Comments | art_classes: A question

kindofgirl in art_classes

A question

Feb 02, 2010 19:21

I noticed a lot of the people in here took art classes in high school. Ironically enough, I became an Art teacher but I hardly took any art classes before college. Some of you have expressed very fond memories from your high school art classes, and some have had some really awful experiences with their teachers/assignments. So here's my question ( Read more... )

Comments 10

stoopid_silly February 3 2010, 01:40:32 UTC

I loved art classes in grade school and college. high school was really bad. the normal teacher was on maternity leave almost all semester, and we had a awful sub. She wanted really really exact things. Draw a tree, but do it exactly this way. Very frustrating. And then she'd be a really mean grader and take points off for stuff she didn't even ask for in the first place. Her assignments were really boring and her instruction was absolutely unhelpful. I wasn't creatively inspired and I didn't improve at all technically. I hated it.

kindofgirl February 3 2010, 04:03:19 UTC

Hmm, that sounds like some elementary art teachers I've seen! Okay everyone, here's how to draw a Y tree, and smily sun, and square/triangle house... I think getting long-term subs in art can be hard because it's not like there's a textbook to teach from, you need to have some skill yourself.

Thanks for your comment!

(The comment has been removed)

kindofgirl February 3 2010, 04:08:03 UTC

I tell my students that art is about communication. Communicating your personal feelings and experiences, or communicating ideas about bigger, universal issues. I find that just saying 'express yourself' is much to broad and can be a really confusing concept to a high school student. Often they don't even really know who they are or what they want to express!

I agree that it should be unique. If a teacher creates an assignment and gets 30 identical images, it wasn't a very good assignment.

Did you have a teacher that wanted you to create your artwork a 'certain' way?

strud3l February 3 2010, 02:49:41 UTC

I hated highschool art because I never got actual critique. Literally, in four whole years I must have gotten like one legit critique and I thought that most of my teachers hated me. I couldn't understand why, when the teacher would go around and literally help almost every other person, she would only say "Doin' Good." or "Nice."

When I confronted one of them about it in my last year I was told that they didn't think I needed any. As a result, I don't think that I improved anywhere near as much as I could have.

A good thing about highschool art was that it was an easy A. That's about it.

kindofgirl February 3 2010, 04:10:18 UTC

You have an interesting point. More often, I have students that hate any kind of criticism (they don't want to change anything in their project, that would be more work for them!), rather than students that want me to be critical of them. I have a couple students right now that are fantastic artists and you made me think about how I might be giving them too much praise. Thanks for your comment!

strud3l February 3 2010, 05:11:13 UTC

No problem. I definitely understand where most art teachers that instruct students under college level are coming from. More than half of the kids in my class hated that art didn't turn out to be the study hall they imagined.

I just wish I had asked a year or two earlier. I probably would have gotten some actual work done!

pixistik1687 February 3 2010, 04:33:04 UTC

i only really took one art class in high school and it was ib art (international baccalaureate, similar to advanced placement) and the only reason i took the class was so i could get a free sixth period (the class itself was '8th period' from 6-8:30 twice a week, the school had 6 periods in the regular school day) what i liked about it is that it was so totally free. this wouldn't work for you, probably, but basically it was a room full of art supplies, seriously a ton of them and the teacher basically just said, "k as long as you're creating something i'm happy." he would come along and comment on what would make it better or new techniques i could use or something. but i know this wouldn't work most likely. i think the best is to give assignments, but to make sure there's freedom in there so the student can use his or her style ( ... )

stephc February 3 2010, 05:26:29 UTC

I took art every year in jr. high and high school. The best teachers, I think, were the ones who gave a demo or showed examples of the technique/project and then let us do our own thing.

In high school we had some group projects where we all worked together on a big project. We sculpted a 12 foot tree out of copper for the wall in the auditorium, we painted murals in some of the bigger class rooms and even on walls around town (it was a realllly small town). The year after I graduated, the art class painted the school mascot on the dome of the school. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be allowed to do that now. It's been a while since I was in high school!

We had some great field trips, local college, art shows, graphic art businesses. I think it's good to encourage your students to enter art shows and to help them apply for scholarships if they are interested in persuing a career in art.