A visual artist and teaching artist considers teaching as performative, conceptual arts practice.

The last two sections (EJ1039315 and EJ1039319) presented stories about specific moments or lessons. Also, situations infused with complexity where the writers had to toggle back and forth between providing the larger context and the details that support readers' understanding of that big picture were presented. In this section each story is…

In art, the idea of pots being circular and cylindrical is an intuitive proposition that defines why potters have, up to the present, made wonderful decorations in the round. It is believed that potters do not want to subvert or break away from their tradition, perhaps because the art started as family craft. In this study, the authors describe…

This article describes a project in poetry and visual art that leads students to explore metaphor in generative and novel ways. The author shares what she and her teaching partner Ronna Pritikin have learned about fostering brave and joyful student artist and poets. "Be an Artist With Your Words" is a twelve-session residency, in which the author…

Dance education provides a language that allows students and teachers to express themselves in new ways and to think through ideas differently. All students deserve the opportunity to learn things in new ways, to internalize information and rephrase it, to understand their world and contribute to it. All students deserve the opportunity to…

The author is naturally a kinesthetic learner. As a child she was steeped in the wilds of seashore, fields, and woods in which she was free to roam, explore, and imagine in a deeply sensual, movement-oriented world. Because of these first experiences of freedom of movement and spontaneity in the highly intense natural world, she found the…

In this article, the author shares her experiences of the universality of art making and artistic experience of being a dancer and teaching artist. She describes her performance at Kohler, a worldwide leader in plumbing products in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where she had an epiphany dancing in a toilet factory--a sudden, intuitive moment of…

Since 2004, the author has been facilitating a creative writing program for teenagers at the historic Paul Robeson House, centrally located in the urban community of West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Begun as an intensive five-day summer workshop, Teen Writers Academy has expanded to offer ten-session Saturday workshops during the spring, two…

When children write plays, their wishes, fears, and secrets face an audience. An audience is not a do-gooder making nice. It is not an authority figure with a grudge against one's race or class. When it laughs at the jokes or applauds, it can be trusted. It is saying this play--and by extension its author--fits into the world on its own terms. In…

A teaching artist reflects on his travels and work across the South Pacific and India. He concludes that American culture views art as a commodity appreciated mostly for its personal entertainment value, and therefore judges the outcome of artistic endeavors rather than appreciate the purpose of such endeavors. His teaching experiences have…

Imaginative writing is a great vehicle for creative thinking and risk taking as children structure a reality in a story. However, the author believes that American children are untrained for this sort of work and progress. They need connected experiences. This insight intensifies the author's resolution to seek collaboration with artists in other…

The profession of teaching artist is an increasingly accepted career path. Teaching artists have generated plentiful testimonials to support what was once only backed up by anecdote and is now increasingly supported by objective data. They are finding that very definite and specific benefits await the artist who teaches. While the impacts are not…

Support from school partners is absolutely necessary. Every teaching artist knows this, and every arts education organization strives to cultivate this support. In this article, the authors create some powerful strategies for achieving this support, such as agreeing at the outset about the focus of the residency. Lessons that develop meaningful…

Art in Education is generally considered a sideline, a secondary specialty, or something to be integrated into the primary curriculum, i.e. literacy and arts integration. But art is not secondary; it is primary in learning and in human development. Art is, in fact, necessary and optimal for learning to write, read, and perform arithmetic. This…