Category Archives: Reading Reflection

Refelction on Concept of the Artist Teacher

In research, it has been found that the beginning art teachers’ artmaking does decline in their first year of teaching. It is probably because the role transition for new teachers is not easy. Once we become teachers, we would be aware of what impact we can bring to students and take responsibility of that as professionals, not as self-willed artists anymore.

In the second week of Art Education, I visited an art gallery of UBC exhibiting a collection about human sexual activity. In which, I didn’t recognize aesthetics and the significance of the works. That is the freedom of being an artist to interpret art in personal ways, but as a teacher, creativity and ideology must be constrained by rationalist epistemology where reason and sensation are compatible. “This transition (from artist to teacher) is profound in the case of artist teachers, for whom the contrast between their practice as a critical artist and that of a regulated professional can be severe.” (Adams 2007, 264)

Once the new teachers get into their roles of being educators well and remain positive and committed, artmaking and teaching can enhance each other. Education is about life-long learning. Reflective practices help to maintain a critical stance and develop new disposition towards their practice, as well as bring transformation of professional experience. These significant gains deepen teachers’ desire to give their students authentic experience as artists.

My question is how to create such working environment to allow both students and teachers to practice and learn art together.

Reflection on Gender issue

In traditional Art history, female artists haven’t had much chance to practice art or to acquire art education, as male artists tended to dominate the traditional art world. The bias on female is still exist nowadays.

According to feminist aesthetics, approaches to art by women are fundamentally different than those by men in a way that gender-biased roles for women such as knitting and quilting are stressed. Despite this gender bias, routinely practicing those activities can actually enrich women’s life in family as well as enhancing their crafting skills. Acquiring these skills therefore does not precisely infer that the inner potential of men and women are inherently and inevitably different. These approaches partially reflect social and gender bias and different expectations on each gender.

Different social expectations are implied by the difference of the life of Pablo Picasso and that of Emily Carr who were born at almost the same period. However, Emily obviously had more struggles in her life as an unmarried women and had less fame. Being a single lady was not easy at Emily’s time, yet Picasso’s wild life was relatively uncontentious. Due to absence of social and family pressure, men tend to succeed easily.

As Art educators, we should start to question many of the assumptions and beliefs that had taken for granted, and to design a gender-equal art curriculum for students.

Reflections on 21st-Century Art and Culture Curriculum

Principles of Possibility: Consideration for a 21st-Century Art and Culture Curriculum was published in 2007, 8 years away from now, but it is still pointing out valuable insights that we can use in nowadays art classes.

DBAE discipline based art education: art production, art criticism, art history, and aesthetics. The four areas should be taught as independent strands but in relation to one another.
The goal of discipline-based art education is to develop students’ abilities to understand and appreciate art. This involves a knowledge of the theories and contexts of art and abilities to respond to as well as to create art.
Less time devoted to production but pay more attention to the appreciative or culture aspects of art.
It is far better to introduce students to fewer artworks or cultures in depth, than to present many artworks with little or no context. Exploring complexities of race, ethnicity, gender,sexual orientation, and class, develops students critical thinking on cultural understanding.
The goal of good multicultural curriculum is to effectively encounter other points of view in order to question the centrality or normativeness of one’s own point of view.
Artistic thinking is not separate from daily life, but rather can inform and enrich every aspect of one’s life. The goal of art education, therefore, is more the spirit than the mechanical skills.

Apart from the aspects of art education being mentioned, there is another one aspect of teaching: merge art therapy into art class. During the process of art making, inner souls can been connected with mind through self-reflection and healed after opening up hidden emotions.

And also, I realize that it can be very challenging to create a well-rounded art curriculum to meet all of social, educational, and personal needs. Finally, I have a question lingering in my mind—how to design a curriculum of developing specialized students’ techniques as well as increasing regular students’ interests in art?

How have past teachers influenced our beliefs about teaching and learning?

Starting from almost 400 years ago, educators have realized family skills would benefit teens who were going to start families soon after leaving schools in 1658. They tried to bring a Home EC curriculum into school system. At that time, the program specially benefited girls, future housewives, as girls stayed at home longer than boys. Along with social changes, curriculum has been changed to serve both boys and girls, and both high schools and middle schools. What all the educators did have made great contributions to school, community and society. The HC course extends the knowledge of science into the knowledge of real living, so that students from all levels can get fully prepared with real-life skills after they leave school.

IRP: Integrated Resource Package

THESA: Teacher Home Economic Specialized Association