Follow Me
  Janine Campbell
  • Home
  • Blended Learning
  • Assessment
  • Thematic Units
  • Publications
  • Lights, Camera, Learning
  • Get Your Grant On

does newer equal better?

10/28/2012

8 Comments

 
I love going to Conferences! Each one I attend, I always come back filled with new ideas and understanding of how to develop and deliver content to students in ways that will enhance their learning and ability to demonstrate their skills through projects and art work.

I went to the annual MAEA Conference this past weekend, and I had an amazing time sharing what I do in my classroom with blended learning and then learning and seeing so many awesome ideas about assessment, lesson development, and delving into the purpose of Art Education through a series of thought-provoking sessions.

One thing I was a little alarmed by, though, was also something I heard more than once. I can't quite recall the exact wording, and it wasn't something that was said exactly the same between the sessions I went to, but it was a theme that bothered me.  The theme that studying old white guys who made art a long time ago is not important or something that we should do on in our classes. Now, I understand where this notion is stemming from, but I think the disdain is a little misdirected.

I agree that it is probably not the best lesson to sit a bunch of kids down and say here is a picture of Picasso's Three Musicians, now copy it. There is not much critical thinking going on in that type of situation. We do not want to train our students to be a bunch of puppets; instead we want them to be free-thinkers who come up with their own solutions to problems. However, that doesn't mean you can't ever bring up Picasso to look at something else happening now in the Art world or to be inspired by him (he is, after all, the one who said the best artists steal).

Just because something is old, doesn't mean it should not be spoken of, or used as a tool to study from, or that it no longer has significance in the classroom. I have learned from a variety of Art  teachers that it is not about who you study, it is all about how you study them. For example, when I teach Printmaking, students look at a variety of examples throughout history and compare and contrast them before creating their own. We look at Kathe Kollwitz, Andy Warhol, Banksy, and Swoon before students take images and create their own prints to share a point of view. When we study Greek Art, I have students look at how contemporary artists Karen Lamonte, Michael Stutz, and Igor Mitoraj have strong influences from the ancient aesthetic and then we create a piece inspired by Red and Black figure pottery.

It really bothered me to hear such a lack of respect for teachers who use Art History as a staple in their room (maybe because I do).

I appreciate being able to go to Conferences and exchange ideas, even if I don't agree with all of them. Sometimes you find out more about what you believe when you are faced with that other point of view and get a chance to hash it out on a blog post like this.

Now I want to hear from you - am I out of line and old in my thinking? Do I need to reboot and update my notion of what  and how I teach? Does this bother anyone else?



8 Comments
craigr
10/28/2012 10:30:54 pm

I teach that "artists learn from other artists." So, whether we study the old masters or new artists the question is the same, "What can we learn from this artist?"

Reply
Mrs. C
12/2/2012 08:52:08 am

I think this is probably the best way to do it. I think it is important for students to have a context for what is made and why. Knowing Art History helps bring that into focus.

Reply
Tim link
10/28/2012 11:24:25 pm

I agree with both of you--It’s not important WHAT we study in Art History, it’s important THAT we study Art History.

When selecting artists to study for Art History, whether they are alive and still working, or really, really dead is irrelevant to me; I care about only two things:
Will they be interesting to my students?
Will they teach something to my students?

I am a little bothered by the thought that newer is better--I use a LOT of contemporary artists in my room, but I would feel as though I’m doing my kids a disservice if they left my room without knowing about Duchamp, Picasso, and Van Gogh. Postmodernism has value in the art room, but it is best used to give us a perspective on the art of the past--not take its place.

Reply
Mrs. C
12/2/2012 08:53:39 am

I see it as having to be a blend of past and present in order to move forward. We need to see and understand why things look the way we do so that we can create new possibilities in informed ways.

Reply
Marcia
10/29/2012 07:27:30 am

I bought into that a couple of years ago but retracted my thoughts because we can all learn from what the masters did. We can learn how they used color, line, texture, space, etc. And they get to learn about an interesting person's life

Reply
Mrs. C
12/2/2012 08:54:21 am

Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate hearing your evolving ideas and why they changed.

Reply
Holly Bess Kincaid link
11/4/2012 01:31:29 am

I think it is important to open the dialogue of discussion in learning to look at art from a variety of time periods and cultures. A quote I think is fitting "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots." - Marcus Garvey
We learn the visual language of artists and learn how to develop our own visual vocabulary

Reply
Mrs. C
12/2/2012 08:55:53 am

Thanks, Holly. I appreciate your thoughts and think the quote you have chosen is really appropriate. I agree that developing a visual vocabulary is important in order to understand the language of artist from the past and present.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Janine Campbell

    Visual Arts Teacher at Byron Center West Middle School. Check out their classroom blog.

    Archives

    August 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012

    Categories

    All
    Assessment
    Awards
    Blog
    Chicago
    Choice
    Classroom
    Conference
    Connections
    Display
    Drawing
    Ecet2
    Education
    Exhibit
    Flint Institute Of Arts
    Fraggle Rock
    Grades
    Home
    Inspiration
    Keynote
    Labels
    Learning
    Macul
    #macul16
    MAEA
    Materials
    Moodle
    Movies
    NAEA
    #NAEA15
    #NAEA16
    Paris
    PBS LearningMedia
    Reflection
    Sub Plans
    Teaching
    Technology
    Travel
    Turtleman
    Twitter
    WGVU

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.