For this Instructional Resource, the author interviewed contemporary sculptor Michael Beitz, who uses art to explore the role of designed objects in human communication and emotional experience. This column was written in response to calls for using Enduring Understandings/Big Ideas (National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, 2013; Stewart &…

Not so long ago the occasional story would be told in the news that someone with a fascination for all things medical had spent months or even years masquerading as a doctor in a large and anonymous hospital. No doubt the absence of such stories today is due to heightened security and vigilance, partly as a result of the realization among hospital…

Quality arts learning can be a vehicle for personal transformation. For more than 40 years, an unwavering belief in the possibility of such transformation has sustained the nationally recognized after-school Apprenticeship Training Program (ATP) at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild (MCG). Within school walls, academic standards position the arts as a…

Artist Ad Reinhardt's 1991 prediction of the "Future of Art" can be interpreted as the condition of art education in 2010. He writes, "The next revolution will see the emancipation of the university academy of art from its market-place fantasies and its emergence as a center of consciousness and conscience." The focus in the fields of art and art…

Soldiers are returning from war to college. The number of veterans enrolled nationally is hard to find. Data from the National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics identify nearly 924,000 veterans as "total education program beneficiaries" for 2011. These statistics combine many categories, including dependents and survivors. The…

Advanced Placement (AP) Studio Art is an influential force in secondary art education as is evident in the 31,800 portfolios submitted for review in 2008. From the perspectives of a high school educator and AP Reader, this author has observed how the constraints of the AP program can be used to generate support for high school art programs and…

This viewpoint proposes a model of art therapy integrated into an alternative art education program. Because of the pressure to meet educational standards, school systems may be less likely to support clinical programs that take students out of their classes. A blended model of art therapy and art education that utilizes effective strategies from…

"I'm trying the least of anything to control this drawing ... in fact I want it to run away with me." says Billy, a fifth grader who reads at 13th grade level. He clears his throat and begins to sketch and his stories flood the page. This qualitative research paper looks at what free sketchbook drawing does for a group of boys ages 8-14 who…

The author loves Toronto, where she has lived for more than three decades. Two of those she has resided in an apartment on the west side of town--close to the University of Toronto and the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD), to the parks and pathways that connect her living and working sites with those institutions and her other haunts. What…

As a young art teacher, this author was inspired by the advice of Faith Ringgold, who emphasized the importance of creating time during each day to create art. This advice led the author to develop a painting discipline by creating "The 40/40 Challenge" for her students in Painting I and Painting II classes. The 40/40 Challenge is a voluntary…

Job security is a relatively new concept in the ancient field of teaching art. Historically artists have created, and been judged on, their own credentials--that is, their art. The master of fine-arts (M.F.A.) degree, often described as a "terminal degree," or the endpoint in an artist's formal education, has long been sufficient for artists…

When this author first published his account of "The Superheroes of J. C. Holz" (Wilson, 1974), he could not have imagined that the comics of one Iowa boy would shape his thinking about children's images, the purposes of art and art education, narrative, popular visual culture, and his present theorizing about pedagogy. He states that…

Discusses the use of art as a means of marking space and as evidence of existence, and presents a philosophy of art and art therapy. The making of marks, present in all human beings from an early developmental stage, is the source of the artmaking behavior. (JPS)

A student sketchbook is not a new idea. However, the appropriate application and assessment capabilities of the sketchbook are often overlooked. Historically, artists were trained via copying the works of master painters and draftsmen. In the same tradition, the author has infused the art curriculum with sketchbook copying exercises to improve…

When art, music, and poetry are integrated into the art room, children can confront difficult themes in works of art and process information in highly personal ways (Jewitt & Kress, 2003). An arts classroom gives children the time and place to confront images of war and violence and decode the multiple levels of meaning (Arnold, 1997) found within…