Top 5 Readings: Summer 2016
Christine Ballengee Morris and Stephen Carpenter II wrote this piece on diversity, cultural invisibility, and the effect stories have on a given individual. It is written as a call to other educators to address these concepts in the classroom and to make connections in their students’ minds. The piece uses theory from Root, York, Asher & Crocco, Asher, Cohen-Evron, and others. They use their own personal stories of identity, cultural understanding, and race to show the ambiguity in the world toward these ideas. They push for curriculums of “personal and external identity construction, with the goal of social responsibility.” As they state, “stories not only convey information, but they also have the power to instigate change.“
Elizabeth Garber and daughter Erin Garber-Pearson wrote this chapter for Girls, Cultural Productions, and Resistance. It reveals the subculture of girls roller derby and how it relates to feminist ideas. The writers utilize first hand accounts, emailed interviews, observations, and visual culture material. Erin Garber-Pearson currently plays roller derby and Elizabeth Garber is a visual consumer of roller derby. They question if this spectacle can be considered feminism or empowering. They use the assertion that the girls own what they do and use some of the very issues against them for themselves. “Shouldn't delight and pleasure in what we do be crucial to our engagement with life, as feminists?”
Elizabeth Garber wrote this chapter for Art, Culture, and Ethnicity. In this chapter, Garber looks at Chicana/o and Latina/o studies and the absence of them in popular culture and art educations. Garber looks at two examples of Latina/o visual culture and it is meant as an exploration of how these images "shape our conscious and unconscious perceptions of cultural values. Images in the field of vision therefore constitute us rather than being subjected to historical readings by us." Garber argues that the Mexico that Americans (and many Mexican-Americans) believe exist is really a conceptualized, constructed, touristy Mexico. Only through actual observation within context of visual culture can we begin to understand the thriving culture that still exists. “Making art and visual culture, along with analysis, is integral to the social change that is implied in visual culture education” As art educators we need to be presenting art in context to our students. Showing milagros as “Mexican art” without a larger context gives the sense that Mexico is just a folky, pastoral, and “other” place.
In this article, Patricia Stuhr, Christine Ballengee-Morris, and Vesta Daniel, proclaim the need for Social Justice in the art education classroom and why it matters that students understand the need to fully participate in a working democratic society. They attach definition and meaning to multiculturalism and advocate for curricula that promotes examination of individual students’ narratives. They contend that getting people to think critically about their own narratives and biases is important because “each person’s action or inaction ultimately affects everyone else.” It is important that we teach to what is important in a student’s narrative. Terrorism, while sometimes seen as taboo to talk about in the art classroom, “is worthy of study in art education because it is relevant to students’ lives.” (Cohen-Evron) “Learning about the ways in which the visual arts influence people, empowers children to decide how they allow themselves to be influenced.”
Toni Wynn and Juliette harris wrote this article for Art Education: The Journal of the National Art Education Association. They explore the movement of combining STEM and the arts(STEAM). They state that although it is not a “magic bullet for innovation, STEAM is an opportunity for teachers to partner, learn, and teach about the many areas where art and STEM intersect.” They give reasons why STEAM is such a good idea and, among others, give the reason that it provides an “inoculation against boredom and low effort” and gives real-world meaning to abstract mathematical problems. Wynn and Harris look at four practicing artists and educators that currently use a STEAM approach. They give the conclusion that art and society are moving forward and art and STEM pedagogy needs to keep up. Companies want employees that are original, creative thinkers and STEAM is one way to prepare our students for that.
Bonus Reading: Novik, Naomi. Uprooted.
