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Lesson Plans


Teresa Tipton's Response to my student's question

[ Thread ][ Subject ][ Author ][ Date ]
Diane C. Gregory, Ph.D. (tatc)
Sat, 2 Mar 1996 18:21:22 -0600

Dear Artsednet readers:

My name is Diane C. Gregory, Ph.D. and I am an Associate Professor of Art
Education at Southwest Texas State University. My students have been using
Artsednet to get some answers to some of their questions. I am writing
because I am concerned about an increasing number of very rude and
insensitive responses to some of my students questions.

I am also writing because I want to express my concern and outrage at a
recent e-mail posted on Artsednet by Teresa Tipton. Teresa Tipton wrote in
response to one of student's question "And after your research, perhaps you
can give your faculty a reading list on the subject so that other students
will not have the same question after their graduate training."

I think Teresa Tipton and perhaps some others have not understood the
context in which these questions are being framed.

Perhaps it is time again to restate the purpose of the questions and the
nature of my assignment to them and the philosophical context from which
these questions are posed in the first place.

At the beginning of this semester, I asked my students to identify three
open ended questions they have about art education. They came up with
their questions and shared them with the rest of the class and they were
revised for clarity. I then asked them to answer these questions by going
to a variety of sources. I asked them to go the library and do a CD-ROM
search for information on the topic. I asked them to look for books for
answers on the topic. I asked them to also interview local art teachers to
get their input on the question. I also asked them to go to Artsednet to
get your response. I have also suggested that they call the authors of
various articles, and interview them directly. I also asked them to
gather all these different types of "answers" together, synthesize them and
then answer the question based upon their research and discussion with
others. Their answers as they stand now are to be turned into me in a
week as a rough draft. It is at this point that other students will read
their answers and give them their reactions to their answer. I will give
my response also at this time and share with them some information from my
point of view. They will all be sent back to the drawing board to refine
their answers and perhaps re-visit artsednet for clarification and the
asking of related questions. The final answers will be turned in at the
end of the semester. This will allow them the opportunity to really think
for quite a while about the answer.

I could have given them "the answer"at the beginning of the semester, but
I felt it was much better for them to search out the answer themselves and
to ask others what they thought, so that they would get an answer from many
different points of view. I want my students to be independent thinkers.
I don't want them to just parrot back what I say to them or parrot back
just the information that I would give them because I know I have a biased
point of view. I want my students to experience first hand many different
points of view and bias, so that they can have a fuller understanding of
issues involved in answering the question.

In the case of my student, Shelly G., I, of course, have information and an
opinion as to why art education is valuable. I could share that point of
view with her, I felt it was more important to empower her to search out
the answer than it was for me to give her my version. This type of an
approach is a constructivist approach to education which is one of the new
post-modern approaches to education. This approach seeks to empower the
learner and to help the learner become an active participant in their own
learning.

Shelley has just returned to school to get a teaching certificate. She has
a BFA in Art from a school in Wisconsin. She is taking only under graduate
certification courses and is not a graduate student in the strictest sense.
Perhaps her question reflected the fact that she is just beginning,
because that is where she is. I am embarrassed and hurt that some one from
the art education community would respond to her questions in the manner in
which Teresa Tipton did. There have been others who have answered my
students questions with a similar insensitive tone. Right now I think my
students are also learning that some art educators are elitist and rude. I
was hoping they would learn otherwise.

If you have comments or criticisms to direct, please do not direct them to
my students or post them to artsednet. Please e-mail me at TATC.
I will try to explain further the nature of the assignments.

Respectfully,

Dr. Diane C. Gregory
Associate Professor of Art Education
Southwest Texas State University