On the value of art education
I began teaching when I graduated from Emory University. I did not have a teaching degree but I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Creative Writing major and a Mandarin minor. I had studied abroad in Beijing and did not foresee my writing degree gaining me employment in 2003, so I planned to move back to China where I knew I could teach English at the very least. My sister moved with me when we were both offered positions at the Singapore International School. They had told us if we could be there in two weeks we were hired. That should have been a red flag for us, but we were stupid and didn’t understand that a school needing two new teachers mid year pointed to a bad school. I won’t talk about the following 3.5 years in this post but my sister stayed 6 months and I went on to teach at multiple schools before ending up a preschool teacher to English speaking expat kids at a school inside the Shanghai Zoo, while playing on the Shanghai International Ultimate Frisbee team in my spare time. I stayed until human rights violations made it feel like a choice between my values and my ease of existence. I chose my values and moved home to America. My sister was in New York so I went there, with little plan. She got me a job at the tutoring company she worked for and I started thinking about a longer term career.
Art had not really been on my radar much aside from my camera that permanently hung at my side. I took a lot of photos while traveling Asia, developing an eye for harmonious composition, juxtaposition, and subversion of subject. When I moved to Brooklyn, I decided that I liked teaching but wanted to incorporate my interest in how things were seen. At the time, I can’t even say it was “Art” I was interested in, but rather the manner in which people received it. I didn’t know how to articulate this though so I made an appointment in June to speak with Amy Snyder, the Chair of the Art Education department at Pratt, which was very close to my apartment. After that meeting she offered me admission into her program pending I complete a Foundation Year to gain prerequisite credits. She said she could tell I had “it.” She personally took me over to admissions and just said, “This is Katherine, she’ll be joining us next year, help her fill things out.” And then she took me to Financial Aide and arranged for a scholarship to cover part of my first year and helped me secure loans for the rest. I started that fall, a 27 year old in classes with 18 year old. I dyed my hair purple to fit in. I never “applied” to Pratt, I just made them see I belonged there.
After Foundation year I started in the Art Education Masters program and after my first Media and Materials class, basically a studio class, I decided I’d rather get my MFA, not just my Art Ed degree. Pratt had a joint program so I thought I’d do both. I told Amy my plan and she came with me to meet the Chair of the Fine Arts Department at the time. I wont name this person because she hated me. She took one look at me and decided I was an entitled twit to think I could join her program after only having completed Foundation year basically. Amy tried to make her see what she had seen in me but this woman did not want to hear it. What happened next was a bit political because there had always been tension between these two departments. The Fine Arts often lifting their nose up at the Art Ed people with the adage “Those who can’t, teach,” just on the tip of their tongues. Amy sensed this with the Chair and stared her down, basically standing up for me and letting it be known that to shut me out would be to make an enemy of Amy in that moment. The Fine Arts chair acquiesced and said I could take one painting course in her department and IF that professor recommended me, I could join the program officially. When I told her I’d need a studio space to participate I thought her head would explode. But I got one. And by the end of that year I was in both programs, having jumped through the hoops presented. I was at Pratt for 3.5 years, the same amount of time I had been in China. But it put me 6 figures in debt. NEVER TAKE OUT LOANS FOR ART SCHOOL. EVER.
After graduating I held multiple teaching positions but the one I honed my philosophy at was working with Studio in a School, a non-profit in New York City that pairs artists with Title 1 schools that do not have an art teacher for short or long term residencies. I did both, some days visiting 4 out of 5 burroughs for teaching and tutoring. My longest running position was 3 years at a school in Queens where I taught full time PreK-6th grade art. My school had high proportion of students living in shelters and students for whom art class was the bright spot of autonomy in a sea of expected compliance. Studio in a School deeply believes in child centered arts that value process, exposure, and reflection over outcome. There were no cookie cutter examples in my curriculum, which I wrote myself. The model for lessons was to do an introduction of the media and materials and inspiration, to do a demonstration, have work time, and then to do a reflection. My belief that this is a model way to teach art goes deep. My demonstrations never involved showing a finished outcome the students should aim for. Instead, I showed them how to use the materials and the potential for expression. Students were always assessed on their choices and how they used materials, not what their work looked like.
My son told me yesterday that in his 4 years in elementary school so far, he has never had an art project that didn’t have a specific “correct” outcome shown to the kids at the outset. They never get to do open ended material exploration. Instead they are told step by step how to complete a craft. Many materials are pre-cut or designed for them. It’s been heartbreaking to me to learn that art is just not a valid part of my children’s education. Of course, my kids get loads of opportunities to make at home and they have access to all of my materials. But, I am not only interested in my own kids. I am interested in all children having access to art and the autonomy it can provide. Making expression into an assignment is horrible and more about compliance than ideas. I am not raising compliant children. I am raising creative children. Those are opposites.
So when my son’s teacher sent an email asking if parents would dedicate 15 minutes towards coming in to talk about their careers, I asked for 90 minutes instead and offered to do an art project with the kids after I talk about my career. I spent about 3 hours prepping my materials and creating an almost finished “example” that I will add to during my demo, after also starting one from scratch for them to see the start. This lesson will be abstract and uses materials I am currently using in my own work-painted window screen, painted paper, felt, film gels, and sandpaper. My son tells me they have little experience doing abstract work at school and almost no experience with open ended material exploration. My choice to make multiple examples is how I deal with knowing many kids will not be able to generate a subject from nothing. Instead of giving kids one idea, I give them many so that they know there is no “correct” way to do it. Today when I tell them about being an artist, I will explain that it’s autonomy and making other people think more that is my real job. I will explain art is not meant to be a decoration, but rather a query we are meant to respond to. Bad art leaves us unsure how to respond, feeling like we are somehow less knowledgeable after viewing. Good art reveals something to us, generating a response that feels like we have been invited to something. Children should learn when they are being manipulated and when they are being invited. Art education does that.
In the images here I’m sharing some of my lesson plans from my teaching days. If you’re an educator, please feel free to use or adapt these. Reach out if you have questions. I’ll share some images of what we make today in my Instagram stories.