Sky in NJ, I also saw and read his article. I've taught 15 years of middle
school art. It made me think also about my teaching style and if I am being
disrespectful to cultural art when I teach a lesson by replicating even part
of it. I usually try to study why the culture chose the material and symbols
and colors and then try to gear it towards a project for my students using
symbols from our culture. At one time I would have been comfortable studying
for example Hopi Kachinas then have my students create their own characters
and make them out of clay. I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that now. I
think living for a time on a Navajo rez., not my own cultural background,
made me more respectful. The article also made me analyze whether I am too
interested in a pretty product and not enough about the process and the
critical thinking the student went through to get to the final product. I
still show examples, but then I put them away. It is good to analyze what
we are doing and what we need to change.
-----Original Message-----
From: Geoffrey McClain [mailto:skygeoff@home.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 5:01 AM
To: ArtsEdNet Talk
Subject: show examples last
I have spent a lot of time looking at this website you see posted above
this letter. His main idea is that you should show examples by other
artists at the end of class after the students are finished their project.
This is a new one to me. This professor claims that the students will do
more creative work if the projects are done this way. He also says the
student work should be completely original - absolutely nothing copied ever.
He says the only drawing they should do should be from life. So the student
work ends up looking nothing like - say Egyptian art or Native American art.
His student's totem poles look nothing like a real totem poles. They drew
typical child type art showing symbols of themselves. (There's an example
of this on his website)
I think that lots of artists use photos as research and that it isn't
always practical (not to mention limiting) to always draw from life. All
this has really been rocking my boat. I do think that perhaps my students
have been doing too much copying. I've been teaching art for twenty-seven
years but I am always open to ways of improve my teaching. I would
appreciate it if some of you would tell me how you feel about all of this.
Sky in NJ
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