uh oh

The economy is going down hill.  Airplanes are being grounded.  Mortgages are being foreclosed.  China is up-ing their prices on exports.  The price of oil is skyrocketing.  The government isn’t doing their job in preventing large corporations from being naughty…  All this means that most likely our country and consequently the world is headed straight for recession.

We live in times when money is tight and is just getting tighter.  Schools are being forced to put their money into programs that will teach kids how to do better on tests.  (This of course is a huge generalization, but with NCLB it seems like this is the trend)  With the seemingly eminent recession, my thoughts go to the future of art education.   Will the recession have an effect on the way people view the importance of art?  Will art programs have their funding pulled more readily?  Will our new president do something that changes the  state of art in schools as it stands today?  Will any of this really matter?  What will happen to the arts in our schools?

Maybe the economy will bounce back quickly and the world will be a better place.  Maybe whoever our new president winds up being, he/she will be able to convince the department of education to totally revamp our education system and all of our education woes will be solved.  And maybe pigs will fly.

Perhaps this is a pessimistic view on the state of the union in general and the future of art education in particular.  Perhaps I am just tired and can’t see any easy solutions to the huge problems our nation suddenly seems to be skipping into.  I can’t help but wonder if the falling economy will directly affect how our schools are funded.  If public schools lose funding, guess which department will be the first to lose their budget…  You guessed it.

Enduring Ideas

Enduring ideas are not anything new to the teaching arena. Apparently, however, they are relatively new to the Art Education arena… What is an enduring idea? Also called ‘Big Ideas’, the definition goes something like this…Similar to themes, topics or issues that reflect big questions about the human experience and have been investigated over time. They are broad umbrella-like ideas that guide students in understanding what it means to be human, to live along side of others and in the natural world.

Some examples of big ideas are:

• Identity
• Humans and nature
• War
• Creativity
• Humans and their relationship to others
• Communication
• Cultural diversity
• Memories
• Responsibility
• Survival
• Power
• Conflict
• Spirituality
• Cooperation
• Value
• Search for meaning
• Reality and Fantasy
• Life and Death
• Good and Evil
• Interdependence
• Life cycles
• Rites of passage
• Change

To read more about how to use enduring ideas in your class room see artedworld.wordpress.com/enduring-ideas/

5 Key Art Understandings

1. Art is a purposeful human endeavor.

2. Art attains value, purpose, and meaning from the personal, social and cultural dimensions of life.

3. Art raises philosophical issues and questions.

4. Artworks are objects for interpretation.

5. Change is fundamental to art.

Why is teaching art important?

The following is a summary of an article from NAEA news (National Art Education Association) (Reprinted with permission from The Boston Globe).  My opinion is given at the end of the summary.  The article concerns advocating the arts in schools and some of the benefits the arts provide for our children.

In the article “Art for our Sake: School Arts Classes Matter More Than Ever – But Not for the Reasons You Think” Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland explore the varied thinking processes that art educators teach students, how the teaching of them is unique to the arts classrooms and why they are and will be important to students’ ability to succeed in this ever changing world. Winner and Hetland studied five visual arts classrooms for one year to determine what exactly happens in the art classroom. Through careful analysis and reviewing of many hours of videotape and notes, they identified eight “studio habits of mind” that arts classes teach that are not taught elsewhere in the school. These habits included persistence, expression, making clear connections between schoolwork and the world outside the classroom, observing, envisioning, innovating through exploration, and reflective self-evaluation. These skills can’t be measured on a standardized test, yet each of these skills has a very high value not only in school, but also in life beyond school. Winner and Hetland gave several real world examples of how these skills are used in professional adult life.

Due to the increasing focus on improving children’s test scores, particularly in language and math, educators are teaching knowledge specific to these areas but are not paying attention to the other aspects of a person’s intelligence and mental habits. Not present in the teaching of standardized test taking, it would seem that the only area these skills are being taught is in the arts. Winner and Hetland contend that instead of debating the value of the arts, the arts and how they are taught should be looked to as a model for how academic classes could be taught to help students more effectively retain information and make connections between their subjects and real life.

In this rapidly changing world that we live in, our children need to learn vital modes of seeing, imagining, inventing and thinking. The memorization skills being taught today are not enough and if this is all we teach, our future generations will not be able to deal with the huge problems facing our world. As a future art educator I could not agree more with the authors’ contentions. In the climate of today’s education, I am all too aware that I will most likely have to advocate for my art program and for proper and/or increased funding. Sadly this is not a problem new to American schools. When I was in high school in the late ‘80’s, one of my memories of my H.S. art teacher is his constant frustration with the lack of funding for the art department. I feel that continual, strong advocacy for the arts is the only thing that will make budget decision makers aware of the benefits the arts bring to our students. Art educators need to be aware themselves of specifically how the arts are important and they need to actively educate and inform the public, internal administration and policy makers if changes are to be made in the way people view the arts.

Hetland, Lois. Winner, Ellen. (2007, September 2). Art for Our Sake: School Arts Classes Matter More Than Ever – But Not for the Reasons You Think. NAEA News. (Reprinted with permission from The Boston Globe). pp. 1, 5.

Art Education Today

Harran II, 1967 Polymer and fluorescent polymer paint on canvas, 120 x 240 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Gift, Mr. Irving Blum, 1982. 82.2976. © 2007 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Do you remember art class?

Think back to 2nd grade….  Maybe you spent time getting messy with poster paint, or maybe you made turkey’s, snowmen and easter bunnies identical to the other 24 kids in your class room.

What about 7th grade?

Can you remember learning to use a brayer? Whats a brayer? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/brayer Or do you remember carving out linoleum to make a block print?  Do you remember that kid who did NOT follow directions and sliced his finger open with the carving tool? (Maybe you were that kid…)

Did you take High school art?  Maybe, maybe not… Maybe you were one of those people who, after middle school, decided that you sucked at art and couldn’t even draw a straight line.  Maybe you were one of the ‘Art crowd’ who hid behind dyed black hair and multiple facial piercings while creating and expressing your inner you.

Whoever you are, if you are looking for anything concerning Art Education, I hope you can find it here.  My hope is to create an interesting assortment of information concerning the world of ART EDUCATION. I am new to this, so I am asking only for your patience and your unwavering interest…,well, maybe your periodical interest.

I will have pages about

• Current issues in Art Education
• Sample lesson plans, or links to them
• Links to useful sites for the Art Educator
• Ongoing prattle concerning anything art ed, etc…
• Maybe more…

I hope you like it and come back for more!

-Karenlyn