Five Steps for Building an Arts Community?

How Many Clicks Did You Make Today?

Community Arts Network or CAN is "building a bridge to the future."

The Community Arts Network (CAN) supports the belief that the arts are an integral part of a healthy culture, providing both intellectual nourishment and social benefit, and that community-based arts provide significant value both to communities and artists.

CAPE'S MISSION
CAPE advances the arts as a vital strategy for improving teaching and learning by increasing students’ capacity for academic success, critical thinking, and creativity.

After reviewing this weeks blogs for cyberpedagogy class, I got to thinking about how to combine these two missions as I move forward into the field of arts education. After all, who wouldn't want an art classroom that could provide "intellectual nourishment and social benefit through increasing students' capacity for academic success, critical thinking, and creativity"?

As a first year teacher I'm afraid it will be no easy task to develop a rich classroom based off of this framework. While I sit in front of my computer I am challenging myself to come up with five vague steps at working towards this ideal. Hmmmmm...

(One must note, these perhaps are trite and obvious and not too profound, but hey it's something worth working towards, I think, regardless)

1. Trust --- okay, what does that mean? How can I let students know they can trust me as their teacher and trust the art classroom for new ideas as a safe place starting day one?

2. Which brings us to another step... Safe Place --- the art classroom should be a place where ideas can be explored without shame and support should be given thoughtfully.


3. Innovation --- here comes that intellectual nourishment. I hope to encourage students to ask questions and push boundaries (hmmmm.... how might that be problematic as the authority???). Either way, I want to teach to think.

4. Collaboration --- what would be social about isolation? Let's work together!!!Let's build a community arts classroom!

5. Finally, (my fav)... Dialogue --- setting the classroom up to be a place to have a whole bunch of transference happening. It's good to learn from other people; it widens our self awareness within a social context. Also, it gives students a feeling of empowerment when they feel their teaching a new idea to their peers.

Alright guys... start adding on.

Five Reasons I love living in Chicago

1. The city is full of frames waiting for a picturesque view, a lot of the times peculiar and often full of elegance and class. Whether this frame is a window, two skyscrapers or the bars holding up the el tracks, I've witnessed some of the most beautiful moments while living here.

2. The food. Mmmmmmm. I love eating and this city is my craving. So many flavors to try. I think Ukraine food might be next on the menu...

3. I love spring and summer time in Chicago because people come out of their winter hibernation full of smiles out with their loved ones and dogs enjoying the sunshine. I've never lived in a place where suddenly it comes to life one afternoon.

4. Public transportation. Okay, I know, there's lots to complain about it too. BUT, for me, it rocks. I feel free and have never lived anywhere where I can travel to so many different locations with so many different vibes. There's such a lot of world to see... but already I get to see so much in my own backyard.

5. Ohhhh the resources. Just this past week I got to read about three more websites all about artist, about teachers, about collaborations of people and talent, and of course social justice. Three more to add to the list of already so many. The city is such a colorful palette of information and as an artist once said, "I want to be a paintbrush for society yet society is my paintbrush." The irony.

Web 5.0

What would that be like?

Last semester, my ethical/pedagogical class had the opportunity to skype with Craig Roland and it was awesome.

I really enjoyed his blog, but moreover, I support his mission to make the web and all of its useful instruments a valuable component within the art classroom.

I think that the web is a huge part of young people's lives and is accessible for most students. It could be used for a class blog, a social network, research, design components, skyping into other art classes from anywhere in the world, and so much more.