On Classroom Environment

Certain measures must be taken in an art classroom, which is full of all manner of tools, supplies, absurd objects and storage spaces, to ensure that the environment is safe, organized, and conducive to teaching and learning. Some simple changes to the environment, ones that have a huge impact on learning and classroom culture, are as follows:
- Take time to set up different lighting for different art making scenarios.
- Play age appropriate music.
- Give students a tour of the classroom on the first day, and each time a new process is introduced.
- Consider setting up a permanent demo table, keeping clear at all times to allow for spontaneous demonstrations.
- Consider maintaining a "task table" (a space designated to catch loose paperwork, collect finished pieces, etc.).
- Consider having an alternative studio space, in which students can choose to lay or stand, use drawing boards, etc. as an alternative to sitting at their desks to work.

MOMA: Kathe Kollwitz

For more information on the life and work of Kathe Kollwitz: http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=3201

On Integration, and Kathe Kollwitz

More than any other subject, field or class, integration of other content curriculum into an art class is critical for the engagement and productivity of students. Art is not created in a void. Artists respond to things they know, and inquire about things they want to know. Students should be given the opportunity to react and respond to new concepts being taught in science, language, math, psychology, etc. By employing a multidisciplinary approach, students have the opportunity to create more meaningful work that also enhances their understanding of other subject areas. One sample lesson plan I've created emphasizes the life and work of German printmaker Kathe Kollwitz. It integrates subject matter from other content areas to engage students and promote learning. Specifically, the lesson operates under the assumption that one shared experience all community members have is loss. By considering the ways in which loss impacts community through the creation of their own work and the exploration of the life and work of the artist, students can begin to discover the role art plays in helping communities commemorating people, objects, and places lost and heal after having experienced loss. Specifically, students consider the big ideas of community and loss, creating a woodcut of a person, place, or object that was lost to their community, and commemorate their subject through appropriate display of their finished piece. Writing and reading is incorporated through the development and expression of student ideas. Students examine history of WWI and WWII through the context of the artist's life, and are given the opportunity to research and incorporate their own community's history in their own artwork. In addition, elements of psychology inform the research and the work. Again, a multidisciplinary approach allows students to approach their work with full engagement.

On Art and Inquiry

Art making often requires responding to the world, all its beauties, obscenities and puzzles. Wonderfully, art teachers must meet the unique challenge of not only incorporating a huge variety of disciplines, interests, issues, and content in their instruction, but also teaching students to ask and answer any number of unpredictable questions and inquiries. In order to effectively meet this challenge, art teachers must develop and maintain understanding of range of historical and contemporary art making processes and modes of thinking, as well as develop their own skills and the skills of their students needed to conduct research in their field. Essentially, if an art instructor does not already know the answer, they must be able to quickly obtain it or provide direction for students to do the same. Art teachers must possess the fundamental abilities to conduct research in the field, synthesize and analyze information in context, synthesize and analyze information in context, and draw conclusions or make meaning. Moreover, they must demonstrate the ability to pass this knowledge onto students. Art is inquiry. Art educators and art students alike participate in their own inquiries.