2. NEEDS

The change I would like to see implemented in present-day art curriculum would be to ensure that 21st Century technology is filtered into the art classroom. It is important to teach the components of art, the history behind the artworks as well as spend time in the art making but the curriculum has to also include connections to the world the students live in and will continue to grow in. There are so many ways to research, inspire, connect and create through technology but unfortunately (or at least in my district), the “special area” subjects are the last to receive any technology driven teaching/learning tools.
Professor Elliot Eisner in his lecture, “What Do the Arts Teach” reminded me to continue to explore new ways of exposing what the students are learning in my classroom. It is through this awareness that the teachers, administrators and community will get a glimpse of how important the arts are to everyone. Finding the time to organize, display and promote is a difficult task to master because of the other tasks that need to be completed (SLOs, grading, team meetings, covering walls of art for PSSA testing, faculty meetings, etc.)
I am fortunate to work in a building where the administration is very supportive of the arts and my goal would be to continue to demonstrate that art is an integral part of every student’s learning. This continues to bring awareness and help create the change I need to get technology into the art classroom.

I think that the new shift in standards and curriculum is already headed in the right direction by allowing for more higher level thinking skills, problem solving, and development of individual student voice because those are real weaknesses in the older curriculum. However, I think the education system in general needs to respect the art curriculum by providing adequate class time and funding is provided to do justice to these programs instead of sacrificing arts time and funding in order to cater to core subjects. I have noticed that in my school (and several others), administrations seem recognize yet misunderstand the current push for arts in schools. Instead of supporting our arts program and recognizing art education as a relevant domain that can stand on its own, they have instead started to lean more towards art teachers leaving the art room to instead support their math, science, and engineering programs. While art does indeed play an important role in almost every core subject, schools should not exploit these connections and use art solely to support what they want. Studio art, in my opinion, implies a strong focus on artistic exploration, creation, and production. I understand that a variety of thinking, researching, connecting, discussing, critiquing, reflecting, curating, etc. naturally goes along with that…but when the curriculum puts so much emphasis and high expectations on all of those areas, then time has to be removed from the studio art making in order to properly teach and apply the other areas. Mandatory state and national testing (as well as district initiatives requiring the arts to take time out of their curriculum to support the areas being tested) is crippling class time and overwhelming students with more to do in less time than their developing minds and skills can properly and successfully grow. I do believe that the shift is a positive one, and art teachers could successfully implement the curriculum changes and put adequate focus on all areas and result in incredible increases in student learning, however, there would need to be some compromise from school districts in terms of removing the barriers impeding those desired results (visual arts being required to teach multiple reading and writing lessons a year, cutting out electives multiple days a year to allow for core classes to have more class time, not cutting art programs in schools to replace with math and reading, not removing children from art programs, etc.).

I do think that we are at a point where studio art, art education and art history curricula need to be changed and at this point in time I seem to hear of many schools putting a lot of time, thought and effort into making changes. My school district is just in the very beginning stages of planning out a new curriculum. It is going to be a long, very well thought out and heavily researched process. I think that most schools are really trying to shift gears from some of the old school practices in art education and it appears to me that there is a large movement to attempt to put the main focus on the students and giving them the tools and confidence they need to truly trust in themselves, their own ideas and their own creativity. We are trying to focus on giving them the art education they need by also being sure to keep the joy of creating art to the highest possible degree. If students are not experiencing the joy of creating art and they are not being excited and inspired by what their teachers are presenting to them then we will be failing to bring them a curriculum that will give them the many benefits that a solid art foundation can equip them with for their future.

NEEDS: Do you think studio art, art education and art history curricula need to be changed and if so, how?

In teaching art history, I feel as though the art history curricula needs to be changed because we are instructed by Collegeboard to teach to the test. It is horrible, simply because they break the test down to percentages of what era is mostly going to be on the test to the least. As a teacher who loves art history, I feel as though the classroom and curricula needs to taught according to the importance of art from that time period. For example, which piece of art had the greatest impact during that time, history of families that ruled a lot of art, another example would be the Medici family. My students just got done taking the exam and a lot of them said that African Art and Indian Art was on the exam, however we were instructed to now focus our time on that area of art. So in that case I feel that the art history curricula needs to be changed in that way.

I believe that the teacher’s studio should be brought to the classroom and teachers should pursue a collaborative mentorship model. Collaborative, conceptual, process-based projects should be presented. In 2018, young adults have never known a world without the internet. To truly engage them, a curriculum should embrace new media while still creating works that show the artists’ hand. I’ve utilized Instagram in the past to create a collaborative installation and the students were open from the start. The process was followed through the use of hashtags and is still available (for the most part) by searching the hashtags. The final piece is installed in the school.

I think that studio art needs to integrate new media tools into its curricula to be more interdisciplinary. It also needs to have more multiculturalism for sure, studying artworks of mostly western artists creates a narrow perception on studio art. For example, why not integrating African art as the main resource for a studio course?

Curriculum needs to change as the audience/students change. It needs to adapt to the needs of the present, which by the nature of things continually evolves. Techniques advance, styles change, people become interested in different things, the needs of the world change. Art and how we create needs to change with all of those things, therefore the curriculum through which we teach needs to change with it.