Opening the World to Students through Art

Two years ago, I was fortunate enough to be able to take a 6 month break from my regular job and had to opportunity to think about what I’d like to delve into within my teaching practice. As I had the time to read and think, I started seeing some threads that I could pull together. I love using art in the classroom – both exploring published works of artists and creating our own. I also think that giving students the opportunity to explore with technology, and see how it can enhance their own learning, is an important step in helping them grow in our fast paced and changing world. As I thought about these things, I realized that a thread going through my interests was helping students learn about the world and see different perspectives. That’s when I started reading more about global competence. A student who is globally competent can use the knowledge, skills and capacities they have developed over time to examine, appreciate and understand global communities and cultures in order to successfully navigate the world. This is a tall order for elementary teachers and students.

Art is accessible to anyone. You don’t have to be an art major or scholar to appreciate what someone is telling you through their work. Based on your life experience and perspectives, you may come away with one understanding, while others in your group may come to a different conclusion. Sharing these perspectives is important to growing our empathy for others and understanding global issues. These are important skills for anyone to work on, and examining art is a way for young children to be exposed to the world. As one student said to me the other day in class – “When you tell us something about the artist, we see things we didn’t before. We see their perspective.” I can’t express how happy I was that at least one student was able to express one of my goals in using art in the classroom!

When I returned to the classroom after my sabbatical, I started to implement an idea that I had worked on during my time away. We studied the artist Xu Bing, and through that students thought about what they each needed to work on. You can read more about that exploration here.

This year, I moved to third grade. I have a lot of new things to learn. In the back of my mind, I constantly think about what artists or artworks might connect to our curriculum, and what students can learn through expressing themselves and their views in this manner. How does our art speak for us? What are other artists trying to tell us through their work? If we know about an artists’ background and culture, does that help us know why they made some decisions in their work? Can we see connections to other cultures that may initially seem different than our own? What can we learn about each other through these explorations? What risks did the artist take in their work? How can I use that to inspire my own thinking and output? How can I apply what I have learned to other areas of my life?

Creating art can be difficult for some students. As I teacher, I often hear “I’m not good at art” or “I can’t draw” when we first start looking. For a writing project this year, my co-teacher and I have explored a number of artists from around the world with the class. One student commented that exploring different kinds of art has helped her see that she can develop her own style and that it doesn’t have to be so realistic. Also, students can see that creating art can happen in many different forms. We looked at the artist Shantell Martin and this opened up our students’ thinking about creating and experimenting. They were really excited to see that Martin used a 3D printer to make tools to use in her work, integrating art and technology.

Exploring how many threads intersect in learning, and intentionally having students think about the systems that connect things in the world can help them start developing the capacities to navigate the world. Hopefully these building blocks of understanding other cultures will help them as they grow and become citizens of the world.