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.