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Promoting Awareness of Adult Biases in Children's Artmaking

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I had a conversation recently with Beth Balliro of MassArt, and one thing we chatted about was the benefits of including contemporary art in the visual art curriculum. Contemporary art is less about the object and more about the idea, and the conceptualization behind it. This reminded me about something I’ve been meaning to share… Visual art teachers need to be aware of the language we use and the biases we have when approaching students’ artmaking in our classrooms. Some of our students are amazing renderers: they are naturally drawn to and excel in the realistic representation of the object on paper. Many of us put a lot of stock into this ability and emphasize it as an essential skill necessary to be an artist. But this is an incredibly westernized perception of artmaking. What about those students who are drawn to the physicality of artmaking? Or the simplicity/complexity of expression through abstraction? Or a focus on process rather than on product? Diane Jaquith once shared that
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Approaching Teacher-Directed Instructional Time in TAB Art Rooms

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In a choice-based curriculum, all studio work looks different. It is one of the joys of centering student voice and encouraging neurodivergence. But if everyone is doing something different, how then do you structure communal, teacher-directed “Teacher Time" to meet the needs of all learners? At the beginning of each class, I challenge my artists with an essential question (EQ)  based on the overarching concepts in our unit of study (for us, it’s the Studio Habits of Mind). These EQ s are meant to be open-ended in order to encourage discussion and provide multiple outcomes. Sometimes, the EQ connects to a skill-builder; others, it connects to an artist I want to show them for inspiration; it could also connect to a creativity challenge I want to pose to them (some people, including myself, call this "filling the Artist's Toolbox " (the word toolbox is a synonym for the artist's brain ): This approach has helped me focus my “Teacher Time” (which I keep to 5 minu
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Curriculum Mapping: Templates for Success & Sustainability

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One of the things I love most about being an art teacher is the community of people with whom I share my passion for art education. I had the amazing opportunity today to facilitate a discussion for Choice Art Educators , a special interest group of the National Art Education Association, about curriculum planning. I chose to lead a conversation on this particular topic because, of all the things we juggle as art teachers, charting a course for our students (and ourselves) is among the most challenging. There are many aspects of planning a curriculum that must be considered such as district requirements, state and national standards, content, outcomes, assessments, stakeholders, resources, and limitations to name a few. But one thing that must always be at the forefront of our thinking is our students . In the Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB) philosophy, the child is the artist . As long as we hold true to this tenet as we move forward (along with the others - the classroom is the
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Inquiring Minds Want To Know

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At the end of class on Wednesday, a 3rd-grade artist said she had something she wanted to show me. I walked over and this is what I saw on the table. Doesn’t seem like much at first glance, right? She explained that she had been thinking about our 5-minute demo that day, where we talked about Dav Pilkey as an artist who engages and persists in his life and work. I shared a short video where he talked about his ADHD and dyslexia, and how he felt about failure. She told me, “I really liked his message about sticking with it and not giving up because I have friends who have the same disabilities. So I’m making this for them.” She explained that the paper on the left, a printmaking experiment, she wanted to turn into a sunset. She also said that she wanted to add the quote, “You got this. Do not give up.” (seen on the bottom). On the right, she showed me how she was envisioning her piece’s base by adding different bands of color with different materials (shown by the checks). She said a fe
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Bedford K-12 Art Show 2022

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This past weekend was our district’s art show. The care and dedication put into each piece were incredible. And I could feel the pride emanating from my artists as they saw their work on display. Just as I reflect on what makes a quality art student, I think often about what makes a quality art show. There is so much that goes into a child’s care art: highlighting the end product alone just doesn’t do the work justice. This year, the art show was structured as a learning experience for the community as well as a showcase of student achievement. (There was a poster about “Process over Product” as well, but in my mad rush to document everything I forgot to take a picture.) It’s my hope/dream that art shows everywhere will someday become primarily opportunities to showcase kids’ artistic processes rather than just celebrations of end products. I’ve seen a recent movement in that direction, especially from TAB art programs, and that makes me so grateful for the work we do. My mind is alrea
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Problem Creation

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What if art class wasn’t just a place to solve creative problems, but also a place to create them? One of the characteristics of 21st-century learning that educational scholars often emphasize as a vital life skill is problem-solving. But in teacher-directed, project-based art classes, students are given an artistic problem to solve by the teacher. In some instances, teachers even give away the answers to the problems when they walk the students step-by-step through how to solve them. In our TAB studio, students are first challenged to CREATE an artistic problem to solve. These problems are born from ideas, which are mined from issues of importance, from artistic skills artists want to learn more about, or from their desires to try materials or methods in new ways. Problem-creation - ideation - is no small task. The variety of problems, depth of student focus and engagement, and quality of reflection in our art studio always amaze me. I love that I work with these incredible problem-cr
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"Going Full TAB"

I’ve noticed the use of the phrase “gone/going Full TAB” popping up frequently when referring to transitioning a classroom or curriculum into one that supports choice. So I just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that Teaching for Artistic Behavior is not a curriculum or specific way of teaching art - it is a philosophy that believes the child is the artist, the classroom is their studio, and we always ask the question ‘What do artists do?’ TAB looks different everywhere you go - it depends greatly on the students, the teacher, the space, the materials, the administration… there is no one way to “TAB.” If you believe these philosophical tenets, and center the curriculum around your students’ emergent needs, you are a TAB educator in a TAB studio. So, you can’t be “Full TAB” or “go Full TAB.” You simply ARE are TAB teacher.
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