I sat down with our AP for my pre-observation conference. He asked me, "When I come for the observation, which of the standards will you be covering?" "I am the standards", was my response. Actually, I didn't say that. I thought it. But then I answered to the best of my ability. "All of them." That wasn't the answer he was looking for so he asked again, "But which one, specifically?" Well now, that was a good question. As an admin, he wanted to know what he should be looking for when he did the observation. This got me thinking, did we actually cover all the standards in one class? Or at least, in one unit? I decided to take a longer look at the Standards, in this case, the NAEA National Visual Arts Standards, and see if we indeed, did cover all of them. I made a surprising discovery. The StandardsMy first impression of the Standards is how disjointed they appear. There are four Anchor Standards representing Creating, Presenting, Responding, Connecting. Creating and Presenting are rather obvious. Making art and presenting art at at the core of every art program. The other two anchor standards, Responding and Connecting seemed separated. Almost a throwback to the DBAE days. Looking at art, interpreting art, connecting at some level with art... I imagined an art teacher is a room holding up a poster of Van Gogh's Sunflowers and asking her students to look, analyze, interpret and judge the art. Visions of Robin Williams addressing his class filled my brain... "Gentlemen, open your text to page twenty-one... Understanding Poetry, by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D." "To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech. Then ask two questions: One, how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered, and two, how important is that objective. If the poem's score for perfection is plotted along the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness." ....ughhhh!! Out of OrderHowever, I made one very importantly but seemly overlooked observation about the Standards.. they are out of order. One doesn't make art, present art and then look at art for inspiration and meaning. Rather, we look at art, are inspired by art, and then create and present art. instead of Creating, Presenting, Responding, Connecting consider this: Responding, Connecting, Creating, Presenting When we consider the standards in this order we notice how well they align with the artistic process for creating art. Through the artistic process we are first inspired by art, we then develop and idea to convey meaning, we then plan and create, and finally we reflect and present. To be clear, these are the anchor standards and more concise learning targets can and would be addressed through the unit or on an individual basis. However, in this manner, every student that is inspired, designs, creates and reflects on a work of art should be meeting all the standards. The Final WordOne of the first parts of the process where we began looking at alignment with the standards was actually the last part of the process. That is to say, the final reflection. One of our goals this year was to increase student participation in written reflection. Earlier in the year, as part of the Art of South B Tool Kit, we updated our list of Question Prompts which students use when completing written reflection on Seesaw. To complete our alignment between the artistic process and the standards, we rewrote our List of Prompts one more time, and arranged them, including color coding, by the standard's categories. Sweet! the Art of South Brunswick High School, NC
Here at The Art of South Brunswick High School, NC, we incorporate the Teaching for Artistic Behavior or TAB philosophy in our classroom. TAB states that the student is the artist and the art room is their studio. We believe students should be involved in the entire artistic process including designing, creating, and reflecting on their work. It is our job as teachers to present ideas and concepts, demonstrate techniques and materials, and encourage and support our students to create and produce works of art at the highest level.
3 Comments
10/8/2018 12:23:42 pm
Thanks Ian! This is the first time in 20 some years I get our standards. We are in a meeting about aligning our PBL with our standards. Oh how I cringed. I decided to visit ole trusty Art of South B to see if you had anything. And there it was! Perfect timing. I'm as usual, stealing it all! Thank you for making me look so smart to my instructional coach and admin. Hahaha! No seriously, I quoted you and linked all resources to your website. Thanks Ian! Stormy
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Cindy Phhillippi
10/28/2018 04:11:46 am
A very intelligent and well thought-out knitting together of the irritating standards I deal with everyday. I will use your sound judgment to' deal in ' when presenting my pre-assessment for my observation -- and yet to be fully generic and comply to their straight jacket rubric I will have the usual stuff written out for compliance.
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Janet Ahrens
1/2/2019 08:20:20 am
Thank Ian. This should help us when we start working during PD on Monday. MS teacher last year said he never heard of art standards. I use them all the time! so go figure. This should help give us some direction of where to go. Teacher steals! shares!
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Art of South BArtwork by students at Art of South BThe Visual Arts Dept. at SBHS is like no other program in the state. Learn more, watch the Intro to South B video.
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Make Artists Podcast with your host Ian Sands the choice based, student directed, Teaching for Artist Behavior, high school art teacher and stuff and things... but mostly stuff. What's TAB?Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB) is a student-directed art education pedagogy that directs students to think and work as artists.
BooksMaking Artists picks up where The Open Art Room left off, covering issues and situations choice teachers encounter as they design their program.
The Open Art Room provides a student-centered approach to art instruction that is inspirational, practical, and classroom-tested.
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Click Here to read the January SchoolArts Magazine Article Engagement Grading
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Click Here to Read the 2019 Summer SchoolArts Magazine Article Realigning the Standards!
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Click Here to Read the February SchoolArts Article, Build A Dynamic Art Program with Modular Teaching!
Click here to Read the October SchoolArts Article, Artists Solve Problems
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