Part 1: "Recipes to achieve a cool-looking project are not good art educational practices. Good art projects are not simplistic recipes."
When a group of students is working on the same assigned project, I do not want them all to be identical in the end. In the statement above I agree that good projects should not have the goal of being cool-looking. However being an elementary art teacher, I know my students want their projects to look good in the end. They all want to be successful and usually love to incorporate their own ideas. The students should be allowed to add their personal touch to the project. In my 2nd grade class, we do a project called "Cool Cats". The students learn about warm and cool colors, we draw a cat, add designs and use glue and chalk pastels to finish the project. They all receive the same directions, but all the pieces come out very unique.
When I look through a teaching resource, I'm attracted to the "cool-looking" projects. I consider all the elements of the project and take much consideration before adding the project to my curriculum. I question the content of the project and look at the skills my students are working on at that time. As a teacher, I believe the end result is important and I do not think that is wrong. Students should get involved with the process, learn from it and adjust their technique to create a successful piece of art. Should the project be based solely on the outcome? Not always because many concepts can be learned from experimenting and playing with no end result.
Part 2: Value One "Drawing as communication along with drawing as perception and representation"
Young elementary students enjoy drawing and always seem to have an explanation to go with their drawing. Drawing is the way many students first communicate their feeling on to paper. They learn to communicate through their art which can produce unique, expressive pieces.
In high school art classes one project they work on over the 2nd semester is an altered book. This assignment is designed to have the Creator design a book that expresses themselves. At the beginning of the assignment I ask them to pick a theme for their book and they will communicate that theme through the creation of a series of pages. We look at examples of different techniques they can use; however they have complete freedom in the media those choose to work in. Some students struggle with this assignment and I hear the normal complaints of "I don't have an idea...." I wan them to learn how to use this project to represent something they feel strong about or something that is important to themselves as an individual.
Value Two "Constructing self over symbolizing an essentialist conception of self"
This value could play a large role in an art course. Students who are self-motivated could work on projects of their choice throughout the year. Ideally they would create a series of artworks inspired by individual experiences in their life. I would like to encourage my student to design a project that illustrates personal experience. The student could also use the experiences of others for inspiration. I believe this value could be important to an art curriculum and help student thrive in their art. It would relate the art to the students life and help them feel personally connected to their artwork. I had an upper level studentt who thrived at working in graphite and wanted to continue with this medium after others had moved on. I encourage him to brainstorm and develop some ideas of what to create next. He wanted to create a drawing for a close family friend. He was extremely passionate about this project and he seemed to be very proud when he complete the assignment. As a teacher it was nice to see a student who felt so strongly and was enjoying what he was doing.
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