Department of
Art Education
George Roeder Master’s Symposium May 11–12, 2011 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 North State Street Search #artedsymp
Program Schedule Wednesday, May 11, 2011 9:00–9:30
Weclome & Introduction
9:30–10:45
Panel 1: Place-Based Approaches to Art Education Alexandra Franke (MAAE) Miguel Aguilar (MAT) Jasmine Kummer (MAT) Kevin Blake (MAAE) Michelle Green (MAAE)
Moderated Q&A by Lee May
10:45–11:00
Break
11:00–12:15
Panel 2: Learning Through Experience and Story-Telling Jeannette Villapiano (MAT) Blythe Lancaster (MAT) Rebecca Lederman (MAAE) Jennie Morris (MAT) Hansa George (MAT)
Moderated Q&A by Rachel Harper
12:15–1:15
Lunch
1:15–2:45
Panel 3: Culture, Identity, Hybridity Cheryl-Ann Fakes (MAAE) Joel Javier (MAAE) Irene Byun (MAT) Miles Vance (MAT) Laura Muñoz (MAAE) Kent Dyer (MAT)
Moderated Q&A by Jean Fitzgerald
2:45–3:00
Break
3:00–3:45
Closing Remarks
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Program Schedule Thursday, May 12, 2011 9:00–9:15
Weclome
9:15–10:15
Panel 4: Art Education 2.0 Roxanna Eastman Conway (MAT) Anne E. Erickson (MAAE) Courtney Franko (MAAE) Lee May (MAAE)
Moderated Q&A by Michelle Green
10:15–10:30
Break
10:30–11:45
Panel 5: Emergent Curriculum Rachel Harper (MAAE) Jean Fitzgerald (MAT) Liz Yohlin (MAAE) Joanne Easton (MAAE) Brittanie Wine (MAT)
Moderated Q&A by Jeannette Villapiano
11:45–12:00
Closing Remarks
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Department of Art Education
THESIS ABSTRACTS 2010–2011
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Table of Contents Program Schedule
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Panel 1: Place-Based Approaches to Art Education Alexandra Franke (MAAE) Miguel Aguilar (MAT) Jasmine Kummer (MAT) Kevin Blake (MAAE) Michelle Green (MAAE)
7 8 9 10 11 12
Panel 2: Learning Through Experience and Story-Telling Jeannette Villapiano (MAT) Blythe Lancaster (MAT) Rebecca Lederman (MAAE) Jennie Morris (MAT) Hansa George (MAT)
14 15 16 17 18 19
Panel 3: Culture, Identity, Hybridity Cheryl-Ann Fakes (MAAE) Joel Javier (MAAE) Irene Byun (MAT) Miles Vance (MAT) Laura Mu単oz (MAAE) Kent Dyer (MAT)
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Panel 4: Art Education 2.0 Roxanna Eastman Conway (MAT) Anne E. Erickson (MAAE) Courtney Franko (MAAE) Lee May (MAAE)
29 30 31 32 33
Panel 5: Emergent Curriculum Rachel Harper (MAAE) Jean Fitzgerald (MAT) Liz Yohlin (MAAE) Joanne Easton (MAAE) Brittanie Wine (MAT)
35 36 37 38 39 40
Thank You
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Panel 1 Place-Based Approaches to Art Education
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Alexandra B. Franke | Master of Arts in Art Education Understanding Place Through Embodied Knowledge: A Teaching Practice for Art Education Knowledge is constructed through our bodies, which exist within, and are affected by, place. Place permeates everything we know and is, in turn, redefined by everything we do. The ongoing globalization of our culture and economy has turned attention increasingly outward, and has de-valued the local community. Art educators can help students re-engage with their local environment by employing a place-based pedagogy that connects knowledge construction to the physical realities of students’ lives. Particularly as students in the United States experience the homogenizing effects of a national curriculum, the arts provide rare opportunities for students to consider the unique characteristics of their own experience and their own place. To help students engage physically and meaningfully in artmaking, this study suggests a teaching practice framed through place-based education that utilizes ideas of embodied knowledge. Embodied knowledge is the information that is gathered physically, through the body, from one’s surrounding environment. Through a review of relevant literature and a nineweek case study, this research sought answers to the following questions: How is a student’s understanding of place influenced through embodied knowledge? How is an art teaching practice affected by teaching and observing embodied experiences of place? How can ideas of place and embodied knowledge benefit pedagogies of art education? By conducting action research through a qualitative case study, I helped design and teach a mapping curriculum with a fifth grade science class at an urban independent school. This curriculum focused on mapping through embodied experience and included activities such as mapping the classroom and the school courtyard, and orienteering both on school grounds and at an off-campus site. The phenomenological data gathered throughout this study showed that students were able to engage with ideas of place through mapping activities, particularly as these activities allowed for the construction of embodied knowledge of distance, space and terrain. This action research changed my art teaching practice to include a deeper consideration of epistemological experience as art. Suggestions offered by this study include further work with the fifth grade science curriculum to frame place not only as a source of data for maps, but as a central component of knowledge construction. Lastly, this study suggests great potential for pedagogies of art education that support a relevant, student-centered curriculum through embodied experiences of place.
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Miguel Aguilar | Master of Arts in Teaching Constructing a Critical Curriculum of Graffiti: Implications for Art Educators Graffiti is a highly contested form of cultural production. On the one hand, graffiti is used in advertisements and product design/packaging geared towards an urban youth consumer base. On the other hand, graffiti contravenes public school policy and is also in many cases punishable by law. Moreover, graffiti blurs the lines between contemporary art and ‘street’ culture. These are examples of the contradictory messages today’s youth are receiving about graffiti. Youth, especially those from marginalized communities, are taking very big risks, like incarceration or bodily harm, in order to creatively express themselves through a graffiti practice. Through my action research project, I created a safe space in public education for students to explore the multiple meanings of graffiti without facing high stakes consequences. My thesis questions are: What occurs when high school students, faculty and administrators are invited to consider graffiti as a critical art form? What happens when teens are invited to use the visual language of graffiti to construct new versions of identity? How can graffiti be a vehicle for marginalized youth to gain agency in the world? I conducted my action research in a low-income, public high school on the south side of Chicago, where the student population is 70% Hispanic and 30% African-American. For nine weeks, we investigated students’ initial perceptions about graffiti as a practice. We developed an understanding of the parameters of graffiti aesthetics that we would work within. And, we produced several large drawing projects that incorporated graffiti lettering as a central element. At the end of the project, students painted the school’s first large scale mural on a wall next to the art classroom, based on one student’s mural design chosen by his peers. Sources of data for my research included: pre and post assessments of student perceptions, class discussions, observations and informal conversations with students about the school personnel’s perceptions of the mural project. Through my thesis research, I learned about students’ varying perceptions of graffiti. I realized that the students I worked with have never experienced teachers valuing their personal opinions or inquiring about their personal interests. The students and I uncovered many challenges from faculty and administrators/authority, for example the subjective nuances of how to identify gang symbols in student artwork. My recommendations for any art teacher who would like to implement a critical curriculum of graffiti are: let the students guide the inquiry, learn about local graffiti practices and students’ perceptions, use this research and the students’ interests as the basis for constructing a critical curriculum, and become aware of, and try to suspend, personal and moral judgments about graffiti.
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Jasmine Kummer | Master of Arts in Teaching Creatively Re-Purposing Waste Materials in the Art Classroom: Reaching Eco-Consciousness Through Eco-Art Eco-sustainability, the ability of a society to sustain itself environmentally, can be achieved through a willingness to show concern for the environment through stewardship and consciousness. Eco-consciousness and environmental stewardship within school curricula often involve teaching scientific facts linked to extreme issues such as global warming. Contrary to global warming facts, a common school activity intended to encourage ecostewardship is often as simple as picking up litter. Environmental education lessons should provide students with an opportunity to connect to their desire to be eco-conscious. Moreover, urban public schools often focus on immediate issues such as academic performance or the threat of violence, rather than emphasizing environmental education. Eco-justice—environmental sustainability achieved through resource conservation—is critical and all students are deserving of it. Art curricula can facilitate environmental stewardship through creative re-use projects that give students an opportunity to relate personal lived experiences to potential environmental consciousness, while critically questioning and partaking in sustainable art making. My thesis employs action research to investigate the following questions: How can bringing eco-consciousness and the use of re-purposed materials into the art curriculum encourage environmental stewardship among students? Could this curriculum encourage students to think critically about material waste and consider eco-sustainability? What affect does using re-purposed materials have on students’ future art making and attitudes toward art? My research took place over seven weeks at a high school with a predominately Latino and African American population on Chicago’s North-West Side. In an effort to encourage eco-sustainability, I created a curriculum that invited students to learn about eco-artists who make art using sustainable materials and partake in a sustainable art making practice by creatively re-purposing waste materials. Students created self-portraiture, paper collage and sculptural installations out of stock piled plastic bags, Styrofoam and paper products. My data includes my field notes, student art, written reflections and questionnaires. The urgency of eco-justice became approachable and palatable for students through the novelty and use of unconventional materials. Students’ engagement with the materials helped them to relate to curriculum content and become more aware of eco-sustainability by questioning their own consumption. I recommend that art educators embrace eco-consciousness by presenting art projects that invite creative re-use in an effort to encourage criticality, reflection and sustainability.
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Kevin Blake | Master of Arts in Art Education My Place in Space: An Autoethnography
This study examines, through arts-based research methods, the ways in which perceptions of power, geography, place and home are constituted through everyday actions and interactions with others. I used auto-ethnography to explore my own experience of these themes and to inform the production of both spoken word poetry, and a series of paintings that offer new possibilities for seeing and understanding how identity is linked with culture and society. I began my thesis using personal narrative as a qualitative research methodology for the foundation of an ethnographic study on American roadside culture. I wanted to tell the story of a culture that, I would later find out, only existed as a romanticized creation of my own. The further I distanced myself from home, the more I thought about home. The more I heard people talk about their place their histories and their people, the more I realized how much I did not know about my own home. The overarching themes of the power of geography, place and home intensified and allowed me to take a step back in order to look at my own situation. I grew up on the south side of Chicago and recently moved to a neighborhood on the north side of town. Until this moment, I had been more conscious and critical of others’ social contexts than my own. To ignore the magnetism of home and the transformative power of living in a new place was to deny the intuitive senses and oppose the learning process. The idea that place could bring to light my identity, my history, my biases and my social contexts transformed my project and reconnected the ideas of arts-based research and pedagogy through an auto-ethnographic approach. A research-led pedagogy, as opposed to a research results informed pedagogy, made more sense to me as a teacher and a student. The project itself is a pedagogical model as well as a qualitative learning experience. The qualitative data can be experienced through my writing as well as my visual responses to place. I felt that if I were to develop a critical perspective on place, space and personal geographies, it was crucial to explore my own biases, my history, and my reactions to place. The resulting project is as much about the experiences, new knowledge and possibilities I have gained through the work as it is about the dialogue that may ensue.
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Michelle Green | Master of Arts in Art Education Education, Empower, Engage: Social Justice and Community Building in Teen Arts Programs Extra-scholastic art programs, by engaging teens in explorations of community and society, can serve as unique and powerful catalysts for change. I began my thesis research by asking: What arts-based strategies are employed by nonprofit youth arts programs to promote social justice and community building? To support and supplement this research, I developed the following sub-questions: How are the programs’ intended outcomes, and their ultimate impact, defined, measured and evaluated? How are these strategies shared among similar programs to improve their overall efficacy and social value? What responsibilities do these organizations have to their youth participants? I spent a four-month period interviewing organizers and program planners from a variety of youth arts organizations around the country, all of which at least alluded to—in their mission statements or through particular arts projects—aims of social justice and community building. In documenting exclusively adult and organizational perspectives, I must acknowledge the total deficit of youth involvement in my project and strive to incorporate that aspect into my work at a later date. I collected and processed a wide range of data through a phenomenological research approach that involved literature, mission statement and project analysis, blogging, and video, audio, and Skype interviews. The interviews were 30-60 minutes long, and each moved from broad questions to specific exploration of topics particular to each organization. My blog served as a distillery of information and it reflects the developments in my fieldwork and in my understanding of the data, process, and implications of my research. Every aspect of my research revealed new insights into the variety of approaches that are used by arts programs to empower and engage youth in social justice and community building. Any creative form can foster transformative experiences as long as it is supported by clarity of mission, critical multicultural organizational perspectives, and radical hopefulness. Additionally, critical reflection at the organizational level is not a given, but I would advocate for its implementation at every juncture. I believe that organizational structures, projects and assessment models built on a foundation of critical pedagogy—rooted as it is in questioning, power relationships, and compassion—directly result in the most meaningful and transformative experiences for youth participants. The consistent modeling of such praxis is vital to educating, empowering, and engaging youth in a socially conscious way.
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Discussion | Moderated by Lee May Notes:
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Panel 2 Learning Through Experience and Story-Telling
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Jeannette E. Villapiano | Master of Arts in Teaching Learning through Movement: Toward a Process Based, Holistic Art Education This action research study investigates the possibility of a holistic art education for students with disabilities and calls into question traditional teaching methods such as the instruction of facts and standardized tests. I define a holistic education as teaching by directly engaging students’ minds, bodies and spirits through curriculum. This approach to education supports student-centered learning by recognizing each student as an active participant in the learning process. Focusing on the interests, needs and capabilities of students rather than their deficits or the final outcome of their learning, this study offers alternative ways to understand and evaluate the meaning of students’ learning experiences. Specifically, I explore how the use of movement in a holistic art curriculum helps build students’ self-awareness, individual growth and relationships. I entered this research study with the following questions in mind: What occurs when a holistic approach to art education is used to foster a learning environment based in self-inquiry? How does a holistic art education invite students with disabilities to engage with and use their bodies in the process of learning? In what ways can the mind, body and spirit be used as a resource, a tool, and a language in a student-centered art curriculum? The study was conducted at a specialized urban high school for students with cognitive disabilities. I conducted my research in three separate introductory art classes over a seven week time period. The students were between the ages of 1520 and classified as special needs. Combining process-based art with performance, my study emphasizes positive thinking, bodily expression and self-reflection as the basis of helping students to develop critical citizenship. The data for my study included photography, visual journals, conversations with students, and observation. My data suggests that daily use of bodily-kinesthetic and mindful exercises promote a more trusting, engaging and collaborative learning experience. By reflecting on actual life experiences and embodying the art making process, the students discovered new ways to produce knowledge through ‘learning by doing’. Even within the short time frame of this study, I could see that inquiry based learning in the classroom was enhanced through discourse, active involvement and collaboration. I recommend that the field of art education use holistic methods as an antidote to the traditional, standardized curriculum. Curriculum that solely focuses on students’ deficits and the outcome of their learning often overlooks the growth that occurs within the process of learning. Programs that emphasize process-based learning allow students and educators to discover valuable aspects of their identities. I invite educators to explore the possibilities of art education and learning through reflection, movement and relationships.
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Blythe Lancaster | Master of Arts in Teaching Designed for Empathy: Exploring the Potential to Foster Empathy in Adolescents Through SelfReflection and Perspective Sharing in a High School Graphic Arts Classroom Learning and identity formation occur through our relationships with other people. For adolescents, meaningful and identity-forming life experiences occur both in and outside of school. The learning that occurs through life experiences fundamentally shapes a student’s sense of self, their perspective on life, and their capacity to exist in the world by forming constructive relationships with others. A standardized curriculum often neglects to address crucial issues in adolescent development, for example, the building of personal values, the fostering of empathy for others, and the ability to sustain meaningful interpersonal relationships. Art education has the unique potential to support the social, emotional and psychological growth of adolescents by offering them the opportunity to define their personal values and reflect on their perspectives on the world in relation to the perspectives of others in a classroom community. In my action research project, I investigate the following questions: In what ways can the process of art making and art viewing become a context for adolescents to realize and give shape to personal values? How might a vocational graphic design class become a context for adolescents to consider perspectives and experiences that differ from their own? And, what occurs when students are asked to make and critique artwork with a partner or collaboratively in a group? My research site was an urban public high school in a predominantly lower income neighborhood, principally Hispanic, Polish, and AfricanAmerican. Students were engaged in two art projects: a self-portrait based in reflection on personal values and their personal outlook on life, and a calendar based on connecting shared experiences and collaborative work. The artists discussed in relation to each project were to Kehinde Wiley and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. I collected data in the form of student self-assessments, artwork, reflective writing, and field notes. Students made significant observations about themselves and took pleasure in having the opportunity to make art about their lives and perspectives on the world. They were also able to relate to each other in new ways by telling stories and realizing they shared similar life experiences and memories. The nature of working collaboratively also allowed me to share in, and learn from, the experiences and stories of the students.
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Rebecca Lederman | Master of Arts in Art Education ARTiculations: A Look at Elementary School Childrens’ Engagement and Expressions Through an Arts Integration Program Throughout my life I have expressed myself better through visual art than through words. As a child I could draw my feelings in a way that I could not articulate verbally until I was much older. Being able to express and identify thoughts and feelings is important and can be a focus of art education both inside and outside of schools. For my thesis I focused on the experience of student participation in an arts integration-focused art program run by the nonprofit organization, Art Exploration. I worked with Art Exploration teaching artists and third and fourth grade students at a Near North Chicago elementary school for eight sessions in the fall of 2010. Together, we examined contemporary art and art concepts visually, verbally, kinesthetically and linguistically. The program culminated in a visit to a local art museum where we looked at and discussed modern and contemporary artwork. My research explored the following questions: How will students respond to an eight-week arts integration program artistically, linguistically and verbally? Which aspects of the program will successfully engage the students? How will students express their interests? My data included students’ artwork and writing samples, transcripts of class discussions and field notes, field trips, and dialogues with students. I also drew on interviews the students conducted with artists about their artwork. The main themes that have emerged through my study include authentic artistic experiences in schools, real-life artist processes, and students’ feelings about their art and experiences in the program. The students I worked with described strong interests in and emotions about how art is created and by whom, and their own roles as art-makers. My research offers insight into the role artistic process and student feelings can play in engaging students. My thesis supports the critical role of the arts in schools as a pathway to supporting student interest in learning and life beyond school.
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Jennie Lyn Wren Morris | Master of Arts in Teaching Connecting through Stories: A Personal History of Learning to Teach The stories we tell about our experiences in the world can have a profound effect on shaping the directions we take in our lives. My research asked: What occurs when high school students reflect on and write personal stories about life-changing events? How do high school students illustrate their life-changing events in comic book format? As part of this research, I investigated my own history of learning and the transformative events that lead me to teach. This interest in the teacher’s autobiography led me to ask, how can we, as teachers, position ourselves as researchers and co-authors of students’ experience of learning? I define co-authoring as the idea that the teacher’s life story is just as impacted by her experiences with students as students are impacted by their relationships with the teacher. My research took place over seven weeks in a public high school on Chicago’s west side. The majority demographic of this school was African American, followed by a small Hispanic percentage. As I approached my exemplar, I was unsure of how any story I would share with these students would be relevant to their lives. I wondered how I could connect with these students through images and storytelling. Relationships are a place of common ground, so I told my story about a significant break-up. I found that sharing this story resulted in a foundation of building trust. The data I collected for my research consisted of ideas, notes, drawings and documentation. I discovered through this research that the students did not share my interest in drawing; however, the project was not limited to comics. I invited the students to define the theme of their story and create a symbolic self-portrait sculpture that expressed this theme. The students were more engaged with the hands-on portion. The bigger challenge I faced was trying to connect with these students in seven weeks. It was a struggle for me to implement the concept of co-authoring; nonetheless, I found that that the writing portion of this project allowed me to read the students’ stories, reflect on them, and give written feedback. As a result of this co-authoring process, I was able to connect with the students. I hope that my research will help inspire other art educators to reflect on their own personal histories of learning in order to understand the experiences that lead them to teach.
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Hansa George | Master of Arts in Teaching Let it Out: Stories of Experience and Narrative Methods in Art Education I have always found inspiration through my life experiences and through the stories of people around me. My goal for my action research project was to use storytelling to bring students’ experiences in the world into their art making. The research questions I investigated are: How do students tell stories about their lives through art? What occurs when students engage in critical analysis of social and contemporary issues though art? How can an art education curriculum grounded in student experience provide a context for teachers to create a personally and culturally relevant art curriculum? My action research took place at a Chicago Public School focused on special education. This school serves high school students with cognitive disabilities as well as students with physical disabilities. My data consisted of students’ responses and reflections through daily journals, classroom discussions, homework, student assessments, student artwork, and daily conversations with students inside and outside of the art room. My curriculum invited students to focus on and explore transformative life experiences, and to express the meanings of those experiences through art making. Students used multi-media, and traditional and non-traditional art materials, to tell stories about their lives. They examined physical and mental limitations and barriers they deal with daily, looked at the term “freedom” critically, and portrayed creative ways of dealing with day-to-day frustrations and resolving conflicts. For example, students created a project about silent narratives of everyday frustrations using stop motion animation. This project helped students to create graphic representations of frustrating experiences and to examine their emotional responses to external limits. Artists such as Banksy, Soledad Arias, Michael Shaw and Susan Benarcik inspired my classroom projects. Through this project, students questioned the limitations they encounter in their daily lives and reflected on how they could play an active role in challenging these limits in the future. I learned that an art education curriculum grounded in student experience can provide students with a safe place to work through daily situations and can also give students opportunities for bringing personal meaning to their artwork. I hope that my research will help other art educators understand how a curriculum grounded in personal experiences and stories can give students the tools to express their fears, dreams, frustrations and conflicts, and a place to work them out and find creative solutions.
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Discussion | Moderated by Rachel Harper Notes:
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Panel 3 Culture, Identity, Hybridity
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Cheri Fakes | Master of Arts in Art Education Addressing Historical Amnesia Through Artistic Practice: Visualizing an Historical Analysis of the Intersection of Japanese and French Impressionist Art Through the Creation of a Japanese Folding Screen Throughout history, the visual arts have been an area of significant cross-pollination and cultural exchange. The historical tracking of artistic exchanges can be a complicated task and so, important examples are often overlooked, overly simplified or never recorded. One specific instance of historical amnesia that I investigate in my thesis is the influence of Japanese art on French Impressionism. When I was very young, I noticed some similarities between the Japanese art and the French Impressionist art that I loved, but my understanding was nebulous. After I completed my undergraduate degree, I put together disparate pieces of information that demonstrated the influence of Japanese art on the French Impressionists. It frustrated me that it took so much time and effort to discover such a crucial cultural juncture; there was a distressing lack of easily accessible information about the influence of Japanese art in the texts I read. The texts that did interpret some of this history used the label of “Japonisme” to oversimplify the relationship between Japanese art and the creation of French Impressionism. In my thesis, I conducted an analysis of the arts of Japan and France during the 1800s to ascertain the impact Japanese art may have had on the French Impressionists. I discovered that some of the first French Impressionist artists, including Monet, Manet and Degas, were deeply affected by Japanese art. In many of their works, some of the most well-known Impressionists employed a Japanese organizational logic called “folding fan composition,” which was invented in the 1600s and used by Japanese fan and folding screen painter Sotatsu Tawaraya, becoming ubiquitous in Japanese art thereafter. For my thesis, I created an educational, interpretive object to teach the public about the arts of Japan and France during the 1800s. I created a full-size, Japanese folding screen that presents my written thesis in pictorial form. I traveled to Japan to study folding screens (especially works by Sotatsu Tawaraya), their historical significance in relating information, and their physical construction. This thesis project reframes the impact of Japanese art on the French Impressionists and illustrates how Japanese art was vital in changing compositional methods in Western art from the 1800s forward. It is my hope that readers and viewers of my work can more critically understand the powerful influence of Japanese art and use my findings to create a more comprehensive art historical curriculum.
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Joel Javier | Master of Arts in Art Education Tagalog(ue): Investigating Filipino American Ethnic Identity Through Multi-Disciplinary Action Research Multicultural education and ethnic identity are highly debated in many communities, from public schools to art galleries, and from universities to museums. As American culture prides itself on ethnic diversity, ethnic identity formation in academic and public spaces is difficult for some marginalized groups with limited resources and nominal organizational access. In my research, I venture to answer the following questions: By what means can an artist/researcher/teacher (re)address critical multicultural discourse in a diverse public forum? What is revealed when an artist/researcher/teacher investigates his own ethnic identity as a Filipino American through examining Filipino American cultural programs, organizations and artists? Are Filipino American artists a viable resource for (re)introducing Filipino American identity? In the summer and fall of 2010, I began qualitative action research and participatory observation of multidisciplinary teaching approaches including Filipino American arts, psychology and history. I observed a Filipino cultural program for Filipino American children ages 6-17 at the Philippine Consulate General Chicago, was a curatorial assistant with the Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago, and participated in a symposium and lecture by Kevin Nadal Ph.D., author of Filipino American Psycholog y. While gathering data through a series of interviews, field notes and reflexive writing, I developed a working relationship with Filipino American artists living and working in Chicago. In April 2011, my research culminated in an art exhibition entitled, Tagalog(ue): A Visual Dialogue with Filipino American Artists, which I curated at North Branch Projects. NBP is a community book bindery and artist space in Albany Park, a neighborhood in Chicago representing over 70 different ethnicities. The exhibition served as a public platform for the artists to collaborate in a visual dialogue about their unique Filipino American experiences. Through this process I discovered that there are multiple ways of exploring my ethnic identity through numerous multidisciplinary approaches, and that art educators have the ability to build bridges across generations within the context of culture and community. I recommend a continued effort among all artist/researcher/teachers to examine their ethnic identities closely as an opportunity to continue the intercultural dialogue and, in turn, push back against assimilation. I call for the artist/researcher/teacher to envision alternative venues as a means to diversify public access to art as a resource for supporting distinct ethnic communities, in order to spearhead critical multicultural discourse within public forums as curators have done within art galleries, museums and institutions.
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Irene Byun | Master of Arts in Teaching Discovering Identity and Agency through Art Among Youth of Multicultural Influences: Approaching Multicultural Art Education through Hybridity Educators have grappled with the idea of what is a truly multicultural curriculum. In the past, the multicultural curriculum has often been reduced to the stereotyping of cultures, merely recognizing the “food and festivals” of a culture and not addressing complexities that are accessible right in the classroom. Culture, ethnicity and race are major influences of students’ daily lives—often determining major life decisions, alliances, and social decisions— and yet studying culture in the classroom often becomes too simplistic. The art classroom is an ideal setting for students to explore the complexities of cultural identity by looking critically at, and creating artwork inspired by, artists who express their cultures as anything but simplistic. These artists specifically address what they call ‘hybridity’ in their artwork, which describes the fluid and dynamic nature of their cultural identities. I explored the following questions through action research: What happens when youth critically analyze artists who communicate hybrid cultural identities in their artwork and are, in turn, encouraged to explore their own hybrid cultural identities through selfportrait collages on fabric? How can student responses and projects inform and contribute to the field of multicultural art education? What elements are needed in an art curriculum to make the study of culture meaningful and effective? My research site was a public high school located in the city of Chicago. The student body is very diverse and relatively evenly distributed in terms of race and socioeconomic backgrounds. Students looked at artists Kip Fulbeck, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, and Kimiko Yoshida as models of hybrid cultural identities and inspiration for their own self-portrait collages. My data includes videos of student presentations, students’ artwork and written assignments, and my own reflections. Through my research and experience, I was able to observe how students express their multi-faceted identities, sometimes in ways that are closely tied to their ethnic identities and other times in ways that are distanced from ethnicity and focused on other aspects of their self-concepts as a whole. Many students took advantage of the opportunity to express themselves and enjoyed the process of creating a self-portrait that displayed their uniqueness. Though not a perfect process, I found that challenging students to think about their hybridity was a valuable experience because it is a critical step in students’ process of understanding both themselves and people of other backgrounds as complex beings.
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Miles Vance | Master of Arts in Teaching Contemporary Native American Art in the High School Art Classroom: Teaching Students about Identity Building through Appropriation, Recontextualization, Representation and Humor This thesis focuses on the critical aesthetic strategies that contemporary Native American artists are using to express their identities. My research was limited to two high school sculpture classes and two clay projects. I was interested in how the students interacted with the aesthetic strategies of humor, representation, appropriation and recontextualization through the clay making process. My research questions are: What occurs when high school students engage with the critical aesthetic strategies being used by contemporary Native artists? How do students identify or not identify with how Native Americans are using humor, representation, appropriation and recontextualization? What kinds of representations and narratives will the students produce? I did my action research at a college preparatory high school in Chicago, Illinois. Sixty-three students participated in my study. The participants were students in two afternoon sculpture classes. The students’ grade levels ranged from sophomores to seniors. All of the students had to take an Art 1 course prior to taking this sculpture class. I used think sheets, video recording and small group discussions that included students’ written responses. I collected all of this data as the students progressed through the two projects. The students turned in a written reflection asking them what they learned and what they would have changed about the projects. I asked them to describe the process of how they appropriated an image and what they did to recontextualize the image to represent their identity. We ended the action research with the students having a critique of the work. My curriculum highlighted strategies students can use to explore their own identities. I showed the students the work of contemporary Native American artists such as Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds, Charlene Teters, Diego Romero and Nora Naranjo-Morse. I reviewed with the students how these artists are using humor, representation, appropriation and recontextualization to deal with the grievances of Euro-American colonization. I recommend that educators and art teachers’ efforts to teach about Native American stereotypes begin with thinking about how we can help students learn how to recognize and critique the myths and stereotypes about Native Americans in art and popular culture. When teachers use stereotypes as the basis for curriculum, we risk reproducing these stereotypes. How do we teach students to critically analyze stereotypes through art making? My research suggests that focusing on the critical, aesthetic strategies of Native American artists can help students learn to use these critical strategies to build their own transformative identities.
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Laura Muùoz | Master of Arts in Art Education Undressing Culture: An Exploration of Cultural Identity through Fashion Design Youth in American culture constantly have to rise above labels and stereotypes. When I was an adolescent I was confronted with labels assigned to me based on what I wore and looked like. I dealt with the challenges of understanding my own cultural identity by using art and fashion to develop a stronger sense of who I was. Through the arts I found an environment that was accepting and supportive of how I represented my individuality through dress, dance, and performance. Learning about fashion helped me to understand my culture and identity. In my action research project, I observed how fashion is being approached as a teaching tool and the numerous methods that artists, teachers, and students use to explore cultural identity through fashion. I explored the following questions: In what ways does fashion design work in an art education context? Are instructors teaching artistic aspects of fashion, as well as technical skills? Do instructors implement themes of identity and culture into discussions and lessons revolving around fashion design? Do these classes inspire students to continue exploring outlets of fashion? Most importantly, are students informed about their own cultural identity? I approached this thesis through interviewing, observing and researching students, instructors, and artists that have affiliations with fashion design oriented work or classes. The majority of my fieldwork took place at the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance (PRAA) where preservation of Puerto Rican culture and education about cultural history is embedded in all aspects of programming. The PRAA conducts classes in sewing and design three times a week. The students learn the basic skills of sewing, design and garment construction. The ultimate goal of this program is to have students create a vejigante costume. A vejigante is a costume traditionally worn at Puerto Rican celebrations. The students at PRAA are being exposed to their culture through history, symbols and garments. Most importantly, they are becoming part of the community through art projects that help them express their identity and connect to the greater community that they belong to and identify with. The classes at PRAA demonstrate that fashion design is a very engaging and dynamic way to teach and learn about the history of one’s culture. PRAA also provides ample room for students to explore their personal identities, and the symbols and objects they can use to create a unique form of cultural representation.
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Kent Dyer | Master of Arts in Teaching Exploring Identity with Pre-teens and Teenagers through Self-Portraits Everyone goes through stages of development in which they explore, question and form the structures of their identity. For pre-teens and teenagers, creating, accepting and understanding identity is a complicated experience that is shaped by social constructions of what is ‘normal’. In addition to the pressure of outside expectations, adolescence is a period of enormous psychological and emotional upheaval; thus, it can be difficult for adolescents to craft their own personal understandings of identity. The goal of my action research project was to see how students would use art making and literacy to explore and construct their identities through self-portraits. I wanted to understand how students would visually represent the tensions between how they see themselves and how they are perceived by others. I hoped that this form of artistic inquiry would transform students’ thinking about identity. I investigated the following questions: What occurs when students combine art making with expressive writing to explore their own process of identity formation in self-portraits? What does it look like when students explore the relationship between their self-perceived identity and labeled identity? How can students use their self-portraits to call stereotypes into question and create an identity they are able to accept? I invited students from high school and middle school to create selfportraits. My first research site was a public high school in a predominately African American, south side neighborhood of Chicago. My second site was a public elementary school in a predominately white, northern suburb of Chicago. In the high school setting we developed digital narrative self-portraits. Students represented their identities in a stylized form through the use of colors. In the middle school setting, students looked at the way they see themselves and the way others see them, then juxtaposed these ideas against common stereotypes faced by middle school students. Through my thesis research, I learned about students’ perceptions of how they view themselves and how they feel others perceive them. I also learned about the complexity of discussing concepts of identity in the classroom. I realized that many of the students I worked with had never been asked to reflect on how stereotypes affect them or create in depth self-portraits that went beyond physical representation in order to express a more complex understanding of identity. Through this project, I discovered the importance of discussing difficult concepts of identity with students and how art can become a medium for such exploration.
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Discussion | Moderated by Jean Fitzgerald Notes:
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Panel 4 Art Education 2.0
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Roxanna Eastman-Conway | Master of Arts in Teaching Reading the World: An Exploration of the Relationship Between Literacy and Popular Culture All students naturally encounter learning opportunities outside of the school curriculum. One such non-academic area that looms especially large is the realm of popular culture. Popular culture creates a space for youth to better understand their world and how they fit into that world. Harnessing the power of popular culture in the classroom opens up possibilities for new identities and ideals to formulate. Popular culture offers a relevant channel of information for students to create complex relationships between themselves and the media they encounter. In my thesis, I explore how using pop culture as a text to engage students in literacy has the ability to empower and contextualize students’ voices. As popular culture continues to evolve, so must discussions about popular culture in the classroom. In my student-centered action research project, I investigated the following questions: What occurs when popular culture becomes the focus within the art classroom? How can critical inquiry into popular culture help students understand how they read the world and how that reading informs their conception of self? What doors open when students are invited to construct a complex relationship between themselves and others through pop culture? How can art projects focused on a student’s relationship with pop culture inform that student about his or her role in modern social networks? To gain insight into these questions, I invited high school students to complete several projects to help them discern how they are immersed in a dialogue with pop culture. I worked with Art 1 and beginning computer graphics students in an urban Chicago public high school for seven weeks on a storytelling collage series, a blind collaborative social network sculpture, and an alter ego self-portrait. My qualitative research centered on students, using the conversation of their interests in pop culture to help determine my approach as the projects moved forward. My research provides a case study of how the dynamism of teaching must always be fluid and that one should always remain open to possibilities that students introduce into the curriculum. My students and I discovered how our connections to a wider popular culture are a vital part of the construction of self and one’s role in society. I recommend to educators who wish to explore how pop culture can be used in the art classroom to keep their methods adaptable and student-centered. This approach allows students to build from their prior-knowledge and experiences outside the classroom.
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Anne Erickson | Master of Arts in Art Education Silver Surfers: Older People and Online Social Networking My study is located at the intersection of two significant global phenomena: an increasing demographic of senior citizens; and, the ubiquitous presence of online social networking. As more of our culture becomes constructed digitally it becomes more urgent that equal access be addressed through education, especially for seniors, many of whom experience discomfort, hesitance, and even fear when interacting online. Seniors are on the verge of becoming perhaps the most influential demographic worldwide, and despite their potential reservations, are flocking to online social networking with astonishing speed. At the same time, online social networking applications, such as Facebook or Twitter, are growing exponentially in size, and developing as meaningful sites for participation in culture and society. I employ an intentionally broad definition of what constitutes an older person: study participants were all over the age of 50 and already members of the Facebook community. Because the online focus group used Facebook as its’ location, members of this group were allegedly located across the country and represented several different generations. The youngest participants were 50, and the oldest were between the ages of 70 and 80. This study seeks to understand how older people facilitate their transition from primarily non-digital to compound digital and non-digital social lives, either to make new friends, or stay in contact with existing social networks. I explore the social and communicative benefits older people perceive from using Facebook, the purpose they feel Facebook may serve in their lives, the social and technological barriers that may prevent access, any hesitancy they experience in using Facebook, and how they might overcome that. Data collection methods included an online focus group (located on Facebook) and an online survey (located off Facebook, to ensure anonymity). Most of my study population were comfortable using Facebook. The older, less ‘computer savvy’ group reported loving using Facebook and the Internet, but often expressed wishes for more direction or better resources for help. These are the same people who have less familiarity and comfort with many Internet/computer technologies. I advocate for new educational materials for older users to better link the physical and virtual worlds, i.e. pamphlets featuring screenshots of typical interactions that take place on Facebook. These materials could be used to provide valuable tech-support and encourage individuals to learn on their own.
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Courtney Franko | Master of Arts in Art Education Museums and the Digital Kid: Children and Museums in the Age of Technology Children today are doing homework on computers, communicating though online social networks and playing video games. What happens when the Digital Kid goes to a museum? A Digital Kid is a child who spends time interacting with technology and for whom digital technology is a normal part of their environment. My thesis is focused on answering questions about what occurs when children, technology and museum education are combined. Technology has changed the way children, learn, imagine, interact and play. How do these technology-driven changes affect the way children encounter the museum? How are museums using new technologies to help children explore, create and discover? In what way does technology impact collections, exhibitions or other activities in the museum? While museums are a place of knowledge and exploration, how do they keep up with children’s interest in learning through digital media? In my research I explore how museums are using technology to create exhibits that appeal to the Digital Kid. I researched three main topics in my literature review: how children learn and play with technology; how children interact with museums; and, how technology is incorporated inside museums. Beginning with questions based on the MUSE awards from The American Association of Museums and the work of Guy Herman, I interviewed three people at three Midwestern museums: The Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago, The Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul, and The City Museum in St. Louis. The three museums are very different: one is a showcase for technology; one seamlessly integrates technology with digital storytelling; and, one has no computer technology whatsoever. Using the interview data I gathered, I compiled a website for educators, museum visitors, families and museum directors. The purpose of the website is to enable users to have access to my research on how the Digital Kid interacts with museums. This study examines, through research, interviews and visits to three Midwestern museums, how museums, children, and technology can coexist within a single building. I surveyed the different attitudes toward digital technology taken by the different museums, and analyzed their implications and efficacy. My results indicate that the Digital Kid relates better to immersive technology than to an exhibition that showcases technology. Children learn from hands on experience because of their inclination to explore and discover by trying things out. In my thesis, I discuss the ways museums can use technology to reach the Digital Kid.
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Lee May | Master of Arts in Art Education Exploration of Design and Digital Media in Higher Education: A Journey in Comics Art and design instruction in higher education has been greatly impacted by rapid innovation in digital technologies. Given this circumstance, I was curious as to what extent digital technologies and media have influenced pedagogical strategies as well as student learning. Design learning has been a meticulous and standard practice; however, design practice has significantly changed due to the heavy usage of mobile devices and laptops. While college educators try to incorporate these devices into the classroom and curriculum, I wonder what will happen to these basic design standards. While I was fortunate to learn design basics before laptops were made as a requirement in art and design schools, college educators and professionals are concerned about the rapid integration of digital media. Although there are plenty of investigations about digital media in K-12 education, I became interested in how digital media is evolving in the higher education system. My thesis research lead me to investigate the following questions: In what ways do emerging digital media technologies impact teaching and learning in college-level art and design studios? In what ways do art and design faculty incorporate emergent digital media technologies within their own teaching practices? Do the faculty consider these technologies to be a barrier or an opportunity for learning within the studio context? I composed my fieldwork as a mini-ethnographic study by interviewing college educators, students and professionals, through video and audio recordings. Some of these include professors from New York University, University of Florida and Indiana University of Pennsylvania, designers from Google and NEXT, and design and architectural students from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. My findings will produce a visually engaging work that incorporates the traditional skill of drawing as well as displaying an interactive design concept. Creating an online comic with multimedia links can bridge both worlds, and provide a learning piece for students and educators. In my journey, I’ve discovered that college educators and professionals have similar viewpoints on design and digital media. There is a strong desire to combine the traditional learning of design with the popularity of digital technologies. My findings suggest that the idea of collaboration and interdisciplinary curriculum can engage students, as well as educators, to communicate and develop new means of creativity and innovation. While I plan to explore this topic further beyond graduation, based on my current findings, I recommend that digital media become a standard part of the design learning process in keeping with the progressive culture of art and design.
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Discussion | Moderated by Michelle Green Notes:
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Panel 5 Emergent Curriculum
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Rachel Harper | Master of Arts in Art Education I See You, I See Me: Very Young Children Learning at the Encyclopedic Art Museum As American art museums are experiencing a dramatic increase in attendance by families with very young children, it is urgent that museum educators consider how programming addresses the developmental realities of early childhood and the rights of families visiting with young children. In this study, I use action research to answer the following question: How do museum educators interpret the elements of meaningful learning for very young children (ages 0-5) in family programs at a major Midwestern encyclopedic art museum? My method centers on a play-based program for families with young children. I facilitated six sessions of this free drop-in program, attended by an average of thirty-four participants per four-hour session. Participants were local, regional, national and international museum visitors. For the design of an emergent art curriculum, I enlisted the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education as a practical frame of reference, and a dynamic collection of theory that regards the rights of children and families as central to child development, and to education for social justice. The data I collected includes participant surveys, assistant interviews, narrative reflections and photographic documentation. Systematic analysis of photographs provided themes that helped reveal meaningful features of playwork in the program: participants used many forms of communication to express their educational connection to the museum experience including touch, gesture, looking, theatrical play, drawing and constructing. Learning was found to be fundamentally collaborative and involved consistent, focused interaction between child and caregiver. The facilitator was enlisted as a resource, primarily for overcoming struggles with the invitations and limitations of the program space. I conclude this study by reflecting on the intersections between the literature, my findings, and my personal practice to inform recommendations for continued research. I speculate that when museum educators invite the non-verbal, intimate communication forms that structure intra-family learning, and welcome the unpredictable paths of intellectual play-work, we support the developmental realities of very young children and uphold the rights of every individual to make meaningful use of the curriculum towards transformational learning. By enacting a pedagogy that privileges the educational power of the child-caregiver bond over the child-teacher relation, and by situating developmental theory and formal reflection practices at the heart of the curriculum, museum educators may also participate in building a theory of early childhood art museum education that is perpetually renewed by selfreflexive collaboration with the learning practices of the very young.
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Jean Fitzgerald | Master of Arts in Teaching Relating to Books: An Altered Book Project in the High School Art Classroom The rise of electronic books and other new media for accessing and sharing information has called into question the relevance and uncertain future of the traditional physical book. This cultural shift coincides with the growing demand for higher literacy rates, reading scores and integration with the Language Arts across schools’ curricula. In light of these circumstances, educators are urged to consider how students approach and relate to traditional books, and the modes of learning they use to “read” their worlds. I investigated these issues in an action research study through the following questions: What occurs when high school students are invited to participate in an altered books project? How can students reflect on their experiences of relating or not relating to books in an altered books project? What curricular strategies can invite students to produce personally meaningful methods of reading and relating to the book form? My research site was a selective-enrollment public high school in a suburb of Chicago comprised of a wide-range of economic and ethnic backgrounds. The data I collected consisted of student artwork, written student reflections and assignments, informal conversations, and my daily written reflections. For this research study, students started with a practice altered book to focus on technical skills. Then, students were asked to alter a second found book by evoking a familiar place inside the pages. They were also asked to make conceptual connections to their book using cord and thread to link between their familiar found images and the text inside the book. Many students demonstrated that altering a book can, indeed, change one’s conceptions of and relation to a specific book, and to books in general. The students also demonstrated that through sustained focus and dialogue with their altered books, the texts have the possibility of personifying and speaking about their own worlds and realities beyond the immediate art classroom. I show that the format of a book can serve as a site and metaphor for transformative learning to occur, and that students can thrive and assert their own sense of their world within an altered book. I recommend that other educators who seek to validate alternative modes of reading and relating to books bring student-centered altered book projects into their curriculum.
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Elizabeth Yohlin | Master of Arts in Art Education Pictures in Pictures: Art History and Art Museums in Children’s Picture Books To encourage playfulness in relation to great works of art prepares the way for teaching children to be free in critiquing it, exploring the ways in which art reflects . . . not only the positive aspects of a culture, but also the negative, unjust, and limiting aspects of that culture. —Lawrence Sipe, Using Picture Books to Teach Art History Children’s picture books that recreate, parody and fictionalize famous artworks, and introduce the museum experience, have become increasingly popular over the past decade. Through extensive and varied research, my thesis explores the pedagogical and theoretical implications of the children’s art book trend. To answer my overall research question—What is the purpose and function of art historical references in children’s picture books?—I conducted case studies, content analyses and interviews. Each method of research corresponded to the following sub-questions: How do children’s art books impact a child’s experience with art? How do the books portray the art world and museum experience? What are the authors’ objectives and are they achieved? The case studies were held at the Art Institute of Chicago as part of the family program “Picture Books and Picture Looks.” Each of the eight sessions explored the extent to which picture books featuring A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 (Seurat) informed the children’s experiences with the original painting. The subsequent content analysis deconstructed the books using frameworks set forth by picture book scholars to critically evaluate their subtexts. Finally, I interviewed several authors of children’s art books to investigate their intentions and rationales. My case studies indicated that when used in conjunction with original artworks, children’s art books provide unique and distinct entry points to talking about art, thus eliciting an enthusiasm and recognition that enhances the museum experience. These findings align with the authors’ ambitions to ensure art’s accessibility while enabling a child to develop a sense of ownership over an artwork. Where the books became problematic, however, was in recycling the same canonical artists and artworks and, in some instances, perpetuating elitist and exclusive perceptions of the art world. This research demonstrates that children’s art books can be effective tools for creating conditions for reflective, imaginative experiences with art; however, educators must be prudent in selecting texts and introducing them with criticality and sensitivity. Further, my research calls for the creation of books with more diverse selections of artists and representations of the museum public.
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Joanne Easton | Master of Arts in Art Education Critique Inquiry: Investigating the Pedagogy of Doubt and Imagination in the First-Year Art School Studio Critique When I think about teaching a studio art course at the college level, I immediately think about the group studio critique. In this study, I pause and focus on the phenomenological aspect of art education. I believe the group studio critique has so much potential but often dies on the wall as a standard procedure of bored gazes and guessed interpretations, which can lead to confusing and unhelpful feedback. This study looks at critical pedagogy, critical thinking and the creative process to describe the phenomenological, sociological, and psychological influences that open doubt and imagination during the studio critique. These three topics form an important interlocking triad that can help emerging artist-educators consider what we need to know about facilitating a first-year critique, for example, the goals of the critique; the role of the students and the instructor; ways to promote discussion and dialogue; and, most importantly, what doubt and imagination look like in the studio critique. In this study, I examine and describe the relational aspects that contribute to learning in the studio critique by asking the following questions: How do educators make space for doubt and imagination in the studio critique? What are the phenomenological, sociological and psychological aspects of the studio critique? And what promotes and inhibits doubt and imagination? Over the course of a semester I conducted action-based research that consisted of phenomenological student and faculty interviews, and classroom observations, at a highly reputable art school. I interviewed faculty who were experienced in facilitating the critique and those experienced in mentorship and workshops programs regarding the critique process. Faculty interviews helped me gain fundamental knowledge of the foundations program, and approaches to mentorship and critique strategies. Faculty interviews also helped address my own assumptions toward the effects of the critique process. My interviews with students took place in the midst of critique week, while thoughts of the critique were fresh in mind. I sat with 17 students in their studios as they prepared for their final critiques and asked three key open-ended questions. The data I collected consisted of audio recordings of these interviews, students written responses, and my written reflections. From this study I have learned the importance of taking a critical look at the critique process as an educator and as a student. I recommend artist-educators talk about the critique, seek mentorship and engage students in the process of transforming your critique practice. Art Educators can continue to learn ways to refine the critique process by making it relevant, fun, engaging and intentional. This study will continue to inform and bolster my approach to the group studio critique as an artist and as an educator.
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Brittanie Wine | Master of Arts in Teaching Class in the Art Classroom: an Investigation of Youth Perspectives on Work and Status Through the Graphic Novel The American social class system is a taboo subject among many people in the United States. While social class is increasingly the subject of research, high school students’ perceptions of work and adult social status, and how those perceptions affect students’ dreams for their own futures, is a particularly fruitful area of inquiry. High school students are at a point of transition between being students and being self-sufficient adults; thus, it is imperative that they have opportunities to explore and critically question their options for higher education, work, and social status in the world they are about to enter. Art educators are in a unique position to invite these kinds of student explorations into the classroom by introducing students to artists and writers who question social status and its relationship to work. Using action research methods with art classes at a CPS neighborhood school, I explored the following questions: How do students perceive markers of social status and the implications of those status markers for their opportunities and life choices? What kinds of work and status do students see in the lives of adults around them? What is the connection between students’ knowledge of adult realities and their imagined futures? To explore these questions, I asked high school students to make drawings and comics about social status, work, and their dreams for the future. Before making their drawings and comics, students examined the work of Darrel Morris, Nikki S. Lee, and Studs Terkel, and completed several short pieces of writing, exploring their perceptions of status and its manifestations in their own lives. The data consists of student artwork, student writing, and my field notes from my apprentice teaching experience. I hope that my project pushed students to think critically and realistically about what the world of work is like, and to reflect on their personal opportunities and life chances. I did encounter strong resistance from my students, a possible reflection of their discomfort or unfamiliarity with being asked to talk about these ideas candidly. As the teacher, I tried to facilitate the students’ learning process respectfully, but always with high expectations. I hope that my research might inspire other art educators to integrate students’ ideas of work, status and their futures into the curriculum, so that students may find the support they need to be agents of their own futures as they move from high school to adult life.
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Discussion | Moderated by Jeannette Villapiano Notes:
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Thank You To the Department of Art Education Faculty and Staff: Faculty Joy L. Bivins Jim Elniski Lourdes Guerrero Craig Harshaw Jerry Hausman AndrĂŠs Hernandez Drea Howenstein Rebecca Keller Faheem Majid Nicole Marroquin Giselle Mercier Sunny Neater-Dubow Angela Paterakis Patricia Pelletier Sharon Pelletier John Ploof Therese Quinn David Rodriguez Karyn Sandlos Jerry Stefl Ray Yang
Staff Isak Applin Tenesha Edwards Jessie Terry Thanks Also To SAIC Office of the Deans and Division Chairs Jean de St. Aubin Executive Director, Gene Siskel Film Center The 2011 Graduation Symposium Student Organizing Committee: Jean Fitzgerald Michelle Greene Rachel Harper Lee May Jeannette Villapiano
Brochure Design: Lee May Cover Photo: Anne Erickson
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Department of Art Education Sharp building, 7th floor 37 South Wabash Avenue arted@saic.edu | 312.899.7481