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Stacy Fuller(February)
I am the Director of Education at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. In this role, I work with a talented team of fifteen museum educators to ensure the development, execution, and evaluation of the Amon Carter’s mission-focused educational programs and resources for various audiences. With experience as a museum registrar, in curatorial work, and designing professional development programs for educators, I have a passionate love for works of art and also accessibility—making sure that visitors of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities are able to enter, access, and engage with museum collections.

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« Action Research Improves Teaching and Learning | Main | Deconstructing the Studio Centers »

June 22, 2009

Choice and TAB

Are you curious about choice-based art education and its origins?  Choice-based teaching and learning differs from more traditional whole-class art education because students are encouraged to be fully self-directed.  To facilitate for students’ autonomy, a very carefully planned structure is in place.  Classes begin with a whole-class lesson or demo; students choose to follow the demo or work on their own.  Studio centers contain materials, tools, and reference materials and children are trained to set up and clean up each center. Small group and one-on-one instruction, as well as support and assessments of student progress keep the choice-based teacher busy during studio time.  Everyone meets together at the end of class to share artwork and experiences. 

This pedagogy is not new - Kathy Douglas, Pauline Joseph, and Sharon Henneborn were all teaching in choice-based classrooms back in the 1970’s.  They did not know one another at the time.  In fact, they did not know of any other art teachers who facilitated authentic art making experiences through students’ choices of media and content.  It simply made sense to each of these highly skilled educators, and because of them, the practice has grown throughout the US and beyond.

Thirty years ago, it was not easy to meet like-minded colleagues.  The social networks that we take for granted today were not in existence then.  NAEA was (and continues to be) a vital networking event which brings together educators with similar interests and concerns.  I met Kathy Douglas at NAEA in the late 1990’s, after meeting and training with Pauline Joseph.  At NAEA 2001, a small group of choice-based art teachers met at a NYC restaurant and formed the Teaching for Artistic Behavior organization.  The name of this group refers to our philosophy of educating for the acquisition of artistic behaviors.  TAB is the philosophy and choice is the methodology; together, they create the pedagogy we call choice-based art education.  

The following sites provide more information on choice-based art education and Teaching for Artistic Behavior:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TAB-ChoiceArtEd/

http://www.teachingforartisticbehavior.org/

http://knowledgeloom.org/tab/

Diane Jaquith
Co-Founder, Teaching for Artistic Behavior, Inc.
Burr Elementary School
Newton, MA
didij@aol.com

Posted at 04:26 PM |

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