Description

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These stories from art educators highlight how art and visual culture can bridge learning with lived experience. Written by and for art educators from all backgrounds and contexts, this volume offers guidance for expanding students' opportunities to critically examine current events, histories, and cultural assumptions in ways that are relevant and inclusive of all identities. Readers will learn how to use contemporary art and dialogue as tools to acknowledge and value the unique perspectives of each person. Authors from diverse settings offer topics, insights, resources, and research for centering voices and critical conversations in K-12, higher education, museums, and nontraditional classrooms. Including artwork in full-color, the book addresses such questions as:

• ● How can a teacher reflect on their own assumptions and biases before crafting lessons and discussion prompts?
• ● In what ways can contemporary art encourage dialogue in art learning spaces?
• ● What happens when current national issues intersect with the personal lives of students?
• ● How can teachers democratize the classroom so all students are represented?
• ● How can teachers demonstrate ways to critically examine information?

Book Features:

• ● Offers insights from art educators in public, independent, museum, and community settings.
• ● Addresses the role of art teachers in responding to the current highly politicized educational climate.
• ● Critically examines concepts of practice, power, and vulnerability in teaching.
• ● Discusses issues of race, LGBTQ+ rights, family structures, current events, democratic values, and social change as they concern students.
• ● Provides examples of dialogue in various art learning spaces and contexts.
• ● Includes many full-color images of artwork throughout the text.

About the Author

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Connie Stewart is professor emeritus at the University of Northern Colorado and coauthor of Teaching Contemporary Art With Young People: Themes in Art for K-12 Classrooms. Eli Burke is an interdisciplinary artist and PhD candidate in art and visual culture education at the University of Arizona and former education director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson. Lisa Hochtritt is director of the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program at Maryland Institute College of Art. Toya Northington is a multidisciplinary artist and director of equity, inclusion, and belonging at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.