Original message: At 10:04 PM 7/14/02 EDT, you wrote: >I'm curious as to how you all would answer a student in a high school studio >class who is demanding of help and feels that you should tell her how to do >her artwork. . . . Any ideas? EAC ---------------------- This is a great topic. I like many of the answers given for this so far. Each semester I take a pledge to ask more questions and answer fewer questions. I find that I have to be thoughtful when I use questions. I often ask, "What are some of the ideas you are thinking about?" or, "What do you think might work?" or, "What if you would play around a bit on another paper to see try some options?" (this one is a suggestion, not a question, but I still count it as not answering the student's question). I do give suggestions and options for questions that deal with skills like how to center clay on a wheel. I try not to answer questions on composition, design, purpose and content. Students need to own the answers they give to these. I once saw a conceptual piece entitled, "We know all the answers. Does anybody know the questions?" It was a little wooden box filled with raku fired lips pressed in molds made from faces. Too often schools have conditioned people to wait for answers. Hence, they are ungrateful when they get a question. Our most creative students do not ask us what to do, but they do ask us, "What if I would . . . . ?" Of course we encourage them to "try it" and see what happens. Here is a TOP TEN list of, "What if I would . . . ." ideas for me as an art teacher who wants to teach students to think for themselves. 1. What if I program more "idea generation" activities into our art projects and lessons? 2. What if I put innovation at the top of my grading rubric? 3. What if I routinely ask students to make lists before starting to work? 4. What if I ask students to make more idea sketches? 5. What if I stop the work and ask for a listing of alternative options before finishing the work? 6. What if I provide for more hands-on practice before getting into serious work? 7. What if I look more often at the purposes of art? 8. What if I help the class look at the opposites of what I want in an art lesson? 9. What if I did NOT show examples of art? What would I do instead to articulate or communicate the concept of the lesson? Imitation is easy and it is the way most people are programmed to learn. Many of my students have learned that imitation gets them the best grade. Innovation is challenging, and for most of my students it will not happen unless I facilitate and articulate creative methods. 10. What if there were no art teachers who answered questions? Would there still be artists? While on a recent flight from Boston I was reading a well written newspaper critique of a contemporary invitational exhibition. I had not seen the show and there were no pictures of the work. While reading I got out my pencil and began sketching how I would create work in my own media that would respond to the concerns voiced by this article. Needless to say, I was primed to work and did not have to sit around waiting for inspiration in the studio. In both art and teaching, we are on a journey with many paths. Each time we return to the journey we make new discoveries by looking at what happened today so that tomorrow we can repeat our successes and learn from our mistakes. As in art, this journey never ends. Marvin Bartel, Ed.D, Professor of Art Goshen College, Art Department phone 574.533.0171 studio (new area code) 1700 South Main, Goshen IN 46526 fax 574.535.7660 http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/art-ed-links.html *************** "You can't never know how to do it before you never did it before." ... a child, age five, working with clay the first time **************** An OPEN mind is NOT an EMPTY mind. An empty store has a "closed" sign. An open mind is full of new ideas struggling with the old ideas for prominent placement in the store. ---paraphrased from The Infinite Mind, a PBS radio broadcast on Persuasion, 12-99 ************** http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/ritual.html www.bartelart.com ---