate the problem. He cited the Stanford Prison Experiment as an example.

Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a two-week simulation of a prison environment by Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo in 1971. Male students were recruited at $15 per day to participate in a "psychological study of prison life." Volunteers were randomly assigned to roles as prisoners or prison guards.

Those volunteers selected to be guards were given uniforms and instructed to prevent prisoners from escaping. The "prisoners" were then arrested by real Palo Alto police, and over the following five days, psychological abuse of the prisoners by the "guards" became increasingly brutal. Zimbardo terminated the experiment on the sixth day after Berkeley psychology professor Christina Maslach evaluated the conditions. The Stanford experiment has often been critiqued as one of the most unethical psychology experiments in history.

What's the solution?

What's the solution to un-prisonizing the schools?

"I would say less rules and more freedom," he said. "You get less arrests if you legalize marijuana, right? But illegalizing marijuana isn't going to stop anybody. So you might as well let it flow. Another thing that could help is more conflict resolution studies taught to the kids, and more classes to bring out their feelings, so that they can get more help."

"The question is whether he will be a soccer player who is an artist, or an artist who is also a soccer player," Krell-Andre

The Krell and Edwards show is on view until May 31 in the Mezzanine at the Art Center of Burlington, 301 Jefferson St.

"Teen Vice Show" is sponsored by The Som.

This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: The symbolism in Aidan Krell's school-to-prison pipeline sculpture