Art Education Curriculum
Promising
Approaches
Provide
instruction in academic disciplines through the lens of government, history
law, and democracy.
Encourage
and support activities and student and community organizations that provide
opportunities for students to be engaged in their campuses and communities.
Encourage
students’ participation in forums that model democratic processes and
procedures.
Involve
students in the development and sustaining of campus/community partnership.
Overview
Although
many of our curricular goals have to do with “teacher craft,” there is a very
strong emphasis on the philosophy of teaching art: why art education is important for living a
rich and aware life and how it might be important as a way of understanding the
world around us, especially its socio-political environment and contexts. The connection is then made between the
implications of our individual teaching philosophies and how we teach. Teaching art in a modern democracy is the
challenge for our students. As they move
into schools and other community settings to teach art, we ask them what the
Monday-morning implications are of a belief in democracy. As we help them develop skills in listening,
presenting, and working together with colleagues and students,
they are always experiencing how
teaching for social change can engage art students in their craft and their
community. As they reflect on this
collaborative work in the community, they refine and deepen their philosophies
of teaching. We attend to what is
taught—the content—but also to what is taught by how we teach. Students write a teaching of art philosophy
based on research into the theoretical art education literature. They write
curricula in which they apply their philosophies through content and
methodology. They practice applying
their philosophies and curricula by teaching in various community setting with
a variety of students, including but not limited to traditional K-12 settings. They reflect, throughout the program, on
their philosophical stance and on the match between the content and teaching
methodology they utilized, as well as what the learners learned and how their
learning could be improved. In the art
student teaching internship (STT 494 Art), our students work with public and private
K-12 schools within an hour of the University. For example, this spring, one student teacher completed a
very successful Service Learning project based on the Empty Bowls Project with
the 6th graders at Orrington Center Drive School and Manna, a local
food cupboard. In AED 474, which is a
Topics course and changes every year, students have worked with Shaw House,
Acadia Hospital, Boyd Place, the Vine Street School program for children with
autism, Manna, people at the Greyhound Bus terminal and others. This last two years, the course was taught by
Laurie Hicks. And this last spring, the
focus of the course was on Museum education in partnership with several local
museums. In AED 373 and AED 473, the
students teach (write curricula, order and organize materials, organize and set
up an ending exhibition of the children's work) after-school art classes in our
art education laboratory school, which we call ArtWorks! These classes are offered each semester
and open to elementary and middle school students, who come to campus for 5
Friday afternoon art lessons. They come
from a variety of schools and situations: private and public, religious,
alternative schools, and home-schooled children. But our relationship is directly with their
parents, rather than the school from which they come.
Special Features
Civic Learning Goals
- Civic Knowledge: Recognize the variety of characteristics and actions of effective,
participating citizens; identify and describe the community in which they live;
discuss and explore the variety of ways an individual can help solve social
problems; knowledge of social movements and strategies for change; understand
public and community issues.
- Civic Skills: Process
and evaluate information for objectivity, accuracy, and point of view; asses
the consequences of and appropriate context for personal action; further
develop and use critical=thinking skills and ethical reasoning to make informed
and responsible decisions; use verbal and written communication skills to
convey ideas, facts, and opinions in an effective and reasonable manner; work
cooperatively with others and develop effective team-building practices; public
speaking; organize meetings to insure that all participants have a voice in the
process; active listening/perspective taking; work together to overcome
problems; pursue an array of cultural, social, political, and religious
interests and beliefs.
- Civic
Attitudes/Dispositions: Willingness to enter dialogue with others about
different point of view and to understand diverse perspectives; tolerance for
ambiguity and resistance to simplistic answers to complex questions; develop a
sense of personal efficacy; an affective or emotional attachment to the
community, a feeling that one wants to be contributing member of the community;
respect for individual and group identifies; confident in their capacity to
make a difference; see themselves as members of a public, a community, and the
ability to recognize that a community is a group of people who belong to each
other because they share both a heritage and a hope.
Contact Information
James Linehan, Chair
Department of Art
The University of Maine
Laurie Hicks, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Art and Art Education
The University of Maine
Laurie.Hicks@umit.maine.edu
