Art Education Mix

I came across this post on IG,  9-Year-old Who Got in Trouble for Doodling in Class Now Has Job Drawing On Restaurant Walls , and it immediately caught my attention. I've always been the teacher, the person, who've witnessed year after year the down play of that one student that was the talk of the lunchroom - "All he ever does is draw, I can't get him to do any "real" work." What has the American school system done to aspiring, developing creatives? Why are we as educators so quick to suppress our scholar's innate talents? I ask these questions facetiously, knowing my answer -  standardized testing is the cancer that kills creativity.  Bold blanket statement, yeah I know. A larger scale discussion should be had - the notion of differentiated public schools sounds promising, but not likely. For more on this story, please visit: https://www.awesomeinventions.com/the-doodle-boy/

Original Publication Date: 6/28/11  Don't be fooled. I have witnessed first-hand how a quality Art Education in California public schools can affect state test scores and grades. Below you will find my explanation of why the Arts are significant in public education and why it is important to stop eliminating them. Benefits of a quality arts program. Students who participate in a quality arts program benefit in several ways. It develops their critical thinking skills, artistic abilities, self-confidence, social interaction, and their enthusiasm for arts and other core subject areas. While many may believe the visual arts is merely consisted of developing drawing, painting, sculpting, and graphic design abilities, a quality visual arts program will also challenge students to develop observational acuity skills   (learning how to see better) and envisioning skills (learning how to generate mental images). Last and most important, students can explore, create, invent, all while le...

Original Publication Date: 7/17/10 1:18 PM The science of teaching is universal to all subjects. For the purpose of this column, it will relate to art and will be broken down into several categories.  The categories include: (1) Teachers using a behaviorists approach. A behaviorist goal is to alter a person's behavioral patterns. This can be explained best in terms of conditioning students' work habits in order to complete the drawing assignment.  (2) Making cause and effect learning connections. If a students moves ahead of the teacher, this may cause the student to do the task incorrectly. Whereas, if the student patiently waits for the proceeding step then follows along, it is highly likely for the student to have a positive outcome. This will be explained to students prior to the lesson in order to avoid any mishaps.  (3) The teacher must use observable and measurable terms. Teaching using a scientific methods requires studying and methodology. Therefore, when teachin...

Original Publication Date: 8/27/10 4:25 PM Joy Henry is a guest blogger for  My Dog Ate My Blog  and a writer on  online schools  for Guide to Online Schools. The Ins and Outs of Street Art When you think of street art, please don't think of the large unreadable spray paint spirals on the side of your local abandoned building. Street art is not to be confused with graffiti or vandalism. While it can be done with spray paint, street art usually has a point besides adorning the side of a building with the artist's name. Street artists aim to reclaim public spaces by creating outdoor, situational art in them. It can take the form of graffiti, stenciling, street posters, or basically any sort of outdoor installation. In the end, though, most street art can be grouped by its attempt to take an ordinary place and give in it an element of surprise, beauty, or thoughtfulness that one wouldn't normally encounter in a public space. History While people have been scratching on ...

Original Publication Date: 4/12/09 3:28 PM Just thinking.. It's crazy that I came to a point in my life where I hope that there is a flyer with cool designs on my truck. As I walked up to my car, I found myself saying, "YES!" when one was left there as if I had won the lottery. It's not as if the design was all that spectacular, but it was of greater quality than usual. WHY AM I BLOGGING ABOUT THIS?  Just a few years ago, I took design for granted. I remember thinking that design comes straight from the internet and it wasn't anything special. I didn't even consider the fact that hard work goes into it. Yeah I know, that was an ignorant thing to say, looking back, but there are a bunch of people who still has a negative opinion not only about design, but about art in general. Boy, was I wrong. Education has changed me. It's almost as if I am a politician who switched from republican to democrat, being that I am the artist who switched from studio arts to d...

At 3am, this is weighing heavy on my mind. I made a couple of mistakes in the last few weeks and I need to fix them right away. I wrote a lesson plan, implemented it for the first time, and now I have to rewrite at least 30% of it. Please keep in mind that these are MY mistakes and not my students. Here are some of my bloopers and possible solutions. 1) Unfinished Artwork: It's a good thing I take pictures of every art piece my students complete for my own review. I was browsing through the photos and spotted the mistake. I have seen this art work numerous times, yet I did not realize it was incomplete. Luckily this is an easy fix. I just need to call the students home and ask the parent to send it back (yes it is that important to me). The student only needs to touch-up/fill-in an area (blue area to the right). This may not seem like that big of a deal, but I don't feel it will represent the 4th of July until this is done. It shouldn't take no more than 5 minuets. 2) Art L...