Philosophy of Art Education

     

     There was a day when elementary art was simply about making cute holiday decorations for the hallway bulletin boards.  There also was a day when most elementary art programs, if they existed in schools, were to offer grade level teachers a time slot for their conference and planning periods.  There was a day when middle school art may have been considered a “blow off” class.  There was a day when high school art was viewed as the only important art program within a school district, or there was no art program at all.  Art education has made many important strides over the years.  Most artists, art educators, and also general education teachers now realize the importance art education can have in the holistic development of the student.  When students are limited to right-side brain thinking or left-side brain thinking, the whole brain is not used or completely active. While the importance our society at large places on art education will continue to ebb and flow, as it has since classical times, art education is home to the development of logical, sequential thinking by students.

     One way students can use the whole brain, further developing their logical, sequential thinking, is by participating in engaging projects. Project based learning is becoming very important in the school setting. Art educators, however, have always experienced the very real, tangible, cognitive,  and visual results of project based learning.  Art educators see the connections, inferences, and transfer of learning acquired via art with other curricula and with life. Art education may now have a place, more than ever before, in the overall education of a child, young adult or adult due to the mainstreaming of technology not only in our schools, but in the art classroom.

      Micro-level thinking must give way to macro-level thinking in art education. Technology is changing students’ world, our world, more rapidly than ever before in . . .

Time for an Istanbul education!

John II Comnenus, Byzantine emperor, and his wife, Irene, with Madonna and child. Mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, ca. 1118.

With the trip to Istanbul only about eight weeks away, it's time to begin getting educated about this ancient city! I'll be walking its streets soon, writing curriculum based on the adventure, and so it's time for a little research! As of today, most of what I know about Istanbul is from a substantial Art History course I took at Kansas State University in the early 80's.  I still have the 5 inch thick textbook from the course and vividly remember the lectures and looking at the grand slides the professor showed us as she infused her passion for art history into us.  Learning about Constantine, and the Roman and Byzantine empire, the Roman architecture, the Greek Orthodox and the Ottoman influence, and the gorgeous Byzantine mosaics has stayed with me for a long time. Also, some geographic lessons about Turkey have come from Bible studies of the region.  But, at this point in time, that is really my very limited, basic, existing knowledge about Istanbul. So, the pre-journey begins.

I know that Istanbul is where the east and west meet, where Asia and Europe meet. Istanbul is also known for . . .

Sonia King, Marvelous Mosaic Artist

As a part of my Fund For Teachers Fellow Project, I will be attending a mosaic workshop conducted by Sonia King in Istanbul, Turkey.  It's actually very interesting how I came across Sonia's work.  My own students were doing a mosaic project for the Worldwide Color Wheel Project and I was doing some online research related to the project.  This is a global art project I have created to partner art and technology.  The project is about one year old and has been piloted three times and is now literally going global.  The research I was doing was for one of the pilots. Some of my 3rd grade classes were going to make a collaborative table with a mosaic top.  When the project was completed we would be Skyping with a school in Mexico and sharing our projects with each other. Anyway, I am an avid Pinterest pinner for my art program. I was searching . . .

Worldwide Color Wheel Project

Globally inspired art is a natural passion for me as an educator. I enjoy learning about other cultures, people groups, and countries.  I enjoy teaching my students all of the traditional art education units, but each spring we take journey with a large globally inspired art unit. One year we studied art inspired by Africa, one year we studied art inspired by Central and South America, another year we explored art from Italy, and China and Japan.  We've made Art Hearts (6"x6" water color hearts) for students in Cuba, and now Pakistan and Turkey.  We've examined macro-level thinking in other ways from a global perspective. Through visual art students become more deeply engaged in the conceptual and cognitive process of critical inquiry, they learn ethical leadership and to be inclusive and representative of the growing diversity in society, they experience a more cross-disciplinary and holistic view of practice including art education, and higher order thinking skills are emphasized.

When a dynamic, tradigital component is added, technology becomes more than an information technology, but a tool for learning and communicating.  Art teachers have taught folk art units and cultural units forever.  Globally inspired art is different. It incorporates globalization, which is an international integration of people, transportation, and communication. It allows students to cross borders and boundaries of all kinds, real and metaphorical.

The Worldwide Color Wheel Project is a  . . .

Thank you Fund for Teachers!

Nancy Walkup is a wonderful mentor, friend, and advocate for the arts in public education and art education in general. An accidental crossing of paths with her, yet it is really anything but accidental, changed my professional life in so many ways.  Nancy is the editor of School Arts Magazine, the NAEA Elementary Division Director (that's just one of many hats she has worn for NAEA), but the most important hat she wears is she is a nurturing mentor, formally or informally, for art educators everywhere. I'm trying to remember where I first met her...and honestly....I'm drawing a blank. It seems like I have known her forever. It must have been at the first Texas Art Education Conference I went to. I'll have to try to think that one through.  In addition to MANY other things she does, Nancy is an "information highway" for art educators. Her Facebook page reads like the Wall Street Journal for art teachers. And then there is Twitter and Ning and Pinterest and the SchoolArtsRoom Blog and the NAEA Elementary Facebook Page...and, of course, her 27 year career teaching elementary art, and her Louisiana and Texas Art Educator of the Year Awards, and her courses she teaches at the University of North Texas, the Folk Art Extravaganza professional development workshop she leads every year in Santa Fe and other art education trips she takes. I honestly don't know where she finds the time for all of this. But, probably the best thing about Nancy, is besides taking care of every art teacher she knows, she is a top notch human being.

So, why am I writing about Nancy?  The first time I heard about Fund for Teachers was on one of Nancy's many art-related Facebook posts. She shared a  . . .