I really liked this chapter. It's funny because I started my journey as an art educator in Art for Elementary School teachers. I was an Early Childhood Education Major and I was feeling like my degree wasn't quite "right" for me, but everytime I went to that class I would think "this is what I want to do all of the time." So I decided to switch one day. Then I was thrown into the contemporary art world, almost drowned, and then I came out of it alive! And since then I feel like I go in and out of that feeling of drowning. Sometimes I think that I can be an art educator, and sometimes maybe more of the time I feel like there is no way I can do it.
"How will I teach?" feels like the real question. This chapter is enormous and fees like it covers so many things. While I was reading it I felt like I went in and out of that drowning feeling again. But here are some things that I liked from it.
"Your teaching can be as original and personal as your art-making, and probably should be."
I've realized that I'm trying so hard to figure out how to be a good art teacher that I don't even really know how to be myself in teaching. I've also realized that what they said in Chapter 1 that I was so skeptical about (how you need to be an expert in what you teach), is true to a good extent. That doesn't mean you should only stick to things you know perfectly. But I've realized that a lot of the reason that I'm floundering is because I don't know how to be an artist, and so being a teaching artist becomes even harder. I want to really dig in deeper into my own artistic practice, and then I can focus on being me!
"If you think about it, the most important ingredients in developing an original voice and powerful creative solutions in any medium are time and space to work with the medium, useful feedback and criticism from others and exposure to a wide range of work in the medium."
I've realized that I've tried so hard to plan lessons that aren't lame, that I think sometimes I'm forgetting that kids are going to need time and space to work with the medium. That they'll want to create their own art.
He talked about the role of copying! I liked that!
I love this under "Working the range 2: Creative constraints vs. open-ended art-making:"
"Either of these choices, and any point on the continuum between them, can be equally educative and generative for students, but only if there is space for students to invent and experiment with the medium."
To me this made "Good Art Education" something that's based off of choices instead of something that is inherently good or bad.
I still don't know how to be a good art teacher. But, I think I'm getting closer to understanding it. I want to write down a list of things that will be at the core of my art teaching. I think I'm a little bit paralyzed by "doing it wrong" and so that hasn't left room for me to explore my own art, or explore my own at teaching. This chapter is something that I need to revisit and digest more as I get practice in the classroom, and as I come to understand more how to be myself and be a teaching artist.
good story!
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