Monday, May 21, 2012

Teaching Artistic Behavior

Teaching Artistic Behavior (TAB) is an organization that promotes a particular philosophy of choice-based art education. The methods described on the website http://teachingforartisticbehavior.org/ are similar to those in Montessori classrooms, the difference being that the only subjects are art and art history.

Basically, the teacher briefly demonstrates various techniques throughout the length of the curriculum (or term), and the rest of class time students are allowed to choose what materials they would like to work with.For the most part, students work independently while the teacher acts as a guide or mentor, visiting each student one-on-one.

Similar, again, to the Montessori classroom are the "choice studio centers" which contain the tools, materials, and instructions necessary for a particular medium (for example: screen printing), or even images and references about a particular era of art history. TAB suggests that centers be made available only after students have been instructed about those particular materials and clean-up procedures.

Although I believe this method of teaching may be difficult to implement, and even more difficult to sell to school administrators, the idea of encouraging independent thought and inquiry is highly appealing to me. I would imagine that not all educators are comfortable with what might seem to be a lack of structure in the curriculum. Further reading on the TAB website reveals that this method actually requires a great amount of careful planning for it to be successful. As with all good teaching practices, Teaching Artistic Behavior involves clear objectives, high expectations, and multiple forms of assessments.

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