Middle School
B IG
IDEAS IN ART
What is the future
of art educa-
tion? Many
of us
think the answer li es
in Big (or Enduring) Ideas. Sydney
Walker, author of
Meaning in Art-making, defines
Big Ideas as
“broad, important human
issues...charac-terized by complexity, ambiguity, contradiction,
and multiplicity.”
They deal with
topics for which
there are no simple
answers, and provi de a
valuable framewor k from
which to teach abo ut art
and artists.
At the end of las t year, as I
watched yet another trash can of
student artwork go to the dumpster,
I was determined to make art class
more meaningful. I often told my
students that artists explore universal questions and make important
statements through artwork, but I
didn’t know how to reinforce the
point. When I heard Marilyn Stewart, co-author of Rethinking Curriculum in Art, speak at our state
art teachers’ conference, I thought
she had the answer.
Kathleen Day
Rethinking Curriculum
I bought Rethinking Curriculum
in Art and dove in. The information and examples sent me off on
w ith learning about artists
a nd styles or improving skills or
e xploring personal issues with self-
portraits. Once done, we moved on.
I “rethought” about what I really
tangents, daydreaming about how wanted my students to retain, and
to apply the concepts. Although decided to take a direct approach.
the appendix includes worksheets, I If you teach at the elementary level,
wanted something you may be able
more concise, and I “rethought” about what to coordinate
I was looking for I really wanted my students art lessons with
something bigger other classes to
than a one-project to retain, and decided to get important
unit. take a direct approach. concepts across.
The authors To really explore
state that information should be an issue, students should write, dis-presented with “repeated instruc- cuss, research, report, and create. In
tion in multiple contexts.” I had high school, students take different
been teaching by project: drawing, classes, and I knew these different
sculpture, Impressionism, Keith avenues must be explored in art.
Haring, etc. My objectives dealt
