[Jacqueline Geiple]

I agree with both of the above responses. I believe our curriculum provides the potential for such issues, but it is rarely addressed at all, and if so, usually glossed over to avoid any problems. I believe the arts are a great place for these discussions to take place, because so many of these issues can be addressed through art, however, that puts a lot of trust on your students’ maturity and sensitivity levels. You can’t assume that all of your students are going to be mature and respectful to those around them, and you don’t want to be responsible for offensive comments or any other problems. However, I feel that if these issues become a more integrated part of the curriculum from early on, then students will be much more prepared to have open and respectful discussions for more serious issues down the road. There is a shift in our culture in general at the moment, but it is a very split-shift. It seems that half of our culture is very receptive and open to these discussions, while the other half directly opposes and fights them…that strong polarization makes it even more challenging.

[Jacqueline Geiple]

Yes, the way I was taught greatly differs from how I was taught to teach, how I was/have been teaching, and how I plan to be teaching in the future. In high school, it was lecture-based art with from-the-board notes. My art teacher didn’t have a projector, so we didn’t even see the images of the artworks we were learning about. It was very traditional art, and about memorizing artists, titles, years, movements. It was all male artists, and definitely no contemporary artists. There was no discussion…just copying notes and memorizing. Sometimes, he’d have a book that had an artwork image in it, and he’d walk around to show us. My other art class had a teacher who handed out packets of pictures for us to copy…very cookie-cutter. I had no experience in any art class (elementary through high school) of any form of writing, critiquing, artwork analysis, composition, class discussion, curating, displaying work, or discussing social or cultural issues. It was very linear: historical artists, Western Europe art movements, and basic techniques. It wasn’t until college that I was even exposed to art elements/principles, contemporary art, and various media. Our art education classes elaborated upon the traditional art lesson formula: you still needed a historical artist, a subject focus, and specific art element and principle…but now they made us include a female artist, a minority culture artist (specifically focusing on black and Hispanic artists), a formal critique, and a formal written reflection. When I had my first teaching job, my district curriculum revolved purely around the art elements and principles, with specific days of the school year dedicated to projects focusing on different elements and principles. It was very structured, and element/principle-based with specific skills and projects they wanted to see, weekly written quiz requirements, weekly sketchbook assignments, plus weekly visual journals. As I visited other schools, attended AP Art Institutes, trainings, National Art Standard trainings, conferences, and later graduate courses, I began to see a growing curriculum shift encroaching on each. When I left that district, they were completely rewriting their curriculum to reflect that shift. My current position had similar curriculum expectations, but completed in half the time (semester classes, 45 minutes each). I have been trying to gradually find ways to infuse those new curriculum ideas into my current curriculum. Our art department goes into curriculum-rewrite mode in 2017, so we know we are trying to plan ahead for that now. We are trying to find ways to infuse more student-lead artistic investigations, incorporate more technology, include more topical investigations, student-lead critiques, provide more social and cultural connections (beyond visual stylizations) for discussions, and try to encourage more student experimentation by shifting more focus on ideas and concepts over techniques and skills…but still teach the techniques and skills. It is a balance that has been a subject of deep discussion over the past few years.

[Jacqueline Geiple]

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.).

[Jacqueline Geiple]

I feel like the present studio art curriculum is just in an awkward transitioning stage. It is trying to faze out the more structured, traditional approaches of art and instead moving towards a more contemporary and conceptual curriculum. Traditionally, courses were taught by medium and technique (pencil drawing, acrylic painting, oil painting, functional pottery, ceramic sculpture, film photography) which was paired with some type of chosen subject (portrait, still-life, landscape, abstraction, etc.) and some specific focus on elements and principles alongside a classical (and usually male) artist. There seemed to be a formulaic approach to the curriculum: pencil drawn self portrait, focusing on value and contrast, studying Rembrandt. However, over the past few years studio art seems to be shifting away from that structure and moving towards ideas, concepts, artistic voices, cultural/societal connections, and artistic expressions. The current shift is more student/learner-focused and into student decision-making, which I think leaves a lot of studio art educators feeling at a loss. The type of learning that studio art teachers have been trained to teach is fading away, and now there is a stronger focus on newer concepts that may not have been a strong emphasis in their former art education foundations…so naturally, there is a level of discomfort and uncertainty. I personally favor the shift overall because a lot of important areas of art (and the world in general) have been neglected in the past, however, I am aware of the obstacles that art educators will face…mostly with time and budgets in order to accomplish all areas that the new curriculum sets, and to the degree of its higher expectations.

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