“A social justice lens can focus goals in required art courses at any level by examining the reasons and ways that artists create art, influence others, and actively engage social problems through art in communities.” — Armon J., Ortega T., and Uhrmacher, P. The Significance of Self-Portraits: Making Connections through Monotype Prints in Letres y Arte. Art Education. November 2009
This quote by Armon, Ortega and Uhrmacher captures the important role art plays in enlivening discourse, action and reflection around social justice issues. By looking at artists who explore injustice, racism, sexism, homophobia, displacement, immigration and identity, students engage in, express and formulate their own perspectives about themselves and the issues. Through viewing art, discussing, de-constructing, making and critiquing, students become producers of their own meaning, and enter into the vital understanding that their voice matters.
In her 2009 Lowenfeld Lecture Art Education for Democratic Life, Olivia Gude explains why art education is one of the BEST arenas for the development of self and active citizenship. By telling their own stories and expressing themselves in artistic and metaphoric ways—students create self and thus, positively project themselves into social space. Who am I and how do I fit into this world of complex social issues (many of which are listed above)? The creation of self allows students to think deeply about issues that concern them, achieving a heightened sense of self-awareness and motivation to communicate ideas with peers and the community. Furthermore, by using creative strategies to solve problems, students become active participants in their quest to understand their own power in the contemporary web of social, political, intellectual, and cultural ideas, norms, contradictions, pitfalls and possibilities. Simply put, arts education helps young people achieve a sense of agency to shape their world and be active in it.
The work you are doing is helping young people to build self. We are now almost 2 months into the semester and we need to hear from you! How is it going? What are you learning?
On our group blog: Please read Gude’s article, The 2009 Lowenfeld Lecture (it sings) and write a short reflection in the comment section before Friday, March 5th. A possible question to consider: By working with youth/college mentors: how might your students gain a nugget toward heightened sense of self-awareness and engaged citizenry?
On your blog: Post at least three photos to your course blog and reflect on what you’ve learned and what your students have learned so far. Please also mention specific examples of how you are using Studio Habits of Mind. Also feel free to mention your ‘content expert’, field trips, warm ups, discussion prompts or readings that might interest your colleagues.
I’ll be beginning site visits next week, and I look forward to checking in with you in person. (But I still need to see/hear from you online. Peace:)
Lauren Elder, Mission High Tuesday February 23
Aimee Phan, O’Connell Tuesday, March 2
Virginia Jardim, Peralta Hacienda Wed., March 3
Trena Noval, Emery Secondary Tuesday March 9
Amana Harris/Naema Ray, Claremont Middle TBD
This reminds me of the importance of passing along knowledge from our elders. In this case the “elders” being college students. As a facilitator for this collarboation its has been interesting observing the interaction between CCA students and MHS students. Many times our youth have been surprised at the level of ownership and reponsibilty the CCA students have for themselves. For high school students, they can only imagine what their life will be like in a few years. Many can’t encompse the level of ownership they will take over the bulk of their everyday life. Yet having a direct story telling by elders, they get a preview of the possibilites. Their future begins to look more concrete. They begin to realize the amount of choices they will have to make. And indirectly they begin to realize how much ownership they have the ability to take now.
Hi,
I’m grateful to see the issues around equity being raised, especially in light of an emerging conversation among researchers in the National Art Education Association.
The recent national conference of NAEA was on the theme of Social Justice — and it has provoked some sharp commentary among some members of the community who see the association being “hijacked” by radicals. Now the membership of the organization is trying to decide how to respond. For a taste, go to the link I’ve pasted below. It’s disheartening, but it makes it clear why these issues need to be raised continually. A colleague of mine at MassArt suggests that it stems, or is at least of the same ilk, as comments from Glenn Beck, who links social justice with a flight from churches. My friend suggests that listening to his comments (as sick making as they are) will help you understand the context for the piece that was written on the ATLAS SHRUGS blog.
This link will take you to POLITICS DAILY that has audio of Beck’s “analysis.”
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/08/glenn-beck-urges-listeners-to-leave-churches-that-preach-social/
This link will take you to the ATLAS SHRUGS blog and the comments it provoked.
[ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/04/national-art-education-association-and-social-justice-propaganda.html ]http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/04/national-art-education-association-and-social-justice-propaganda.html
Understanding takes a strong stomach and spine, I fear.
Lois
I am coming into this conversation very late but wanted to add my thoughts anyway. I liked the Gude reading, found it inspiring and hopeful. She also has a background as a youth educator in Chicago where she teaches at UIC and has done many public community projects with teens in that community.
That being said – I can’t help but respond to some of Amana’s thoughts about how knowledge in the arts can also be viewed as a hierarchical privilege for an elite few and shut out many who feel that they can’t pursue it because it is a world they would rather not or cannot enter. Her comments about art being a tool of destruction and healing, like a double-edged sword, really rang true. Access is mostly in museums or galleries and they are generally places that only a few tend to enter. And the art one might fine in these institutions is often speaking from the perspective of elite knowledge. I don’t stop to recognize this often enough because I have been immersed in the arts for as long as I can remember and I realized that because of this, as an arts educator I am coming from a prevailed place of understanding.
It reminded me of a conversation I had with Sara Stillman in the beginning of the semester (who is my collaborator and art teacher at Emery Secondary) where I was struck by something she said. Some of her students are clearly gifted, love art making and clearly used it to create self-meaning and to understand their lives – that is evident through their images and hearing them talk about their own practice. But she told me that when it came time this year to apply to colleges some of her most gifted students didn’t think studying the arts was a viable option. This was curious to me. How do we teach students to really understand that self-expression though the arts are viable ways for them to live and work and can be a place for them to start to build a meaningful future? How do we teach our CCA students to help their students to believe that their own artistic practices and pursuits can really be a catalyst to launch them into inspiring careers? I realized that I was not even sure how I would tackle this one.
Many of my CCA students are now working in urban community centers or schools through the CSF program so they are having a variety of experiences outside of my class that have come into discussions around creating curriculum and arts learning. What kernels of wisdom can we pass onto them to help them understand how to create a bridge between hopeful possibilities in the arts and that voice that tells them that they don’t belong? I think what will be our challenge and the challenges of our CCA students as they move out into the world as arts educators. I guess thinking about both the Gude reading and the Mary Stone Hanley reading the question again for me that comes up is one of equity and freedom.
Olivia Gude’s article, Art Education for Democratic Life, was very poetic. Her perspective made me think of Attitudinal Healing Principle #13 “perception is a mirror of what is in our minds”. Projecting the beauty, desires and concerns of of our mind is a method for building resiliency. With that being said, I will comment based on my own experiences of being in many urban school environments, and witnessing how democracy is in many ways a state of mind. Many of us are led to believe that we are free, but the barriers of access, marginalization and systematic racism, sexism and oppression tell us otherwise and impact this opportunity for engaging in and accessing quality art education. This is the case, even with Obama as president.
My work is to continue to articulate these concerns. Oppression can block someones ability to see how they can shape the world. Access limits one’s opportunities in consistently and meaningfully engaging in quality art education.
Quality art education to some can also be seen as elite and oppressive as well. Traditional art history (historical or contemporary) is not truly inclusive. The world of art education still displays this unethical phenomena in a profound way. How we traditionally view art is limited and art can be seen outside of the box of museums, urban streets, copy shops and computers. Art is life! Art is everything!
I was also struck by the use of the tem “classic” what does that really mean. i think the use of this word validates my point.
Art can be just as much a destructive tool as it can be a tool for healing and liberation. Engaging in art has dual probabilities. Many educators must be sensitive to the highly probable occurence of how art can express critical internal issues that students face providing a vehicle for expression but also a cry for help. Art educators must have the ability to pick up on the subleties that can begin to express themselves when engaged in art as a tool for expression.
I believe this article was hopeful but idealistic.
Thanks for relating Gude’s thinking to your own partnership and experiences. Since all of the ENGAGE projects are slightly different, it will be interesting to see how the learning across projects differs. I am hopeful that both CCA students and partner youth are learning more about themselves–building self–through their interactions and connections with each another. By making bonds outside of our usual, expected social groups, we stretch and explore internal (and external) territory that might be unfamiliar, but is fertile for growth and development of self awareness. Thanks for responding w/great thoughts.
I feel as if the 826 Valencia Young Adult Book Project certainly confronted the high school students with understanding themselves through writing their personal essays–and that could be both overwhelming and exciting. In the past six weeks, we watched some students flourish and others falter under the deadline. The high school students were not used to talking about themselves or considering their personal biographies worthy for publication. The self-awareness thus brought various results.
The CCA students will soon be wrapping up their time at 826 Valencia and go into the classroom to reflect on their experience. I think an important issue will be how to challenge and inspire students who don’t necessarily have this big book project in front of them, how they can see creative and personal writing as self-expression beyond a homework assignment.
By working with the college mentors, youth are exposed to a variety of artistic mediums and methods, as well as processes of planning, visualization, and artistic creation that may be completely new to them. Exploring new territories encourages heightened awareness, a certain amount of risk, and the discovery that comes with this. Working in groups, students are able to learn from each other, and be surprised by the diversity of activities going on in the 5 neighboring mentor-student groups.
Thanks Virginia for sharing these resources. Anyone interested in learning more about Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) here’s their url address: http://www.vtshome.org/ The local
Bay Area Chapter holds regular events and trainings and offers
discounted rates to CCA students and faculty. Please let me know if you’re interested and I’ll forward you info on local
events.
Interestingly, I just read another article by Olivia Gude on the Teaching Tolerance website.It is called Color Lines. Here is the link:
http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-19-spring-2001/color-lines
As I read Olivia Gude’s article on Art Education for Democratic Life, I kept thinking about Visual Thinking Strategies which I am learning and teaching this semester (Sarah Lenoue and I are giving a workshop at CATESOL in April). I feel uplifted as a teacher when discussing or looking at art with students and watching them gradually begin to articulate their thoughts.
I found the article very uplifting and inspiring. I was most struck by Gude’s affirmation that art can address so many aspects of growth and assist in a person’s maturation to become a discerning individual in a democratic society. Art seems to provide a context for experimentation and nonjudgmental exploration which ironically seems to develop critical thinking skills. However, having recently read the article “Studio Thinking: How Visual Arts TEaching Can Promote Disciplined Habits of Mind” in the Engage reader which begins with pages of research showing the LACK of proof of the transfer of learning from the arts, I kept wondering where Gude got her data.
On a personal note, I was so inspired by Gude’s mention of looking for images in CLOUDS. One of my most vivid childhood memories was lying on a roof with my best friend staring up at the clouds watching them morph in and out of recognizable shapes.
Since the Athena Project is largely being conducted outside, I will share this activity with the AP mentors as something they can do with the youth.
Thanks, Ann! I’ll definitely check out the podcast w/Darrick Smith. I love Gude’s Spiral website and often refer to her Rubric for Quality Art Curriculum and the Hidden or Missing Curriculum for ideas. I like her Lowenfeld Lecture because it took her rubric and blew it open with examples of how/why this work is so essential for our young people to positively self identify in the midst of a crazy, chaotic world.
I also recommend looking into Olivia Gude’s spiral art education website. She directs the Teacher Education Program at the University of Illinois in Chicago. On the site are great articles and resources–my favorite part being the “Cool Curriculm” section and it includes wonderful, well-documented lesson plans that students developed for their Saturday workshops with high school students. It’s a great place to get ideas. Here’s the web address: http://www.uic.edu/classes/ad/ad382/
Another resource great resource I came across this week that your students might enjoy is an interview withDarrick Smith, co-director at June Jordan School for Equity in San Francisco, featured on KPFA’s “Education Today” program. It’s a critical conversation about the social justice approach to education, including transformative education for students of color and the role of educators. You can play or download it at: http://kpfa.org/archive/id/58597