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.