Whiteness in the Art Classroom (and no, I'm not talking Bristol board)

Recently in Rebecca's class, I read an article entitled "Imagining Ourselves into Transcultural Spaces:  Decentering Whiteness in the Classroom" by Catherine Kroll (anthologized in Undoing Whiteness in the Classroom, Virginia Lea and Erma Jean Sims, eds., 2008).  I've been thinking a lot about this article and others, and agree with its central premise that "whiteness" is often considered as the norm and, as such, minority cultures and views are treated as "Others" and are marginalized in the classroom, even when the student body is composed of individuals from minority cultures.  If a student is only told about their specific cultural heritage as an example of Otherness, why would they feel connected to the class and its teachings?

To some people who aren't studying art education theory and practice, it may seem as if an art class isn't as important for defining cultural and subcultural identity as, say, a social studies class.  To others, it may seem that the easy solution is to make sure that an art class has (tokenist, simplistic) projects relating to African mask designs, Cinco de Mayo, Asian textile design, etc.

Kroll's article, as well as others I've read recently (most notably Olivia Gude's "Postmodern Principles") proposes that rather than ignoring multi- and interculturalism in the art classroom, or using non-hegemonic cultural manifestations as examples of the (wise, earthy) Other at specifically-demarked times, we can introduce other cultures' output by opening up what we consider art to be.  This is in keeping with the benefits that I see in studying "visual culture" in an art classroom; by opening up discussion to include popular culture as well as 'canonic' high art, we also open the door for discussion of 'traditional' arts, 'underground' art and culture, art from resistance movements, etc.

Gude proposes that the standard "7+7" curriculum for art in middle and especially high school, which focuses on the 7 generally-accepted formal elements (line, shape, value, texture, form, color and space) and 7 design principles (balance, rhythm, gradation, emphasis, harmony, unity, opposition - these are less generally-accepted than the formal elements) are specific to the Western culture.  They're presented as universal and foundational, however, and as such they are a perfect example of  'normative Whiteness" in the classroom. 

Gude proposes a set of "postmodern principles" (appropriation, juxtaposition, recontextualization, layering, interaction of text and image, gazing, and representin') which deal with the conceptual trends in contemporary art, and allow for students to more directly deal with expressive content in their own work.   She points out that most secondary art education curricula focus on what Clement Greenberg (1971) called "cold modernism" (Manet, Seurat, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso) - using these artists as springboards into discussion of the "7+7" before asking students to apply those principles to produce work which, often, is strongly guided by the images they've been shown from those "major" artists.  By contrast, "hot modernism" artists (Duchamp and the Dadaists, most notably) are most commonly cited as influences among contemporary artists, especially those whose work is loaded with specific meaning and identity politics.

Those "hot modernists" may have utilized their knowledge of the "7+7" in their work, but there was more to their work than an engagement of formalism.  There was content first and foremost, and that seems to be the best way to address art with teenagers in a way that makes them genuinely motivated by, and attached to, their artwork.

This semester, I've been student-teaching with a cooperating teacher whose curriculum, especially for the 9th and 10th grade 3-D class, is based strongly in the "7+7" model.  The teacher's planning is solid enough that the assignments work well with the classes.  I'm happy to get to teach with him, but this semester is starting to make me think of how I will teach classes when I'm in control of the curriculum - and I think that I'm starting to rethink the "7+7" model, even though I've used it for years in my pre-college classes for Pratt and SVA.  At SVA over the summers of 2008 and 2009, I co-taught with a conceptual artist (Eric Doeringer) and have so far presented the students with discussions of formal elements as a way to show them slides of artwork which I feel would interest them.  The projects they worked on, however, were based in concepts closer to Gude than to Arnheim.  If I'm able to teach again this coming summer, I think it's time for me to move further away from straight formalism, and will spend some prep time this spring making presentations and assignments more based in conceptual themes - identity, juxtaposition, emotional content - and Gude's proposed principles.

It's been a draining, work-intensive semester, but I'm very happy to have been in the school I'm in, working with the teacher with whom I'm working, while reading the articles I'm reading.  It's affected the ways I process what I see in the classroom, what I read for my graduate classes, and how I am starting to reframe my concept of what I can offer students through art education, and how.  The classes I'm taking, and my student-teaching experience, have easily saved me a year of running on automatic, teaching students with a 'cold modernism' curriculum and using assignments of the sort that I had designed before entering this program.