AT Week 14

Gude!
Quote: Consider whether ALL your curriculum projects engage students in making meaning through meaningful making
What are the classroom implications for this statement? Describe how this might relate to your classroom experiences or how you predict this affecting classrooms of the future.

This would change curriculum's greatly. Currently my curriculum is based off the GLE's and standards. As Gude said these standards were made for what seemed best at the time. Now things have changed drastically, especially considering what technology had brought to the classrooms. I can definitely see curriculum's being redesigned and teachers be trained on meaningful art making. When i was young I don't recall being taught how to be a meaningful art makers. My high school art program was designed from an ancient curriculum and she still teaches the exact same lessons... almost 10 years later. I feel like I need a class on making meaning with my art, more conceptual art (woo hoo summer studio)! I can't even begin to image how different my lesson would look and my students would also function differently.

Do you agree or disagree with her statement or stance? Provide evidence to support or illustrate your thinking through examples.
I agree and disagree. I agree that my students would hugely benefit from being more meaningful art makers. This would help with their creativity, willingness and openness to self expression, and self confidence as artists. I also feel that this would help them become better at art discussions. On the other hand (and this might simply be from inexperience) I'm not so sure that all curriculum needs to be meaningful. What about something taught for the simplicity of the technique or for just plain fun? This is one of those thoughts in which you most ponder on for a period of time, and I feel the more I learn, the more I will lean towards totally agreeing with Gude.

VALUE ONE

engaging mess over keeping things neat

This is the value that comes closet to aligning with my own personal art making. I love the photos from the spiral workshop of the students learning from the mess. I like to play with nature and watercolor this way. I think if I was to run my classroom in this manner, well I would drive my administrators nuts. But putting that aside, This engaging myself with mess and what comes of it, has made me a more curious artist. Implementing this technique in the classroom would do great things for some and, as usual, cause problematic struggles for others. Maybe these struggles would teach them to work through the hurdles in their own work. This would make them more adventurous learners and explorers of art.

VALUE TWO

Value: authentic artistic processes, over mimicking styles

• Does the project re-create the actual experience of the antecedent art?
• Am I asking students to participate in “feeling fraud?”
• Feeling Fraud: pretending to experience and represent
• Feeling Fraud: playacting meaning making for the sake of the teacher

This was not a hard choice, Gude's suggestions are not at all how I run my studio or my classroom. She is a newer resource to me, and even though I enjoy her thoughts and points, She is very opposite of the way I was taught and currently think. I often teach my students about a style or culture of art, then we create art guided by the ideas and similarities of that style/artist. What is super ridiculous is that most of my skills were taught to me in college by mimicking style, with the hopes of learning from that experience ~ I never questioned why I was asked to learn this way! Wow- powerful moment here knowing that I was taught this way by people I respected in college, therefore I taught my students in the same manner without ever asking why!!! I wonder if this does make my students feel fraud? I cannot agree or disagree with this statement because it never made me feel fraud, like I was doing it for my teacher. It taught me techniques and strategies to my art making that have made me a better artist. I do however feel that this idea of meaningful art making over mimicking a style would be beneficial in the ways that I pointed out at the top. I think that this is an area that is not pursued enough by teachers and students, or myself.