[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

Submitted by Armelys on Jan. 24, 2019: My attention was caught when Donald Woodman said his wife is very active in these feminist movements and that he is honored to be accepted to speak at these events. He also stresses the importance of bringing men to events to broaden their horizons. So when asked “Why do we have to use the word feminist? Why not humanist? Or ‘Femanist?’” I immediately started asking these questions myself. The word feminism can be used to fuel a divide between man and woman and even discourage men from supporting women in these movements.

So, why is complicated? A very important point that Woodland discusses in his speech is learning the history. If we do not learn our history, problems will continue to manifest in other forms. So, he says Christian ideals include women being subservient and these ideals have been institutionalized in the United States. These ideals are systematically lodged in our workplace, cultures and any other aspects of our life.
At the same time, there may be a simple solution. Why don’t men just support women? Women have supported men before in anti-war movements, civil rights movement and the list goes on. So why can this energy be reciprocated? A realization that was made by Donald Woodman and soon by me is that it is difficult to be a man and speak out against the dominant culture. To speak against the dominant fuels the divide between us vs them.Viewing it from a naturalistic perspective, if men defend the other side, they are at risk of opting out on rewards a dominant white man would receive. It is important to realize as well that the only people who are going to defend and protect your beliefs is yourself and other people who are directly affected by it. It brought an interesting perspective that the reason they don’t support women as much as feminist would look is because they are at risk of opting on benefits because of beliefs don’t necessarily resonate with them.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

Circle pedagogy, as a feminist art teaching methodology used and discussed by Judy Chicago, involves the students’ voices (each is given time to speak and expected to participate) rather than students circle around for a teacher demonstration, or to hear the teacher read a story, or the teacher to circulate around the room.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

ekk5079 suggests art education curriculum that focus on fandom as “an art making experience, the student will be able to feel validated by his or her physical society, not just the online society” in response to this question/thread on diversity awareness in relation to Chicago’s teaching methodology presented in the materials in part II of the Dialogue Portal. Judy Chicago’s participatory pedagogy does NOT limit or prescribe curricular themes but begins with self-reflexivity, collective memory-work, feminist consciousness-awakenings, and research/content-searches, which are the generative forces for creative art making. See http://judychicago.arted.psu.edu/dialogue/studio/ for more on Chicago’s content-based art teaching.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

As an art teacher of 10 years, Jessica Kirker, brings attention—with her teacher-as-researcher endeavors—to the attitudes and biases of art teachers in consideration of how they are addressing the gender, ethnic, and cultural sensitivities of the students they teach.

Jessica Kirker is a doctoral candidate in art education at The Pennsylvania State University and a high school art teacher at a Title I school. I (Karen Keifer-Boyd) am her advisor and chair of her dissertation. In her dissertation study, an autoethnographic critical race discourse analysis, she asks: “How do I participate in the spoken, unspoken, and performed discourses of race and gender in my teaching.” She states, “none of my Black male students have ever been taught art by a teacher that looks like them. Until White female teachers are able to inspire a love of art education in the current generation of Black male students, we may never see a significant development in the field in terms of gender/racial demographics.”

All are invited to attend the public presentation
Thursday, May 8, 2015
12:00 p.m.—2:00 p.m., 207 Arts Cottage, University Park campus

Jessica Kirker’s Doctoral Defense

DRAWING FROM DISCOURSE:
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC REFLECTIONS OF RACE, GENDER,
AND THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING ART

“In this autoethnographic study, I consider how I, as a White woman teaching art, participate in, maneuver, and manipulate spoken and unspoken racialized and gendered discourses within the context of a high school with a diverse population of students. I employ discourse analysis and draw upon Critical Race Theory, Whiteness Studies, and Gender Studies to examine discourses that govern the school and inform its social conventions as manifested in my professional identity and practices in the classroom, collegial spaces, and school community. Implications of the study concern gender and racial stratification in U.S. educational systems and the discourses that maintain gender and racial inequity and privilege.” (Jessica Kirker, April 2015)

Her dissertation will be available online through the Penn State Libraries in mid May 2015.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

Design of teaching spaces significantly impacts learning. Dialogic learning requires spaces conducive to dialogue. Since active listening is a developed skill, 31 young students in a circle, with tables or not, may not lead to dialogic learning. Six groups of five students responding to a prompt and then putting responses on a large paper in the center of the group and posted in the room for all to see each group’s responses is one strategy to avoid some of the problems that Danna raises.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

Jackie has identified many challenges and several potential opportunities and possible solutions to the challenges she raises. Circle discussions are intended for “personal connection in the response (memories, experiences)” that could include each bringing an object or an image to the circle and readiness to respond to a prompt such as “what have you selected, why, what does it mean to you, and how might what you have chosen be helpful to the art you are working on.” After speaking, the image or object could be passed around but no passing of objects during speaking. This would encourage active listening to each other and longer moments observing and looking at the item in one’s hands.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

Confidence and persistence goes a long way in breaking through exclusion, omission, and marginalization. And, as Nicole (ndo5021) and Alex (ale5171) discuss, educators can create places of learning that help to foster “confident creators” who don’t give up despite social systems of inequities. Integral to Judy Chicago’s feminist art pedagogy embodied in her teaching projects and her art are feminist principles of building agency and empowerment through content-based art that stimulates critical reflective dialogue. Nancy Youdelman speaks (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meoIEiwUep4) of her confidence in creating art from her life experiences and interests that she developed as a student of Judy Chicago in the 1970s. Jenn, you too provide examples from your learning experiences how you changed from being “under the impression that an instructor should have all the answers, and for that matter, all the right answers” to valuing “dialogue and discussion with peers” as strategies “to reflect and innovate new ways of personal engagement within their work … giving students the opportunity to verbalize and have an open-ended discovery of their ideas will allow them to take control over the research and decision making of their thoughts and ideas.”

Starting from building confidence in individual students, I believe activist education is needed to change inequities apparent from a February 2015 report from the National Museum of Women in the Arts:

• Full-time women artists earn $0.81 for every $1 earned by their male counterparts
• Master of Fine Arts programs are generally between 65%-75% female, yet 70% of gallery space features art by men
• Only 5% of artwork on major US museum walls is by women—yet 51% of artists are women

Clearly, there are entrenched social systems of (de)valuation that many individuals will need to join forces to change. Olivia picks up on this need for teaching activism in learning to be “aware of how our work will be viewed and understood by others” and “by giving students examples of activism” through art and providing prompts or questions such as those she suggests in her response at http://judychicago.arted.psu.edu/forum/users/olivia-skoric/replies/. Within this dialogue several facilitation strategies drawn from teaching and learning experiences have been shared that begin to build a socially responsive art education resource. I invite others to add to the dialogue from your teaching and learning experiences regarding facilitating confident creators of activist art, or to respectfully question the ideas expressed.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

Similar to Jessica, I too believe in equity and including difference. A circle pedagogy is one strategy to build a safe environment for ideas to be tested, identity explored, and opinions shared. Seeking understanding is critical in self-reflection, dialogue, and active listening. Given the opportunity to speak in a group is important and more likely happens when from the beginning everyone is expected to participate in the discussion.

Anthropology, particularly visual culture anthropology, was my “support” cluster of courses when pursuing a Ph.D. in art education at the University of Oregon. The eco-social justice perspectives of U of O professors, June King McFee, Rogena Degge, Doug Blandy, Jane Maitland-Gholson, Beverly Jones, and Linda Ettinger, influenced my thinking and desire to study anthropology. Take a look at June King McFee’s work in teaching art from anthropological perspectives. You might begin with the video linked at http://aad.uoregon.edu/june-king-mcfee and Paul Bolin’s (2005) paper “Community Arts and Cultural Context: The Legacy of June King McFee and Vincent Lanier” at http://pages.uoregon.edu/culturwk/march05bolin.html in “CultureWork: A Periodic Broadside for Arts & Culture Workers.”

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

Wonderful to learn of your research Dean Dewey incorporating Judy Chicago’s ideas on transforming curriculum to include voices that have been marginalized or are underrepresented for your paper for the 2015 American Library & Information Science Educators Gender Issues Panel – Re-Imagining Issues of Gender and Sexuality in LIS Teaching, Research, and Service Delivery. When published or available let me know. I think it would be good to begin a section “Research” with the Collection under “Living” Curricula at http://judychicago.arted.psu.edu/living-curricula/ This section currently has seven generative projects:
The Dinner Party Curriculum Project includes curricular ideas for k-12 teachers on how to facilitate encounters with Judy Chicago’s monumental artwork, The Dinner Party. http://judychicago.arted.psu.edu/dpcp/
Participatory Art Pedagogy is a multi-media overview of Judy Chicago’s feminist art teaching methodology. http://judychicago.arted.psu.edu/participatory-art-pedagogy/
Out of Here is a course syllabus, calendar, and other materials on teaching Judy Chicago’s pedagogical approach for participatory pedagogy, art, and exhibition, and learning about her pedagogical principles http://judychicago.arted.psu.edu/out-of-here/
Teaching with the Collection includes award-winning curriculum that teaches about and from The Dinner Party. At the From the Field section you are invited to share feminist art education curricula to build an archive and to comment with narratives of feminist art pedagogy. http://judychicago.arted.psu.edu/living-curricula/teaching-with-collection/
Teaching Conversations is a project of a group of feminist colleagues at Penn State who embrace feminist principles of equity and eco-social justice, and set into motion participatory, self-knowledge, and critical inquiry. http://judychicago.arted.psu.edu/living-curricula/teaching-conversations/
Gallery Conversations is an archive of 8 podcasts of lectures about Judy Chicago’s art that were part of the Surveying Judy Chicago: Five Decades exhibition at the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State. Some are placed in SoundCloud for commentary, and all have “Tweet” commentary that expands with resources/links to many voices in feminist gallery conversations. http://judychicago.arted.psu.edu/gallery-conversations/
The last section is “Film Series” with films linked or embedded. The films were used in teaching Judy Chicago’s art pedagogy. —— Karen Keifer-Boyd, professor of art education and women’s studies, and coordinator of the Judy Chicago Art Education Collection

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

A new topic thread begun by Sueanne Matthews flips Judy Chicago’s question by asking “Can great teachers be great artists? Does the commitment to teaching well compromise practice?” She continues: “So many of my teachers in studio practice were mid-career artists and focused on their own skills. Does this signal competition from a younger generation and develop a culture of “closed knowledge”.” Susan Duby responds: “Of course they can. I have had amazing teachers that were also amazing artists. One of them was Faith Wilding and another Steve Kurtz. They taught and gave guidance to many artists that I am sure are grateful to this day for their expertise.”

For studio art teaching positions, faculty are evaluated annually and for tenure and promotion in the area of creative activity (exhibitions), teaching, and service to the school, college, university, community, and field. Studio art professors are, therefore, expected to be outstanding teachers and artists. However, nation-wide research studies have shown that peer and student reviews of university professors rate White male faculty highest and women of color faculty lowest. There is also quantitative evidence to support the notion that faculty are evaluated more harshly in classes that focus on social justice and diversity (Klinker, Agnello, Marbley, & Davidson, 2010).

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

In the hour video-recording on October 25, 2014, available at https://meeting.psu.edu/p4eg5p6hz2g/, Judy Chicago facilitated a discussion in relation to the six questions posed here, and to issues raised by participants regarding how to contextual their content-rich art, as well as issues of diversity in terms of students, faculty, and content within studio art programs.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

A studio art professor is required not only to create art but to exhibit their work in juried curated exhibitions. For annual review, merit raise, tenure, and promotion the number of exhibitions, their prominence, and reputation of the venue and juror makes a difference in continuing as a university studio art professor.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

Carl Clausen commented on your post in NAEA Professional Learning through Research Working Group.
Carl Clausen

Carl Clausen
12:32pm Sep 28
My school district has a comprehensive k-12 Visual Art curriculum and each project is attached to a historical and/or cultural component. At the high school level, Art History is offered as an separate elective and often integrated with studio art classes. Those in elementary teacher training programs take a one-credit class on art education which hardly makes them competent unless the have a strong arts background in their k-12 education. I think teacher training courses should require more time devoted to arts education. I know several ‘teaching artists’ who don’t have a degree/training in education and have difficulty managing children, materials, & pedagogy as well as understanding developmental stages of children.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

At the moment, too many young people are having the types of experiences outlined by a film student in an essay that she shared with me in 2013.

Last year, I was one of five females in a university film class. The class was a script writing course. We were sharing our scripts and our stories and one of the students had read his 12-page script aloud to the class. His script failed to pass the Bechdel Test. For a movie to pass The Bechdel Test, it must contain a scene in which two or more named female characters have a conversation about something other than men. It also contained character descriptions of sexual objectification and lacked to showcase women as anything more than the Other in relation to Simone De Beauvoir’s definition of how women are othered. We were taking turns providing feedback to his work and I raised the question of writing as a means of exposing a sexist culture and how this differs from writing that perpetuates blame the victim rhetoric. When I used the word sexist to describe some of the scene choices made within the plot of the film, the students in the class became hostile toward me. Many students defended his choices, saying that they were comedic and clever. They were unable to entertain any criticism revolving around female characters and their depiction in film and the environment became so uncomfortable that I ended up leaving class early. Later I reached out to the professor and he apologized for the class’s behavior and his inability to conjure an academic discussion of female roles within film. He said what he found most disturbing was the amount of female students who defended his choices of female depictions within the script. From my perspective this was upsetting because he did not understand the culture that we live in which would teach men and women to write such characters. What was even more distressing was the fact that he did not recognize his role and ability to shape and change sexist attitudes and practices of students and future filmmakers.

Although this example is related to an incident in a film class, in “Institutional Time: A Critique of University Studio Art Education” Judy Chicago gives many examples of such treatment in the visual arts as part of her larger critique of current art education, particularly as it relates to studio art. In her book, she has called for a dialogue aimed at transforming art curriculum so that it becomes more content-based and reflective of the changes in consciousness, concerning gender and diversity, that have taken place over the course of the last thirty years.

[Karen Keifer-Boyd]

#JCdialogue #JCinterdisciplinary Art education undergrad students are typically required to take a hefty number of studio and art history courses but those in art history or studio degree programs are not required to take art education courses. Studio programs typically require art history courses but not vice versa. Even if courses are not required, art history curricula could include studio visits and studio workshops as well as art education courses that include contemporary art aesthetics and museum education. Does your art education program offer courses that would be valuable to art history students?

[Author]

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