Arts Advocacy

Being an art educator and being an advocate for art education are essentially dependant upon each other. If you want your students to have access to a variety of materials and supplies, you have to work hard for that funding. If you want your students to be recognized by the community for their efforts, you have to go out of your way. If you want your students to have complete freedom to express themselves, you have to fight for that too.

But without educators, there’s no point in being an advocate because students won’t learn. Successful, likeable teachers are essential to furthering student learning. Arts education relates to a lot of other subjects (history, politics, science, mathematics…), and creating artwork is a great way to learn concepts from these other fields.

Getting student work on display is probably the easiest way to show advocacy for art education. Many students work really hard on their art, and displaying their work around the school shows the student body, faculty, school district and community how hard the students worked and that they are valued. My supervising teacher works hard to be constantly cycling artwork out of the display cases, keeping the work new and fresh. There are always students in the hall looking in the cases at the artwork. The artists have the opportunity to show their peers their work, and those who aren’t art students have a chance to see what the art classes are doing. I’ve even had students ask what classes do specific projects they’ve seen because they want to register for those classes.

Another important aspect of arts advocacy is that educators are engaging with the local artistic community. Knowing other artists, gallery owners, art critics and buyers has a great benefit to the students. Not only are you learning new techniques and practices, but also you’re staying up to date on the relevancy of the modern art world and building access to further sources of help/information.

Student Assessment

In my ideal classroom, I would never have to give someone a grade. In art making, so much more value comes from communication and exploration of the success of the artwork. Self-reflection and peer-reflection are two of the best methods for improving upon work. I spend a lot of time hovering around tables, observing the students working. I use this time to talk individually with students about their successes and struggles with the project. The majority of my assessment of student progress and content knowledge comes from these short dialogues. When I get asked questions like “Do you think this looks right?” I usually respond, “What do you think?” The students know that I will tell them how I feel, but they won’t get a response unless they provide me with some insight and self-reflection. Most of the time the students have the same opinions and conclusions as I do. Having the students talk first gives them the opportunity to show me their content knowledge and contextual solutions. I think this encourages students by showing them that they are thinking about the right problems and crafting realistic solutions.

Classroom critiques are also an important layer of assessment. To students, the opinions of their peers matter a lot. These critiques are very truthful and telling about the progress within an artwork. Fostering a positive, constructive critique allows for students to reflect on the qualities of their work and the work of their peers.

As much as I’d like to not give grades, realistically I will have to give grades to all of my students. There are sometimes students who need a tangible grade to understand their progress in the class. Though I don’t believe there is much value in a grade, to others it can be more important to them than the work of art itself. When assessing students, I like to give them a self-evaluation where they can explain their successes and struggles. Students are more critical of themselves usually, and it’s nice to read the thoughts of the students because they don’t always reflect upon what we’ve already discussed. Occasionally the things students write on their evaluation questions give me a much better insight to understanding why a student may have struggled. It’s also a way for students to defend their decisions if they don’t necessarily follow the requirements, sort of a last chance to express their intentions.

Subject Knowledge

Having a lot of subject knowledge is really important to me as an educator. As a future teacher, I’ve been very conscious of learning new techniques and processes. I really enjoy having a well rounded knowledge of art, and it allows me to help students with any questions they might have. Many techniques and concepts apply to multiple art forms and processes, building upon essential skills. Having a wide range of subject knowledge leads to you making connections between different processes.

But, when I don’t have any knowledge of a particular topic, I am quick to admit it. Having some prior experiences, I can make some connections and assumptions, but not having an answer can lead to a great learning and bonding moment between student and educator. I love when a student has critical input they can share, but learning these skills together can allow for communication and a better understanding. It’s also important to know your students well and know what kind of prior knowledge they bring to the classroom.

When planning lessons, I like to share my lesson plans with other educators. As teachers, most of them should be able to teach my lessons without prior knowledge. Other educators can provide a critical reflection on lessons, and can also provide real world experience and perspective. While making slideshows, I really like to use DeviantArt to find examples rather than Google images. Because it’s a website for artists of all abilities, there are usually a lot of examples that reflect student capability. Browsing new Deviations also has given me ideas for lessons and works of art.