ALEX TABARROK, a George Mason economist and blogger at Marginal Revolution, notes that though many more young Americans, about 50% more, now go to college than did 25 years ago, the number of students studying science, engineering, technology, or mathematics has not increased. So, Mr Tabarrok asks, “If students aren’t studying science, technology, engineering and math, what are they studying?” They are studying interesting and enjoyable fields, it turns out. Mr Tabarrok reports, with no little dread:

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Jul 6, 2010 – 7 min – Uploaded by OregonStateUniv
Watch Portland artist Shelley Jordon at work in her studio. The OSU professor of art is becoming recognized for her moving …

Every year, students from Bentworth Elementary Center in Washington County traipsed through the Carnegie museums of Art and Natural History with the wonder of Dorothy, the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow romping around Emerald City.

The children were amazed at the actual size and texture of paintings they had seen in books, and they pressed their faces against the glass to watch scientists work on dinosaur bones.

“When they walked into these doors, they were the most excited children,” recalled Joy Gazi, the elementary art teacher at Bentworth. “They thought we gave them gold and magic.”

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Coming in 2012  
Born to Draw Web TV and Podcasting
Art Curricula for Children K-6th Grades
Born to Draw is based on the core curriculum that features step-by step drawing instruction
and is designed as a teacher’s resource based on the
National and International Art Education Association Standards.

A piece by Ben Schuman (Volcano Vista High, Albuquerque, NM) that was available for A is for Art auction on September 9, 2011

TOWARD A POST-POST-MODERN ART EDUCATION

There is no doubt that the postmodern critiques of art, educational gender, social class, and related issues that have employed critical analysis, semlotics, poststructuralism, and other deconstructionist approaches, have played an important role in revealing biases and power structures detrimental to equitable practices.

After our biased assumptions and practices have been deconstructed, then what?

What have critical analyses of art education contributed to the field? How can we build upon the insights that have been gained without falling back upon accepted practices? Traditional association of progress with change has been questioned, indicating that progress is not a straight linear construct. In response to the question of what follows deconstruction of long held ideas and practices, I am optimistic that as educators our practices somehow will address some of the inequities revealed by critical educational thought. There is a growing body of voices indicating that either/or antagonistic paradigms will not advance education in general or art education in particular.

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ART EDUCATION ISSUES

Art education as inquiry and as practice draws upon many fields and disciplines, some dealing directly with art, such as the creation, criticism, history, and aesthetics of visual arts. Other inquiries, sometimes tangential to direct applicability, also are important to our conceptions and practice of art education. The feminist movement, conceptions of aesthetics, multiculturalism, and other social issues, such as class, although often treated separately, usually overlap in the shaping of contemporary art education. Feminist inquiry in art education serves as an example of how art education scholars’ inquiries and interpretations have been influenced by several issues raised by postmodernist thought.

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“….Postmodernism demands that the audience of art become involved in the discursive process of discerning meaning. This postmodernist view of art means a very different approach to teaching about art than was contained in our previous misconceptions that meaning was given by the high priests—critics, aestheticians, and historians—who were the keepers of the truth or meaning. Instead, meaning is inextricably connected to the tangled and changing web of context to be constructed by the audience. This means that there is no single meaning or truth, but one that is constructed by all who seek to understand art….”

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Art by Justin Jew, Manzano High School A is for Art Auction for Albuquerque Public Schools

Welcome to Born to Draw

We are under construction for the next 3 days and hope to be up and running by the weekend.