Art & Learning to Think & Feel
- Leave No MIND Behind -
 

by Marvin Bartel, Ed.D. © May 2, 2008 update


LINKS to other art education sites
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ideas, innovation, and inspiration
for art teachers and parents are listed below

 
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AUTHOR'S Introduction Essay:

WHAT IF WE WOULD STOP THE TEACHING THAT REDUCES LEARNING?
Based on tallies done by my college students while visiting art classes, I find that it is very common for art teachers to offer suggestions to students who come for assistance on their artwork.
(this statement is coninued below the table of contents ....)

- Table of Contents - links to essays & lessons -

Classrooms to Teach Thinking and Emotional Intelligence
Creativity Killers in the classroom
Teachng Transfer of Learning
Teaching with Questions 2007 edit
Creative Thinking vs Imitation
Idea Generation as Art Curriculum new in 2006

Rituals
in the Art Classroom
 
students are on-task as they enter the room
Rituals - a list of ideas
Bird Ritual - multisensory warm up

Teaching Thinking & Feeling
Conversation Game to get ideas for artwork and learn to make friends   

Sources of Authentic Inspiration where artists get ideas
Ideas for Art Content and Topics
Teaching with Questions for thinking strategies and how to set up experiments

Lessons to Teach Thinking
How to Plan Art Lessons that teach Thinking, Feeling, Creativity, including Practice, Art History, Aesthetics, and Art Criticism
Sources of Ideas for Art Lessons
Idea generation as art curriculum
Lesson Idea Development
Art and Word
First Day of Art Class
Kids and Clay
reprinted from Studio Potter

Thinking With Clay
Learning from the Clay - 2008

Personal Box
using Clay
Surreal Animals using Clay
Sculpture: Gargoyles using Clay
Abstract Expression using Clay
Dominic's Egg using clay

   
contributed by Lisa Blackburn
Learning to Throw a free potter's wheel tutorial

Art Lessons in Drawing
Teaching Blind Contour posted in 2008
Using a large bear named Ralph

Teaching Drawing to Children
--ideas for Parents and Teachers
Observation Shading
Rabbit Drawing  using blinders
Nature Drawing  using viewfinders
Ink wash Drawings: Developing
    contributed by Rebekah Short
Dramatic Mood Using Value 
    contributed by Rebekah Short
Cubism as Experience vs Examples
How to Draw an Orchid at age 4

Sculpture and Collage Thinking
Cut Paper Self Portraits
Wire Sculpture
Montage Self Portrait Lesson
Teaching with Artwork from the Internet
Art History Web Quest 

Drawing as Visual Thinking
NOT "how to draw"

Why NOT Draw on Kid's Work new in 2006
Learning to Draw Made Easier

Drawing Portraits and Figures

Learning Skills to Learn to Draw

The Blinder Drawing Game

Drawing Lesson
with viewfinders
All the Skills Needed to Draw
Teaching Observation Drawing  
Teaching Shading in Drawing
Drawing is Basic
by Unsworth
Drawing for the "untalented"
Learning to Learn to Draw
Practice Shading
in drawing
Cubism Lesson
process centered

Sixth Grade Sketches
Drawing
at age 5
How to Draw an Orchid at age 4

Design and Composition Thinking

size and depth

Elements and Principles
Creatively Teaching Elements and Principles 2007
Percy Principles of Composition

Creative Th
inking vs Imitation

Idea Generation
as Art Curriculum
Generating Ideas for art Lessons
- More Sources of Ideas for Art Lessons
2007

Creativity Killers in the art room
Creative Teaching
Creatively Teaching Multicultural Art
Creativity Links

Learning to Learn - 2008
Teaching with Questions
Conversation Game
Teaching for Transfer of Learning

Critical & Empathic Thinking
Critique in the Art Class 
Critique Notes
printable 
Critique Form
  printable

Assessing Thinking & Feeling
How to write art tests
requiring creativity
Rubric - Assessing Artwork
printable
Rubric - Assessing Art Talk
printable
Teamwork Rubric
A one-page printable PDF file. 2007

Sketchbook Evaluation
SmartArt Exhibition Awards
new in 2006

 

in-service

Contact top of table of contents^^^

 

2008 Questions from Readers
Learning to Learn in short time sessions
coming soon ---
How do I convince colleagues & administrators?
How do I combine art with other disciplines?

Growing the Preschool Mind
- Healthy Feeling and Thinking -

Scribbling on the Wall
How to Draw an Orchid at age 4

Preschool Art - letter to preschool teacher
Preschool, Kindergarten, and Art
Scribbling is a good thing
Drawing at age 5
Typical Drawings

Art Connections
Everyday Life Art Choices

Aesthetics and Ethics in Everyday Life  
Art and National Tragedy 

Art Facilities and Displays
Art room Design   advice for architects
How to mount temporary art displays

Art Teachers

Observing an Art Teacher
Good and Bad Art Teaching - student's paper

Safety Hazards in Art
Working Safely with Art Materials
Hazards Working with Ceramics
Working and Cleaning with less dust


Art Education Advocacy
Advocate Link Page
A letter to an administrator
To Whom it May Concern Letter 2008

Successful Third Grade

Build Goodwill with Exhibitions
of Student Work
How to Tape Work to the Wall


Specific Art Courses
Teaching Photography  list of links
Teaching Ceramics  list of links  
Art for Children course syllabus

Teaching House Design
Creative Computer Drafting


Sponsorship
Goshen College Goshen IN - USA
Art Department at Goshen College
Art Gallery Exhibit Schedules 

 biographical information
All rights reserved. top of page  
Photos and text of this page © Marvin Bartel.
Also see © notes on linked pages

Goshen College
Art Department
- TOP of page^^^

Credits

Many of the ideas that have guided my thinking over the last 35 years of teaching art were inspired in the classes of Dr. Phil Rueschhoff at the University of Kansas during my graduate work there.  Rueshhoff studied with Viktor Lowenfeld, author of Creative and Mental Growth. Lowenfeld was often discussed.  Rueschhoff's ideas are recorded in a text still available in some libraries and in the used book market. We reviewed hundreds of studies of creativity and studies of the ways in which a variety of art education methods changed thinking, feeling, and expression.

Rueschhoff, Phil H. , Swartz, M. Evelyn.   Teaching Art in the Elementary School: Enhancing Visual Perception. 1969.  The Ronald Press Company, New York, 339 pgs. ^^^

About this web site?

Teaching is an art. Teaching is a practice. As such, we keep reflecting on it and imagining ways to form minds for out time. My ideas about teaching art have emerged over many years of teaching art and during supervision of apprentice art teachers. 

Being an art teacher is a journey of daily experiences carefully examined and reconsidered. Art projects, lessons, and assignments are not finished when the work is turned in. No matter how successful, teaching, like an oil painting that never dries, never becomes fixed. Creative teachers always imagine alternative approaches. Even when we have a winner, the best lesson or assignment is always the next one.

The ideas in this web site represent a point in my journey, not a destination. Reader comments, ideas and questions are welcome. When you respond, please include the title or the URL of the page(s) you are referring to.

Contact -- Marvin Bartel
to discuss issues or to schedule a workshop

Also see: My page of other art education sites and authors.

top of page^^^

top of table of contents^^^

 

AUTHOR'S STATEMENT: When students ask the teacher for help, suggestions are very common. Suggestions are much more common than responses that teach independent thinking. Suggestions are much more common than thinking questions. Suggestions are far more common than coaching experimentation. I have come to believe that when we make suggestions we are practicing a method of teaching that reduces thinking and learning.

Therefore, when students ask me what to do to improve their work, I have tried to stop making suggestions. I try to use open questions about what I see or do not see in the work. These habits have been very hard for me change.

Suggestions are easy for me, but they do not teach much seeing and and very little awareness that ever carries over to another part of life. However, questions that do not include the answers can motivate some good thinking. In some cases I ask them how they could do an experiment to help make a choice about ways to proceed.

After I have used these methods college students and with preschoolers as young as three, I have noticed that they begin to learn to ask themselves questions and experiment on their own. A three-year-old may be making a drawing. Ordinarily, the the three-year-old will work very quickly and be finished as soon as the basic parts of the drawing are finished. However, if a caregiver, teacher, or parent has been asking a series of open thinking questions such as: "What (or who) does this person like to play with?"; the child may stop and say, "Let's see. What did I forget?" Self-learning has immense potential. It develops the thinking neurons.

In the lessons I have posted, I do not show any examples of artwork at the beginning of the art lessons. Examples can reduce thinking. I often introduce famous artwork after the media work, asking questions such as, "What do you see?" "Why do you notice that? Why do you think the artist did it?"  These questions can be answered based on thinking they have learned to do during their media work. The media work is designed to teach artistic thinking and feeling. After doing this, we can begin to read the mind, the intentions, motiavations, and passions of an artist by looking at her work.

Marshall McLuhan said, "In a global information environment, the old pattern of education in answer-finding is one of no avail: one is surrounded by answers, millions of them, moving and mutating at electric speed.  Survival and control will depend on the ability to probe and to question in the proper way and place." -- McLuhan probably wrote this 30 or 40 years ago. With the internet, it has become more obvious. The quotation is found in Marshall McLuhan: Cosmic Media By Janine Marchessault. page 224

My lessons start with ways to practice, to generate ideas, to experiment, and with questions to bring ideas into focus. Students are not told to do whatever they want. They are presented with strategies by which artists generate and refine their own ideas based on their own passions. They are to learning thinking strategies by practicing them. They are learning ways to innovate, create, refine, practice, synthesize, and so on.

In place of most teacher demonstrations, students can be given hands-on practice rituals (self-demonstration and warm-ups). This gives students confidence and motivation for new processes or procedures that are needed and lets them know that art must come from the artist -- not from a teacher. An art class is not merely a place to make things, it is a place to learn to think and feel. This is learned by the process of learning to visualize and materialize thought and feeling. Learning this way provides the practice that can build minds that are creative, independent, critical, empathetic, and effective. It is a way to leave no minds behind. It is the way for students to self-construct knowledge---not to be behavior managed into doing things and learning things just because these are the things we always had to learn in art.

A few skills and technical procedures are so complex (and/or hazardous) that they are best learned from a demonstration. In these cases I think it is best to follow the demonstrations immediately with hands-on practice. Sometimes I use a demonstration, but keep it short and have the students doing it as they watch. When I demonstrate, as in using a potter's wheel, I stop and ask them to tell me the shape it should take. They need to participate -- not only watch. Being an artist is not being a spectator. I want students to immediately begin to practice to see what they missed and to start looking for new possibilities for shapes it can take and things it can say.

Some ideas in my essays and lessons were inspired when I saw how DBEA (Discipline Based Art Education) trended to increase the showing of examples (or "doing research" by looking at the work of other artists) prior to media work.  It was often done in name of teaching art history, but it also appeared to short circuit some creativity neurons. I question the thinking habits being developed. Do we want to encourage dependence on experts? Learning from examples is seductive resulting in premature gratification. It short circuits learning. Their answers do not grow out of their own experimentation, but from somebody else's results. Students fail to learn to think for themselves about their own experiences. Yes, using examples gives faster results. Teachers and others see student products and may be deceived into feeling that students have learned art.

This may be an unintended trend. I am certainly supportive of DBEA's effect on making art education a more serious and more comprehensive endeavor. I also believe that the art of the masters of every culture and both genders is a rich source of ideas and concepts from which art teachers should take concepts that need to be taught - not by having students imitate the look of the artwork, but by having students imitate the thought processes and approaches used by the artists. Of course students need to be exposed to great art of many cultures and both genders. I do this at times when it is not intended to be copied or imitated for a studio project and at times that follow a project that has been planned to build a frame of reference for the historical study.

I may be unique when I tell my students that as an artist I look at as much art as possible so that I know what I do not have to do. I tell them that I try to learn how the artist was thinking and what was motivating the artist. I try to imagine the creative process the artist must have used to come up with such a great idea. Viewing art this way is a form of mind reading where I am not aiming at the look of the work. I am aiming at the thinking that motivates it. I tell them that I wonder what I would create from my life experiences and with my skills if I were to use a similar concern and creative process.

DESCRIPTIONS OF A FEW OF THE PAGES

How to Plan Art Lessons by Marvin Bartel, gives instructions on what comes first, last, and in the middle. It has suggestions on motivation, keeping on task, and what not to do.

Idea Generation methods are essential to the work of any artist. These can be taught, but they are too often ignored in favor of teaching techniques.

Teaching with Questions points out the difference between teaching to think and teaching to follow directions. It is the difference between education and training. It is the difference between slave training and leadership training.

How to Teach Drawing to Children This page was reprinted in the Canadian Homeschooling Horizons Magazine March, 2007. I was originally inspired to write it by an inquiry from an Australian mother whose son, age eight, was feeling discouraged and wanted help in learning to draw better. - to top of page

These are links to some assignment pages from my classes in teaching art methods.
Art Education Assignments  |  Readings  |   Planning the Parts of Creative Art Lessons
| Pass it On - practice teaching what we learned
   (teaching is great way to learn)  |   One-on-one Teaching Assignment  |   Successful Art Class Critique Sessions   |  DBEA Art Rubric   |  Study Sheet for test 1   |   Study Sheet for test 2    |   An example essay answer 

CLASSROOM RESEARCH TOPICS IN ART EDUCATION
1. Compare methods to teach children how to learn to come up with their own ideas for art.
2. Compare ways to help children learn to design experiments in art.
3. Compare ways to teach observation drawing and observation clay modeling.
4. Compare methods of motivation for media work.
5. Comparing ways to increase the imaginative power of children.
6. Comparing ways develop children's inventive powers through art.
7. Comparing ways that art teachers develop and assess new art assignments.
8. Compare types of teacher responses to art student requests for help.
CONTACT ME if interested in more elaboration.

Good EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS are in short supply
Are you an art teacher interested documenting creative teaching techniques so that others can see and consider what you are doing? Should college and university classes in art education see how you are teaching creativity? Other teachers who are less informed or more frustrated may benefit by seeing how you teach. You no longer need a camcorder. I get some great video with my digital camera. It will put 30 minutes on a 4GB memory card.
CONTACT ME if interested.
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All rights reserved. © Marvin Bartel.   Last update date shown at top of page.
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You are invited make a link to this page. 
If you have related topics, you may want to have your page linked from this web site. Please do not send a request to exchange links unless you have already linked to at least one of my pages. You may link to any of my pages that seems to relate directly to the topic of your page. Once your link to my page works, send me a note showing me the URL to the page that has a link to my page. If your link works, I will review your site for appropriateness and consider making a link from this page to your page. I am most interested in art, in ideas, and in education. In general I do link to very few pages that are marketing a product, books, service, or merchandise of any kind. CONTACT ME
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This page is frequently updated.
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Goshen College

^^^ | Art Department at Goshen College | Art Gallery Exhibit Schedules | Goshen, Indiana, USA | ^^^