By Alicia Eames, Curriculum Connections–School Library Journal

Many public schools today devote large blocks of time each day solely to math and literacy. Whatever the reason—No Child Left Behind mandates, adoption of the Common Core State Standards, and increased emphasis on standardized testing—other essential subjects including social studies and science are often squeezed into a few precious time slots each week, if at all. So, where does that leave arts education?

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New ways of learning in today’s classes

Tuesday January 17, 2012

A world first online art history program offered by the University of Adelaide and the Art Gallery of South Australia is setting a new benchmark for online learning.

Students enrolled in the Master of Arts (Studies in Art History) program are taken through a virtual tour of the Gallery’s most exquisite art collections, discovering Australian, Indigenous, Japanese and European Art from the comfort of their lounge room.

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This exhibition features an early first edition of “Los Caprichos,” a set of eighty etchings by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya y Lucientes published in 1799. Included in the exhibition for comparison are other works by Goya.

To augment Goya’s “Los Caprichos” prints, the exhibition will also include the work of several contemporary artists including Enrique Chagoya, Jason Garcia (Santa Clara), Diego Romero (Cochiti), Roger Shimomura, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Flathead, Shoshone), and Masami Teraoka. Like Goya, these exceptional artists all incorporate social commentary and social critique as integral aspects of their work.

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I posted this article nearly a year ago on blogger spot. it received some attention and I think it is an important article. Here it is again. Rather long but very interesting especially when you have or teach gifted children.

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A lovely story of random acts of kindness and art
Reprinted from NPR Creative Commons license

12:29 pm

November 30, 2011

by Robert Krulwich

He? She? It? Whoever it is, the Phantom Sculptor is suddenly back!
Book sculpture man standing outside
Enlarge Chris Scott/Flickr

As I recently reported, somebody has been dropping glorious little paper sculptures into libraries and museums all over Edinburgh, Scotland, and we’ve just heard (thank you, alert reader Paul Smith) that there are now three more.

And they will be the last.

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I was looking back at past students works from 1999 – 2006, at Santa Fe Community College. I was a drawing, painting and art history adjunct instructor and helped co-found, write grants and was the project director of the summer series program, Make Your Mark, that offered Visual and Performing Arts program college credit to high school students. We received a yearly $15,000 grant from the NEA and NMArts program.

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Shel Silverstein

Years from Now
Although I cannot see your face
As you flip these poems awhile,
Somewhere from some far-off place
I hear you laughing —and I smile.
Shel Silverstein

The dedication of Shel’s new book of poems published by Harper-Collins grabbed me. The simplicity and elegance of his line drawings makes drawing look so simple putting a pen to paper or a stylus to a tablet. What I found creative about looking at the Harper-Collins webpage was that it also included classroom activities. Activity guide was created by Sue Ornstein, a first-grade teacher in the Byram Hills School District in Armonk, New York.

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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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