Walker Chapter 6

            This chapter in the textbook was for the most part, a summary of everything we have learned about creating units and lessons in Art Education. Although much of it was redundant and ideas we have heard a million times over at this point, I do feel like what was said was a good reminder of the “best” way to teach art. As the teacher, you start creating the unit with a “big idea” in mind. You research artists who exemplify this idea and come up with essential questions which will later guide student learning. These questions are meant to provoke deeper thinking about the big idea, and it is imperative that they are well thought out and connected to the big idea. After you have your big ideas, you use supportive activities which are more hands on or discussion based so that the students really do understand what the big idea is all about not just at the surface level, but more comprehensively. Following the meaning making activity(s), you move into the art making section of the lesson or unit where students apply what they have learned prior into art pieces of their own. This is the time that they get to explore and work with art-making problems, technical aspects, media manipulation, etc, yet are still guided by the overall big idea that ties it all together. The last piece of the puzzle is the assessment where the teacher must decide whether or not the student has not only completed the project, but gained a handle on what the big idea really meant and how they worked it into their art.

            As I said, we’ve learned all of this before, but it’s a good thing to hear over and over. The more I see of various art classes, the more I realize that we learn this style of teaching—this philosophy—yet it is hard to find this level of meaning in most of the basic level art courses in public schools of all levels. There have only been a handful of times where I have been observing that the group of students I’m watching is doing anything more than material exploration. This is a sad thing to see, students who you know are capable of creating art with much deeper meanings than simply technical media expertise, yet all they have the opportunity to do in the classroom is just that… learn how to use a given media, and then apply that expertise into an artwork with no meaning. If this is something that is started in grade school, our students would be so much more rounded. I have seen, in good cases, where there are kindergarteners talking about what symbolism is, and how they used one thing to represent something else they were thinking about, and that’s KINDERGARTEN! If a 5 year old can produce meaningful art with big ideas to back it up, it can be fostered at any level. This is the way art should be taught in my opinion.