Q: How do you define “arts integration” in your practice as an educator? What kind of impact has arts integration had on your students?
A: I define arts integration as an approach to teaching and learning through which content standards are taught and assessed equitably in and through the arts. Arts integration allows students, regardless of their traditional, academic ability, to show their knowledge and skills through creative and alternative/non-traditional means. This gives space for and encourages students to explore their creative selves and continue to search for connections across arts and non-arts content areas.
Q: What do you hope educators and students will gain from doing this lesson that you and Helen created?
A: I hope that educators and students will increase their global perspective through empathy while building social emotional skills focusing self awareness, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills.
Q: What drives you as an artist?
A: In my work, I am interested in promoting dialogue, mutual understanding and dispelling stereotypes. As an artist, I feel that it is very important to visually document the events we live through, to preserve these stories for future generations to learn from, and hopefully not make the same mistakes, but to grow and make a better world for all of us to live in.
Q: What global interconnections do you hope educators and students make as they do this lesson?
A: I hope that students and teachers come away with the idea of a shared humanity in our global world. The realization that we are more similar than we are not and that these global connections and mutual respect and understanding of one another are the most important elements we can use to create a more peaceful and empathetic world now and in the future.
Q: How do you define “Art Education” in your practice as an educator? What kind of impact has art education had on your students?
A: Art education is a practice that asks students to examine their sense of self, sense of place, or sense of community through inquiry and exploration. In the classroom, art education can encourage students to engage in processes of critical thinking and making that can lay the groundwork for civic engagement.
Q: What do you hope educators and students will gain from doing this lesson that you and Kathy created?
A: Our collaboration with Kathy revealed how generative it can be for educators to focus on the artistic process behind that artistic product. Our lesson offers ideas for how to engage students in open-ended inquiries. More concretely, it explores how local histories, materials, and events can be artfully mined to address big ideas.
Civically Engaged Art Education
Q: How do you define “Art Education” in your practice as an educator? What kind of impact has art education had on your students?
A: For me, art education is an exploration of how the arts can help students understand their identity in relationship to the diverse worlds we teach and live in. I see art classrooms as places to teach towards civic mindedness and socially just encounters with local histories.
Q: What do you hope educators and students will gain from doing this lesson that you and Kathy created?
A: Our work together was focused on the integration of contemporary art, community and personal histories, and how these might work together to create unique opportunities for students to engage in research and artmaking about how big ideas are grounded in their local communities.
Q: What drives you as an artist?
A: What drives me as an artist is understanding the world around me and trying to heal past and future wounds for myself and for my community. I focus a lot on social justice issues and raising awareness on the issues that have impacted our islands to the rest of the world - climate change and nuclear testing tend to be my first focus.
Q: What global interconnections do you hope educators and students make as they do this lesson?
A: I hope students and educators are able to make connections to the impacts of climate change and nuclear testing in their own communities. But I also hope they understand the importance of connection, of emotion, and honoring indigenous ways of knowing and being.
Q: Your school district has partnered with the “Creative Learning Initiative.” What is creative learning and why is this approach important in your practice as an educator?
A: In Austin Independent School District, the Creative Learning Initiative (CLI) focuses on facilitating instructional tasks that require students to make conceptual models, generate ideas, make creative choices, analyze and synthesize, translate and transfer, and contribute perspectives. The most important aspect of using a creative teaching strategy is the reflection on the strategy process which can include individual and group learnings. It is in the reflection that we (the classroom community) truly grow.
Q: What do you hope educators and students will gain from doing this lesson that you and Monica created?
A: I hope educators and students will find meaningful ways to explore and share their own identities and build strong classroom communities. A person’s true identity emerges when given the chance to share the intersectionalities of one’s identity. This lesson helps us learn about one another by melding together our home lives (through the personal object) and our professional lives (by co-creating art as a classroom community).
Q: What drives you as an artist?
A: I am inspired when my work has an impact on people, and when viewers of my work become active participants. I am driven by the belief that when we hear each other and can come together to create collective art, this leads to a greater sense of community so that we can tackle the big challenges of our time, such as climate change and racial and gender justice. Connecting with others and learning from each other is what drives my creativity and my artistic work.
Q: What global interconnections do you hope educators and students make as they do this lesson?
A: I hope that the students and educators will be inspired by the way artists have used different languages, garments, and objects to express their multiple identities and their links to others around the globe. The students might incorporate their own families’ stories of migration, whether by force or by choice, along with different languages and personal objects, some of which may have roots in other places. I hope that through this lesson, the students will learn more about each other and create a sense of community and connectedness within the classroom and beyond.
Storytelling With Saris:
Q: What drives you as an art historian?
A: There are so many stories to tell and so many different ways to tell them! Approaching the world through visual culture and art history opens up so many artistic perspectives, different ways of knowing, and untold yet epic stories that can be understood in visceral, intellectual, and creative terms. Empowering people today to interpret aspects of their personal experience through the inspiring visual legacies of our past, and encouraging people to look to contemporary artists as thought leaders who can help us make sense of the present moment drive me as an art historian.
Q: What global interconnections do you hope educators and students make as they do this lesson?
A: I hope educators and students will appreciate how people across time periods and geographies respond to their unique circumstance and environment with ingenuity, fortitude, and brilliance.
Q: How do you define “arts integration” in your practice as an educator? What kind of impact has arts integration had on your students?
A: I define arts integration as an approach to teaching and learning through which content standards are taught and assessed equitably in and through the arts. Arts integration allows students, regardless of their traditional, academic ability, to show their knowledge and skills through creative and alternative/non-traditional means. This gives space for and encourages students to explore their creative selves and continue to search for connections across arts and non-arts content areas.
Q: What do you hope educators and students will gain from doing this lesson that you and Helen created?
A: I hope that educators and students will increase their global perspective through empathy while building social emotional skills focusing self awareness, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills.
Q: What drives you as an artist?
A: In my work, I am interested in promoting dialogue, mutual understanding and dispelling stereotypes. As an artist, I feel that it is very important to visually document the events we live through, to preserve these stories for future generations to learn from, and hopefully not make the same mistakes, but to grow and make a better world for all of us to live in.
Q: What global interconnections do you hope educators and students make as they do this lesson?
A: I hope that students and teachers come away with the idea of a shared humanity in our global world. The realization that we are more similar than we are not and that these global connections and mutual respect and understanding of one another are the most important elements we can use to create a more peaceful and empathetic world now and in the future.
Q: How do you define “Art Education” in your practice as an educator? What kind of impact has art education had on your students?
A: Art education is a practice that asks students to examine their sense of self, sense of place, or sense of community through inquiry and exploration. In the classroom, art education can encourage students to engage in processes of critical thinking and making that can lay the groundwork for civic engagement.
Q: What do you hope educators and students will gain from doing this lesson that you and Kathy created?
A: Our collaboration with Kathy revealed how generative it can be for educators to focus on the artistic process behind that artistic product. Our lesson offers ideas for how to engage students in open-ended inquiries. More concretely, it explores how local histories, materials, and events can be artfully mined to address big ideas.
Civically Engaged Art Education
Q: How do you define “Art Education” in your practice as an educator? What kind of impact has art education had on your students?
A: For me, art education is an exploration of how the arts can help students understand their identity in relationship to the diverse worlds we teach and live in. I see art classrooms as places to teach towards civic mindedness and socially just encounters with local histories.
Q: What do you hope educators and students will gain from doing this lesson that you and Kathy created?
A: Our work together was focused on the integration of contemporary art, community and personal histories, and how these might work together to create unique opportunities for students to engage in research and artmaking about how big ideas are grounded in their local communities.
Q: What drives you as an artist?
A: What drives me as an artist is understanding the world around me and trying to heal past and future wounds for myself and for my community. I focus a lot on social justice issues and raising awareness on the issues that have impacted our islands to the rest of the world - climate change and nuclear testing tend to be my first focus.
Q: What global interconnections do you hope educators and students make as they do this lesson?
A: I hope students and educators are able to make connections to the impacts of climate change and nuclear testing in their own communities. But I also hope they understand the importance of connection, of emotion, and honoring indigenous ways of knowing and being.
Q: Your school district has partnered with the “Creative Learning Initiative.” What is creative learning and why is this approach important in your practice as an educator?
A: In Austin Independent School District, the Creative Learning Initiative (CLI) focuses on facilitating instructional tasks that require students to make conceptual models, generate ideas, make creative choices, analyze and synthesize, translate and transfer, and contribute perspectives. The most important aspect of using a creative teaching strategy is the reflection on the strategy process which can include individual and group learnings. It is in the reflection that we (the classroom community) truly grow.
Q: What do you hope educators and students will gain from doing this lesson that you and Monica created?
A: I hope educators and students will find meaningful ways to explore and share their own identities and build strong classroom communities. A person’s true identity emerges when given the chance to share the intersectionalities of one’s identity. This lesson helps us learn about one another by melding together our home lives (through the personal object) and our professional lives (by co-creating art as a classroom community).
Q: What drives you as an artist?
A: I am inspired when my work has an impact on people, and when viewers of my work become active participants. I am driven by the belief that when we hear each other and can come together to create collective art, this leads to a greater sense of community so that we can tackle the big challenges of our time, such as climate change and racial and gender justice. Connecting with others and learning from each other is what drives my creativity and my artistic work.
Q: What global interconnections do you hope educators and students make as they do this lesson?
A: I hope that the students and educators will be inspired by the way artists have used different languages, garments, and objects to express their multiple identities and their links to others around the globe. The students might incorporate their own families’ stories of migration, whether by force or by choice, along with different languages and personal objects, some of which may have roots in other places. I hope that through this lesson, the students will learn more about each other and create a sense of community and connectedness within the classroom and beyond.
Storytelling With Saris:
Q: What drives you as an art historian?
A: There are so many stories to tell and so many different ways to tell them! Approaching the world through visual culture and art history opens up so many artistic perspectives, different ways of knowing, and untold yet epic stories that can be understood in visceral, intellectual, and creative terms. Empowering people today to interpret aspects of their personal experience through the inspiring visual legacies of our past, and encouraging people to look to contemporary artists as thought leaders who can help us make sense of the present moment drive me as an art historian.
Q: What global interconnections do you hope educators and students make as they do this lesson?
A: I hope educators and students will appreciate how people across time periods and geographies respond to their unique circumstance and environment with ingenuity, fortitude, and brilliance.
