Eisner, E. “Should We Create New Aims for Art Education?” and Gude, O. “Postmodern Principles in Search of a 21st Century Art Education.” Are two great articles asking the question why do art educators teach? This was the underlining question I took away from both articles because of Eisner’s approach on discussing why he believed art educators taught, and it was his belief on the satisfaction and joy they received from the visual arts, from making them and from seeing them produced.
Eisner’s belief on why art educators teach, correlates with my own reasons why I want to become an art educator in the future. This correlation was made right after this statement from Eisner “I believe that art teachers want to teach to allow the same experiences and opportunities they once had.” I want to teach because of the great role models I once had in high school, who taught me to make what I want and make with a material that sparks joy.
Gude’s reasoning for teaching was to push past the usual 7+7 questions when discussing and making artwork. These 7+7 questions are also known as Principle and Elements of Design. He wanted to dive in deeper when talking about ones own art. He achieved this by using the spiral workshop. This workshop consisted of three major points, firstly you need to use a curriculum based on generative themes, that relate to their lives of students and community. Secondly, is to use the studio art projects based on diverse practices, of contemporary artmaking and traditional arts. Lastly, to use art as an investigation, understanding the arts of others and seeing their own artmaking. By using this method of workshop, he saw themes pop-up like, appropriation, juxtaposition, recontextualization, hybridity, layering, representing, gazing and the interaction between text and image.
Gude’s idea about finding a deeper meaning resonates with me and I can see myself using the spiral workshop method in my future classroom. I really enjoyed the last main point about investigating the art of not only yourself but the work of other students. This reminds me of my studio ceramics class when discussing my own independent research, it feels like all classmates have feelings and ideas to help me out and push my research. Although I find his workshop a hit, I don’t approve of his viewpoint on Elements and Principle of Design. It concerns me that he didn’t want to focus on them because I believe these are great steppingstones when discussing works of arts.
Another concern I have was brought up in Eisner’s article about how the idea of visual culture could replace art education. Visual culture is the idea of teaching architecture, product design, graphic design and layouts of parks and cities. The fear that visual culture is mostly made on a computer scares me that the sense of joy and passion could be lost because you aren’t physically creating with your hands. When I reflect on myself, I think about the unexplained relationship I have with clay and how I communicate with my hands, overall sparking my joy for making and becoming an art educator. My goal is to give opportunities and experiences to my students like I once had and is still having, but what will happen to the future art educators? Will they have great experiences using visual culture, enough to motivate themselves to teach it, or will the job go to another teacher who is not necessarily involved in the arts?
TED251 Lonetti Rylie 