Shaping our Culture, One Kid At A Time

How Do Young People Help Shape Popular Culture?

            A commercial here, an advertisement there, or a few magazine covers, may not seem like they are influencing the incoming students of our society. Well, I believe that young people today are definitely one of the largest factors in shaping our culture. Growing children pay close attention to what is on the television, what is taught in school settings, and what is talked about everyday when they get home from school. Therefore, due to the strong influences of our visual culture, the admiration of young people can make or break societies future interests.

         After analyzing the article, Looking At, Engaging More: Approaches for Investigating Material Culture, written by Doug Blandy and Paul E. Bolin, it can be understood that the idea of using everyday objects in meaningful ways is known as “material culture” and that it is ever-changing. Authors specifically state, “Material culture is that segment of humankind’s biosocial environment that has been purposely shaped by people according to culturally dictated plans”. Brandy and Bolin believed that this “material culture” is simply just tangible reminders that help relate our work to our own lives. So, with our changing culture, young people are the ones making the decisions to use their meaningful everyday objects in ways that express themselves. I can certainly agree with the idea that whatever our younger generations have taken interest in will eventually dictate what will be popular during their lifetime.

It has also become clear that the more visual culture that is offered, the more useful it may be as a resource for new art curriculum. After reading the article for Art Ed. 211, What is Manga? The Influence of Pop Culture in Adolescent Art, by Masami Toku, I have learned that young people are influenced by their surrounding culture much more than I would have predicted. Manga has become so popular in Japan because of its opportunities for exchanging creative ideas. The kids that grow up with this Manga culture are proven to be less likely to lose an interest in art because they get to communicate their own stories in their own way. This form of self-expression causes students to continue expanding their artistic abilities even after graduating high school. I believe that art educators will need to adapt popular culture that expresses students’ interests if they want to maintain a focused, motivated, and interesting classroom environment.

Whatever visual culture appeals to young people helps to shape what our culture manufactures and publishes, showing a strong influence on our popular culture by the newer generations. After reading these articles I have come to the conclusion that in order for our students to maintain an interest in art, they must be able to express themselves through the exploration of self. By exploring who they are, in their own creative way with a little guidance from the teacher, they are going to be more likely to take interest in art. Teachers must introduce diverse ways of creating art as self-expression, using popular culture to help kids connect with their identities, values, and thus causing enthusiasm in the art classroom. 

Contemporary Art in the Classroom Thoughts

         What is contemporary art? We all are asked ourselves this question in class the other day. We all stumbled across trying to think of a precise definition of "contemporary art" and names of contemporary artists that are up and coming. Slightly embarrassed of my limited knowledge, I remember raising my hand and stating that I believed we were all having a difficult time speaking of contemporary art because it was lacking in all of our public school art curriculum growing up. Old, chunky textbooks of art history that lay around art rooms in schools certainly have character and plenty of information on various famous artists such as Monet or Picasso, but they lack being up to date. I personally have always thought of art as being a subject that is accepting of everything and constantly hungry for the next, innovative thing. Styles, media and artists are always changing in the art world which is something artists and students should admire. Good art education should constantly have the students' attention and should be enough to inspire them to create. Cave paintings from the depths of French caves or Monet's paintings may inspire some young artists, but new media artists or video game design may inspire others! Students need to be aware of all of the artistic opportunities that are out there today. 

        This week's reading touched on the idea of contemporary art and the lack of it in today's art education programs and elementary classrooms specifically. I personally really enjoyed the article and agreed with the author; Anne Thulson. We sometimes begin to open the doors to contemporary art in middle school or high school level classrooms but why not elementary? Children from the ages of 5 to 12 are also open to thinking "outside of the box" like many new artists and can get as excited about new and innovative takes on art like older students. I agree with most art educators in teaching the important basics such as the color wheel or terms such as line or value to young art students, but why not also teach them vocabulary such as installation, new media, photography, and so on. We continue to teach the importance and make room for new technology knowledge for students such as typing skills, we teach current events in social studies classes and have changed our math lessons to more condensed formulas and newer findings. We should simply do the same with our art lessons! 

...Other thoughts that came to my mind after our 211 class today with the video dealt with again, what is contemporary or abstract art? What defines something as a "good" artwork? And why is much of modern art trying to prove something or have a sarcastic tone/stick it to the man feel to it? Do we like that as viewers or even artists ourselves? I certainly like that art that is created now is often more than a well done realistic still life. I hope to open up conversations and show examples of contemporary art in my future art classroom someday.

Cool site for your eyeballs and brain.. 

contemporary art daily

Is contemporary art curriculum effective on elementary classrooms?

To start with, I currently work at Young Scholars Central PA charter school, and I was assigned to teach four different art clubs. Every week, I was stuck with the lesson plans for all four clubs. Even five minutes ago, I was thinking about what kind of lessons I should prepare for my clubs. As I was thinking about my clubs, this week's reading instantly drew my attention. When I started reading the article, “Contemporary Practice in the Elementary Classroom: a Study of Change” by Anne Thulson, a major question came in to my mind. The article states that elementary school is not too early too early to introduce contemporary art. I personally believe that whatever it is that students are learning, basic comes first before learning higher level materials. Even in art, I am not saying that contemporary art is the higher level for art, but I believe basic expression and design principles gives the outline to think more creatively and provide broader ways to express their feelings. Basically, I personally think that basics in art gives more choices of making art and gives more structure in the body of art.

The article also starts with the list of reasons why art educators are avoiding to follow the contemporary art curriculum. The author stated that she saw an evidence that elementary students are capable enough to comprehend and respond to contemporary art. I still had a doubt that this curriculum would work on such young students, but as I read the article, I started to think differently. I thought this curriculum could build team work, creative thinking and a casual way to express their feelings. I liked how this curriculum shows students art can be in multiple forms. I also felt that this curriculum leads students to build their interest in making art as a group. In typical classrooms, teachers lead the students, but with this curriculum, I felt that the entire class were leading the class by themselves. I was surprised that such young students were able to understand the concept and speak for their own. More over, I liked how this curriculum enhanced student's interest in classroom projects.

Before reading the article, I had many questions about "the right art education" and " the best curriculums for students".This article was a new way of looking at the art education, and sort of an answer for what I was seeking for. I realized how important the curriculum is in classrooms, and how such young students are capable of understanding and participate in the contemporary curriculum. I also realized how limited I can be in terms of being an educator.

Contemporary Art for Elementary Students

As I was reading Anne Thulson’s article Contemporary Practice in the Elementary Classroom: A Study of Change, I kept coming back to Olivia Gude’s article New School Art Styles: The Project of Art Education. I think that these articles are strongly related. In fact, I think that Thulson exemplifies Gude’s vision for contemporary art education. Gude talks about re-imagining art curriculum and reevaluating how we approach projects. She urges us to let go of the old school and “make room for other sorts of projects and other kinds of art experiences.” She addresses both the content and the way that curriculum is executed. Gude states, “Asserting that students must recapitulate the history of art in their studies before understanding and making contemporary art is as discreditable as believing that students must learn outmoded conceptions of biology or physics before being introduced to the range of widely accepted contemporary theories. "

There is no reason why elementary kids should learn about outdated eras in art history before they learn about contemporary art. In fact, I believe that it is more important for young kids to be able to connect with art in the context of the current world they live in. If art is made meaningful at a young age, it is more likely to stay meaningful throughout life. I believe that art education that is approached holistically can give kids powerful tools to help them lean about themselves, explore and evaluate the world around them, and make sense of and give context to the complexities of life. The aim of art education is not to produce a class full of professional artists, but rather to show kids the possibilities of art and help them to find a way to use art to improve their lives.

The way that Thulson has her students interact with art accomplishes this goal. Her students are not just passive observers of art, nor do they merely make formal imitations of contemporary art. They actively analyze and bring their perspectives to the lessons, as they did in the case of the paper shoes. She also teaches the importance of context. Context is a concept that is extremely important in all aspects of life, not just art. She teaches it through site-specific work, where kids can learn through doing that not all work is appropriate in all settings. In this way, kids relate art to environment. Interacting with contemporary art and putting work into context, students have a much more authentic experience with art and are better able to make it relevant in their lives.

One thing that Thulson talks about is trust. It is my belief that teachers tend to underestimate their students, and therefore they do them a disservice. Kids will either rise or sink to your expectations. But if they are engaged and interested in their learning, what they are capable of can be truly amazing.

I found Thulson’s method of documentation to be very captivating. It just seems to capture what art education often misses. It puts the focus on the experience rather than the product. I think that this is so much more appropriate for students. Art education is about facilitating learning, not creating products. I think that preparing the documentation can be an important step for kids as well. It makes them evaluate their actions and bring everything together. It has the potential to be a final and unifying step, bringing cohesiveness and a more complete understanding to experiential learning.

Teaching contemporary art at a elementary level

After reading the article “Contemporary Practice in the Elementary Classroom: a Study of Change” by Anne Thulson, I started thinking about school art and how children in elementary are not really exposed to contemporary art. Her article made so much sense to me; children should be exposed to twenty-first century art. The projects that she mentions in her article that she has done are not typically school art projects that you get to take home and your parents put up on the fridge. They are projects that children get involved in the community and get to show there opinion and identity through their work. These projects also help children gain team building skills since they have to sometimes work together to build a large project and put their heads together to make it be successful.

The article starts talking about how children in the elementary level are not going to be able to understand contemporary art and that they have to start from the beginning and learn the basics. I do agree that children need to learn the basics of art but they are the ones that are more exposed to contemporary art through different media like the TV or video games. At the elementary level, kids are very creative and have very bright ideas that should be expressed in a contemporary art format instead of making them all do the same thing and not let them be unique. Teaching contemporary art at an elementary level also shows kids that art does not have to be contained in one place or done only in a classroom. Art can be expressed anywhere and in many forms. I also really like how she documents her students’ artwork instead of putting a bunch of school art on the walls in the hallway. Instead, she shows the process and end of the bigger and more outside projects.

Today many teachers face the problem to what to teach in the classroom and what is the best way to teach it and I think this article has very good points in talking about those issues.

Cooperative Learning K-6

                In Anne Thulson’s article, Contemporary practice in the elementary classroom, a Study of Change she begins with the notion that a younger age range, such as k-6, should have contemporary art integrated into the classroom. Thulson begins by stating some reasons why her theory would not work on a younger age range. You would think this an odd way to start her article but as you read you see that she systematically disproves each and every assumption not only with theory but with actual in class uses and examples that she herself implemented successfully.

                The body of the article is segmented into headings that contain 5 different areas where she has, in my opinion, successfully integrated contemporary art lessons into elementary school classrooms. Under Thulson’s first heading she talks of the importance of “site specific work;” which is a practice of making art and displaying it in a way that it reacts to or creates a reaction in the community. At first it seems like a staggering feat to undertake for an art teacher, but Thulson in her examples has incorporated a cooperative learning/teaching style; she introduces what she knows on the subject and she allows the students reaction to inform the project she facilitates in conjunction with the new material. In this particular case, Thulson’s kindergartners told her about fairies on the playground, so to teach a certain connectivity between art and the world around them, they made fairy houses out of clay to put outside.

                A dialog continues as a theme throughout the article; usually between Thulson and her students but also between Thulson and her fellow teachers and parents. She would integrate what her students were learning in their classrooms into what they were practicing in the art room. Contemporary art in younger classrooms can sometimes cause parents to be skeptical of the purposes; Thulson chose an indirect way to address this issue, she would send home the various stages of her students learning, which would have a more school art quality to them than the more abstract and contemporary final project. As another measure of informing those around, Thulson created a dialogue within the way she hung the various stages of the students work; “instead of filling the halls with artwork like an art gallery, (she) put up documentation of the process, like a history museum” (Pg. 22).

                I believe Thulson addresses a major problem that all art teachers face, how do we justify the usefulness of art to those observing from outside the classroom. This dialogue shows a progression of the children’s thoughts and problem solving, as well as showing the commentary between the student and teacher that is necessary for a growing, learning classroom that informs and enriches.

Reference

Thulson, A. (January 2013). , Contemporary practice in the elementary classroom, a Study of Change. Art Education, 16-23.

Thinking A Bit More About Gude's Article

I wanted to share a summary and some of my continued thoughts following our class discussion this Wednesday about Olivia Gude's (2013) article "New School Art Styles: The Project of Art Education". Several good points emerged from our discussion:

• Many of us expressed frustration at our lack of knowledge of contemporary artists/artworks. We attributed this, in part, to the heavy emphasis on the study of Modern and pre-Modern art in our public school experiences.
• We acknowledged the problematic nature of mimetic projects (such as the Cubist still-life that Gude discussed). These projects don't really allow for personal meaning-making.
• We challenged the idea that access to a variety of artistic media is almost always a limitation placed on classroom art assignments.
• We questioned the value of projects that emphasized classroom only learning and traditional research processes (such as using "old textbooks" to find information).
• Most of us agreed that traditional methods of art classroom assessment reinforce rather than challenge modernist views of artistic practice.
• We discussed how we might envision and enact our own version of "New School" art styles in our future classrooms.

Orly's pre-discussion blog post explored the ideas of thinking outside the box and re-evaluating the role of student choice in art classroom learning. The subsequent discussion we shared in class brought up some stimulating ideas regarding our revision of the art project. At one point the subject of digital art arose. We talked about the traditional teacher view of  the Internet as a source of distraction rather than a legitimate place of research. We also mentioned some of the awful digital art projects that had cropped up for us as students in the past. That discussion reminded me of an article I'd just read in Glass Tire about computer-generated art and the aesthetic issues we had been discussing. All in all, I think we (reluctantly) left the discussion when we ran out of class time with many great ideas about teaching with contemporary art in K-12 schools and many motivations to keep learning. I would challenge any art educator who has read Gude's article to reflect on their own experiences with contemporary art and to find a way to connect that kind of personal meaning-making with curriculum development. How can you help students in an art classroom not only learn about contemporary art but to participate in cultural conversations and a making process that is relevant to present day society? Food for thought, I hope. Thank you all for an exciting week!

References:
Gude, O. (2013). New school art styles: the project of art education. Art Education, 66(1), 6-15.

Art in schools

Teaching art education in schools today is a very controversial subject. Not everyone in the field thinks that schools or school teachers are teaching art that can be done outside of school. Art is a subject that every student takes since they are in elementary school and it is a way to express creativity and express yourself in a different way. The article starts talking about how in school, art does not create a way for students to have free expression. Many parts of the articles suggest that students should have more freedom to be able to create work more freely using materials that they want and their own ideas outside of school. In my opinion, every student needs to know the basics of art like materials, different kinds of art that is out there, and definitely the vocabulary necessary to talk about a piece of work and be able to understand what each work of art is made of. I also think that as the student advances into each level of art, they should have more freedom to make what they want and use the type of materials that they want. Students should be able to express what they want and be able to show their identity in their work without having to follow guidelines that can limit their creativity.

            The video that I have attached is a great way to show that not everything done in school or taught in school is the best way to learn important things in life. Successful people have accomplished great things by doing things out of the box in ways that these different ways of doing things have followed them throughout their whole life. They weren’t just doing something to get a good grade or to pass a college course. Doing things that way will only make people forget about it when the class is over. The video urges people to do things that can be useful for the rest of their lives.

            In conclusion, I totally think that art in school should give student more freedom and teach them that there are many possibilities in creating something not just what the teacher provides them with. Thinking out of the box and doing things differently can be good and it can help obtain amazing results. There are many ways to accomplish something and nothing should limit you to the many possibilities in life.

Link to video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ZmM7zPLyI