Students Take Ownership of the School Art Exhibit

When children are involved in the planning of the school art exhibit, their ideas bring humor, play, and youthful sensibility to the art show.  Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Framework Standard 4 states:  Students will demonstrate knowledge of the processes of creating and exhibiting their own artwork: drafts, critique, self-assessment, refinement, and exhibit preparation.  To meet this standard, fifth grade students at my school help prepare for our art show. 

Our exhibits always have a unique theme, so we begin by generating a long list of possible concepts.  I remind fifth graders to be inclusive of the wide diversity represented in K-4 artworks.  Through democratic process, students vote on themes and the winning names set the stage for our art show.  Dream World was selected as the overall theme for our recent May exhibit.  Within Dream World, students identified smaller exhibit areas and named them: Time Portal, Creature Features, Illusion Fusion, Randomville, Boston Tea Party, and the iMovie Animation Theatre.  These themes are shared with the entire school and often become the starting point for artists’ self-directed work at our various studio centers. 

As the event nears, fifth graders take leadership roles in the design of the exhibit, painting of signs, transporting of work to the gymnasium, and arrangement of displays.  A record number of students joined parents after school this year to set up the exhibit.  They returned to break down the show and delivered 3D work directly to classrooms.  Years ago, I did all of these jobs with a crew of parent volunteers.  One year, lacking sufficient parents, the fifth graders offered to help.  At that moment, I realized how student input transforms our exhibit from good to great!  Now I cannot imagine planning an art show without our fifth graders.

Consider inviting your students to assist you in organizing school exhibits.  It is a win/win proposition!  Next time, I will share results with you from a survey conducted after the exhibit in which students responded to questions about their art show.

Diane Jaquith
Burr Elementary School
Newton, MA
didij@aol.com