> Ah, the every humbling experience of Junior Scholastics.
>
On the "other side" of the Scholastic Art Awards...
I am the regional Coordinator for our Scholastic program and have been
for the past 10 years.
We have had years when our show is bad, really bad, and years when the
show is good and very good. Everything is based on the jurors and
judges. Sometimes, the jurors "love cats" so, everything they see that
is related to cats gets in (good or bad). Our jurors have been
selected from a group of artists in the community, sponsor designees,
and art educators. I found that the art educators do the best job, the
sponsor designees, the worst.
We have had limited entries per teacher and unlimited entries per
teacher. There were some years that we asked the jurors to accept at
least one piece from each school, we discontinued that practice.
This year (which will be my final year as coordinator- movin' on) we
had all entries submitted via CD - digital photos. We had a marathon
evening of viewing over 3,000 images! 10 art educators were the
jurors. Less than 10% was juried in. I think that we have the
strongest show ever!!! We did not even know the school - just looked
at the work. Some schools got a lot in, some schools got nothing
in...The teachers now have to get the accepted work to the exhibit
venue and we will have community artists/educators judge the show.
The Scholastic show is different - artwork MUST be "different" - it
cannot be ordinary in any sense. I always invite the "rejected"
students, and more importantly, THEIR TEACHERS, to visit the show and
see "what the Scholastic competition is all about." See what got in,
see what got awards...
It is great to have an exhibit of the work that you submitted - those
students should feel proud that you thought their work was "worthy" to
be entered in Scholastic. Students should not be told or they should
not feel that their work was "rejected" - they should be told that the
jurors did not select their pieces - that perhaps a DIFFERENT juror
would have. They should be proud to represent their school in any
exhibit!
Regarding sharing comments, I did - only once. Teachers and students
still had a hard time understanding and became defensive.
