Throughout Chapter one, I connected more with John Dewey’s philosophy about the child-centered orientation. His viewpoint on the wanting students to problem solve on their own, all check my boxes of what I envision my future students to be doing. I was surprised about that impact he made in the art education world throughout his progressive movement. I liked the open-ended approach because of the level of freedom, self-expression and support of problem solving.
The open-ended approach was new to me but as it explained in the book, I grew more respect to how important problem solving can be, especially when it comes to self-expression. I was interested in one of the examples found in the book that explained how you might find or set up a problem solve activity. It went like this, a teacher presents a problem that is defined by rules and criteria like a project, with guidelines. Then the students have the opportunity to problem solve and use their freedom of choice to complete the project as long as guidelines are met. This is usually solved by students using their own aesthetics, likes and interests.
The open-ended approach was interesting and useful to understand as a future teacher. Another approach that I enjoyed was the Laissez-Faire Strategy. This strategy means “without interference or direction” in French. I want my future students to have the ability to express them selves and by doing this I want them to have choice when it comes to projects. This strategy is more open and less structured compared to the open-ended approach and also provides students with a wide range of materials to use to complete the project. The reason why there is a wide range of materials is because the Laissez- Fair strategy wants to discover how different students interpret and complete work. This way of teaching can help captivate a freshness and spontaneous intrinsic in children’s artwork, but I also believe that this method can be used for self-discovery for students when it comes to what materials and mediums, they enjoy the most.
Lastly, I was drawn to how the 1980s and the 1990s art education movement viewed how art should be taught in the classroom. The overall goal was to balance out the making of art with the historical side. As soon as I read that I instantly made a connection with how most of my art classes here at River Falls revolve around that same concept. This idea until now is about a 40-year difference and is still found useful today in the classroom. The four categories are split up with art production, art criticism, aesthetics and art history. This same idea can be helpful to me in the future when I learn more about lesson plans and how to write them in a way that I challenge my students but also give them enough freedom.
TED251 Lonetti Rylie 