Kevin Hsieh

Students' Constructed Narratives in After-School Art Projects.

45 How do students construct narrative and create art in their daily lives when they are not in school or after-school? How can art educators design and offer both customized and tailored learning experiences for students’ after-school art learning? Falk and Dierking (2000) point out that, “People mentally organize information effectively if it is recounted to them in a story or narrative form” (p. 51). Students collectively filter information and knowledge, and construct their own narratives by using different visual media that are special, meaningful, and unique to them. Vallance (2004) used the term “storyline” to describe the mental processes of students when they are learning outside the classroom. She notes that off-school lessons (or curriculum as in museum settings) “can be seen as a storyline created by educators and experienced differently by each [learner], a story with purpose, an invitation to engagement, and a conclusion that invites reflection” (p. 352). In this article I discuss after-school projects created by my 5th-grade students during their summer vacations and the teaching strategies that I used according to the framework of Roberts’s (1997) personal narrative learning model. Lastly, I provide suggestions to art teachers interested in exploring art pedagogies for facilitating after-school art learning by connecting it to the students’ daily lives, thus making students’ art learning experiences more meaningful. When students feel comfortable in the learning environment and are being given authority to make their own choices about what they want to create, they can create significant artworks with different personal expressions through the form of narratives. Students feel this freedom especially when they are not in the regular school environment where learning is structured by specific learning objectives (Falk & Dierking, 2000). In addition, after-school projects offer diverse and more open-ended contexts for each student to construct new meaning through free-choice learning in their daily lives. Students construct personal narratives in their works through their own sense-making. This is a process of meaning-making, information-synthesizing, and knowledge-reconstruction. Students’ Constructed Narratives in After-School Art Projects

Visual Arts Education and the Challenges of the Millennium Goals

The chapter discusses current paradigms in visual art education in light of the results of an international survey conducted in 2013 with members of The International Society for Education Through Art (InSEA) and readings of official documents from OECD and UNESCO. Some results of the survey are described and interpreted according to different survey participants’ narratives about the value of visual arts education in the schools. The concept of skills for the new millennium is analyzed in relation to past and present rationales of arts education. Standards in Visual Arts education are revisited in light of the InSEA survey findings and the educational skills defined by UNESCO (UNESCO, Education strategy, 2014–2021, 2014). The chapter concludes with a discussion about the need to understand the role of arts in education and education through the arts in general to prepare students with knowledge about art and the world they live by thinking critically, using problem-solving skills and developing skills for living together in harmony.

Preservice Art Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Addressing LGBTQ Issues in Their Future Classrooms

For this study, I surveyed 146 urban university preservice art teachers about their attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) issues, including the stereotypes, biases, and misconceptions of this population that these teachers acquired from the media. A three-part questionnaire asked their response to several gay publications and their familiarity with gay issues, partly to explore their own relationships to the LGBTQ community. This research specifically explored the participants’ attitudes toward teaching LGBTQ topics in their future visual art classrooms in public schools. The results indicated that most of the respondents were ready and willing to learn about and teach these topics in their future art classrooms. However, they expressed anxieties and concerns about encountering a conservative school administration or community culture that would prevent them from actively supporting and covering LGBTQ issues. This article addresses these challenges, discusses the study’s implications, and offers suggestions for supporting and assisting these teachers in presenting these issues in their future classrooms, especially to reduce bullying and help create a safe school for all.