Studio Thinking and the 8 Habits of Mind

 student-made poster describing one of the "habits of mind"

On February 2, 2012, I attended a lecture at the SFMOMA entitled "What should we ask of arts education?" The speaker was Lois Hetland, who is Associate Professor of Art Education Massachusetts College of Art and Research Associate at Harvard's Project Zero. Ms. Hetland gave an inspiring and informative speech about the importance of art education in schools, but what I found most useful was her description of the "Habits of Mind" that theoretically can be achieved with the arts.

Wanting to learn more, I purchased the book that Ms. Hetland had co-authored: Studio Thinking: the Real Benefits of Art Education, which describes the theory and suggested practices using real teachers and students as examples.

The 8 Studio Habits of Mind (as listed in Studio Thinking) with a brief summary of each in my own words:

Develop Craft
Divided into 2 parts: Technique and Studio Practice. Learning to use and care for tools, materials and studio space.

Engage and Persist
Developing the abilities to stay focused and work through challenges as they arise.

Envision
Learning to imagine possible outcomes as well as next steps in the process of art making.

Express
Creating artworks that convey a particular meaning or idea.

Observe
Looking deeply at visual art in order to see/understand beyond the surface.

Reflect
Two parts: Question and Explain and Evaluate. Thinking, talking, and judging one's own work and the work of others (includes the critique process).

Stretch and Explore
Willingness to take risks and learn from mistakes.

Understand Art World 
Domain and Communities: Learning about artists and the art community in history and the present day.

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.