School Arts

Back when I was in college (the first time), art history was taught as art in the dark. We looked at slides and memorized dates and artists' names. Most of the artwork represented male artists from the Western World and few connections were made to...

The Art Problem I use Faith Ringgold's artwork to motivate students during Black History Month in February and Women's History Month in March. We discuss the African American women Ringgold brings to life in her story quilts. Guiding Practice...

Enduring Ideas America's public lands protect our air and water quality, wilderness and wildlife, and must be conserved for the next generation as part of our national heritage. A hundred years of mismanagement have put our public lands at risk....

February is so many things. It's Black History Month, it's Presidents' Day, it's the longest, coldest, shortest month of the year! When I taught way up North, February was the month that even the most even-tempered staff would begin to get a little...

Once again, I want us all to take some time to reflect on our teaching, to consider how we relate to students. We are a nation of many cultures. For the most part, we agree on some aspects of a dominant culture, at least enough so that we can get along...

It was an overcast and gray afternoon. Stepping over trash, broken liquor bottles, and used syringes, I made my way up to the graffiti-laden door of the city school. I stood at the door and rang the bell--waiting for the standard intercom question...

What must we know about African Art? * There are many styles of art in Africa, and they are continually evolving. * Art forms propitiated negative forces and were used in the healing process. * Ancestor figures are not fetishes. They are symbols....

It started as a dream, a need to educate future generations about the Holocaust, to teach tolerance, and to remember the past. Under the auspices of the Jewish Federation of Peoria, a small band of people joined together with the goal of teaching people...

Effective art teachers know how important art history is to the formation of a perceptive learner. Notice how our featured Wonder Full Teacher expands the usual chronological introduction to art history. He does this by bringing the learner and the...

Last year, we embarked on a school-wide project that would take all of our students, kindergarten through-sixth grade, through a tangible art timeline. The result was a passageway--over seventy-five feet in length--that revealed the history of art,...