Art Animates: Ideas Inspired by a University-Sponsored Summer Arts Academy for Middle and High School Students

ABSTRACT

Art can provide a vehicle for animating learning. Teachers bring ideas to life through curriculum, while artists realize their ideas through images, often translating between forms, media and spaces. This paper describes the context, content and format of a residential Summer Arts Academy for gifted and talented middle and high school students, held on a university campus. In 2013, the theme of the visual art program at the Summer Arts Academy was animation, which linked to the summer exhibition at the local art museum. Collaborations among university faculty, public school teachers, community artists, and art museum and gallery staff have potential to animate learning for students, while stimulating additional forms of public engagement.     

Riots and a blank canvas: young people creating texts,creating spaces

This article draws on research into the work of Greenshoots, 1 1 All young participants referred to in this article have been anonymised and pseudonyms provided. In discussions with Greenshoots and the mentors, they took the decision that they wanted to be named, and for Nottingham to be identified as the context of the place and its history is an important element of their work.
a small company of creative practitioners who provide opportunities for young people to work on projects involving visual and creative practices with a strong link to local heritage. Two specific projects form the focus of the paper: Riot and Blank Canvas. Both aimed to provide opportunities for young people to work with professional artists and performers to create a site‐specific exhibition and performance in a disused warehouse space on the edge of the developing Creative Quarter in Nottingham. The projects took place out of school, and the research focused on the creative processes and practices involved in the production of texts created by the young people as they inhabited the space and developed, within a community of peers and artists, representations of that urban space. This article explores the ways in which the projects open up the potential for young people to engage with literacy practices, which traverse the boundaries of space, of art forms and of notions of culture and heritage. Two theoretical frames are used in the paper: Lave and Wenger's “legitimate peripheral participation” (1991) and various scholars' explorations of place‐based approaches. In this way, the article aims to contribute to understandings of the diverse roles and potentials of young peoples' creative practices and literacies in and out of school contexts.     

Inspiration into Installation: An Exploration of Contemporary Experience through Art

This article discusses the ways in which a fine art department has successfully enabled pupils, staff and the local community to gain access to exciting and wide‐ranging art experiences. Through the creation of temporary installations and exhibitions the art department at Trinity School regularly becomes a gallery resource centre for part of the year. Children across all key stages create art inspired by artists in residence (including an artist teacher) in response to challenging contemporary issues. In 2005 three collaborative installations were produced in response to a potentially disruptive phase within the educational establishment. ‘Sleep‐Eternal Rest’ involved pupils' contributions to the installation, gallery visits and the study of different artists' work. For the exhibition ‘Flesh, Fur and Feathers’, a resident artist worked with students in response to a hanging deer, game and a table laden with fruit. In a building about to be demolished a group of recently graduated artists collaborated on an exhibition entitled ‘Somewheretogo’. This collaborative partnership led to art becoming a central resource for different curriculum areas as well as PSHE. The success of the venture led to pupils' own work becoming an accessible artistic resource, to which they themselves could respond. As well as avoiding the potential limitations of examdriven targets and assessment, it became a source of enrichment in personal, educational and creative terms.     

Room 13: The Movement and International Network

Room 13 is a global uprising of creative and entrepreneurial children who are responsible for a growing international network of student‐organised art studios. Each Room 13 studio facilitates the work of young artists alongside a professional adult artist in residence, providing an exchange of ideas, skills and experience across the ages. The result is an ongoing collaboration between adults and young people and a thriving culture of philosophical enquiry driven by a motivation to think and to learn. My own experience with Room 13 spans from that of the student, to adult artist and practitioner. Working under the direction of subsequent student‐management teams, I have been fortunate to be involved in the process by which Room 13 has gone on to establish an international network of student‐run art studios, serving an expanding global community of young artists. The emerging global movement surrounding these studios calls for a serious revaluation of what art is – and who is qualified to make it. Room 13 not only augments the case for the work of young artists, but presents a challenge to the current systems for art education. As the quality of formal arts education is eroded by a universal need to standardise educational experiences, the training that Room 13 provides motivates individuals and develops their creativity in a way that outstrips anything that schools, or even art colleges, can currently offer.     

呼和浩特市会展旅游开发初探

笔者对呼和浩特市近3年举办的会展旅游基本情况进行了分析,发现近几年呼和浩特市会展旅游规模不断扩大,级别逐渐提高,会展形式越来越多;但也存在运转缺乏调控、配套设施不完备、从业人员素质低、专业会展组织少和专业化大型会展公司数量少的问题。针对这些问题笔者提出了规范管理、加强软硬件建设、准确定位市场、加强宣传促销和强化专业化分工协作等建议。     

RESEARCH SECTION: Provision in further education colleges for 14‐ to 16‐year‐olds with social,emotional and behavioural difficulties

Previous research set out to identify and examine practice and provision for young people exhibiting behaviour problems who may have been placed in colleges of further education for a variety of reasons. In this paper, Natasha Macnab, John Visser and Harry Daniels explore some of the implications faced by college staff and examine some of the key themes that emerged from this previous study. The first of these themes concerns ‘college culture’, which is seen as being ‘adult orientated’ and therefore more likely to appeal to young people who are tired of school. Indeed, college staff suspect at times that schools are using the transition to college as an alternative to exclusion for some young people. This form of ‘managed transfer’ raises real issues in colleges, especially when some members of college staff do not yet appreciate the ‘appeal of teaching young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD)’, regarding them as ‘disaffected’ and ‘switched off’ from education. The authors of this article note the need for ‘skilled and committed adults’ to build relationships with these young people in order to promote their social inclusion. They argue that this work will require professional development for staff but will have real benefits for the young people concerned.     

5×5×5 = Creativity in the Early Years

5×5×5 ? Creativity in the Early Years has involved five early years' settings, five artists and five cultural centres working in partnership to support young children (3–6 years) in their exploration, communication and expression of creative ideas. This year‐long research project has been inspired by the approach to education and the creative arts in early years' settings in Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy. The three aims have been evaluated; they were: to demonstrate ways in which creativity and innovation can be fostered in and with young children; to influence early years' educational practice by establishing creativity as an essential foundation of early learning; and to share findings as widely as possible, creating a legacy for the future. This article examines the collaborative processes between artists, educators and cultural centres as they worked with young children using a creative and reflective cycle. The underpinning principles and the role of professional development have been essential to the success of the project. Findings show that careful observations and documentation of children's words will provide insight into their ideas and understandings. As adults it is our role to facilitate and support children's depth of learning. By respecting children and taking time to make observations and connections with the children's thinking, we can refine our own efforts in supporting their learning more effectively.     

Artemisia and Her Mentors: Partnership and Legacy

Through a comprehensive exhibition and study project, a group of high school students and women artists worked together to document the artists’ work, explore the values and issues of women’s art, envision careers, and create an exhibition and permanent teaching resources. The project’s purpose was to test a model curriculum designed to promote gender equity and positive identification among young women in art, and to make the students’ discoveries available for other students in the community. Research confirmed needs for curriculum reform: the need to present art as an appropriate and desirable career choice, to present curriculum content that relates positively to the experiences of female students, and to raise awareness of values and assumptions about women’s art-making.     

A social semiotic mapping of voice in youth media: the pitch in youth video production†

An ethics of youth media production is the interplay of identities, media literacy, and modality that shape the environment within which young people produce media, yet how ‘voice’ is fostered and/or constrained in these environments could still be explored more fully. This paper stems from a larger qualitative study of how youth created films about their lives and communities in four non-school spaces that strove to give voice to underrepresented youth across the USA. This detailed semiotic analysis illustrates the nuances in the discussion between young people and youth media arts educators in two of these organizations during the pitch, the key moment in the filmmaking process in which the youth presented their ideas for their videos for adult approval before they moved on to the next stages, for example, filming. This analysis illustrates how young people negotiated their voice, tracing the negotiation and the inherent power dynamics that occurred.     

The Body Frontier

The Finnish Art Teachers’ Society celebrated its 90th anniversary in 1996 with an exhibition `Picturing a Century’. In connection with this occasion, four students of the University of Art and Design Helsinki (Marjukka Barron, Mirka Kastinen, Iris Kärner-Kupiainen and Elina Heikkilä) organised a course ‘The Body Frontier’ involving 25 upper secondary school pupils from four Helsinki schools. One of the aims of the course was to bring forth the many possibilities art education offers, another was to expand the anniversary exhibition outside the museum walls, reaching people who do not usually go to museums. The course first examined different views of the body and studied historical and philosophical aspects as well as contemporary media images, and secondly the study of one’s own body; e.g. its form and the space it holds. The pupils made paper sculptures using their own body as a mould. The sculptures and a short video about their making were exhibited in the central shopping arcade Forum, adjacent to the museum with the main exhibition. The course instructors approached people in the arcade and discussed feelings and ideas evoked by the work. The process itself and the pupils’ ideas were documented in the museum with the main exhibition. The course was a successful experiment in co-operation between schools and a university, financing itself largely through commercial sponsorship. The exhibition provoked discussion about the dividing line between art education and `art proper’, and the public presentation of pupils’ work.     

从饭店技能大赛看饭店业员工综合素质培养

2008年8月14日-15日,贵州省旅游饭店技能大赛在贵阳举行,来自各地州市的选手们同台竞技,展示了我省饭店业员工的风采。与技能展示相比,参赛者们的礼仪规范、英语口语以及语言表述能力明显滞后,由此,提高饭店业员工的综合素质迫在眉睫。     

The Empirical Spectator and Gallery Education

This paper examines the onto‐epistemic status and understanding of contemporary material culture and of visual art, particularly in the context of gallery education. It does so through a case study of the response of 15 year‐old school students in the Czech Republic and in England to a recent photographic exhibition, I.N.R.I., created by artists Bettina Rheims and Serge Bramly. It supports and develops further the proposition that the tradition grounded in the concept of a single ‘objective’ interpretation of a work of art has been significantly undermined by the paradigmatic change that has taken place in the last decades. In the course of this process the vocabulary of signification (e.g. doves, the royal blue, temptations of Christ, class struggle) inherited from the age of ideologies and grand narratives has been significantly weakened. In its place there emerged the vocabulary of signs born out of the language of high tech media. It takes the form of dynamically constituted units identifiable via daily exposure to techno processes, e.g. familiar from advertising and networking, at best mere fragments of traditional narratives. The recognition of reality is couched in terms of consumer units originating in objects (e.g. gadgetry) and object‐based practices filling (indeed constituting) the living place of today. This shift is particularly apparent among English young people, brought up in a more consumer‐oriented society, and to a lesser degree among Czechs. This is well in keeping with the concept of the post‐modern ‘empirical spectator’ developed in recent literature on art and material culture education.     

中国当代艺术展览的多元化

艺术展览作为艺术家和美术作品的重要载体,记录着艺术发展过程。中国当代艺术展览只是相对于中国这个独特的国度,正由一个单一的以主题为先导的展览方式走向成熟,走向多元。多元化是中国当代艺术展览的现代趋势。     

Performance Art at Secondary Level

This article considers the far‐reaching potential and the particular characteristics of performance art within the secondary art curriculum. It discusses the means by which an art department has incorporated it into their teaching curriculum at a state secondary school with reference to installations and the work of different performance artists in residence; details of their performances, methods and artistic intentions are discussed. After consideration of the varied responses from staff and students within Trinity Catholic School, the values and significance of direct experience are discussed. In its transience and its reflecting of the performative acts common to ordinary life, performance art offers a challenge to young people's thinking and creativity.     

Investigating the Impact of Contrasting Paradigms of Knowledge on the Emancipatory Aims of Gallery Programmes for Young People

Within an emerging philosophy of contemporary gallery education, new pedagogies are required to meet the demands of looking at art, with increasingly varied constituent groups. Strategies that aim to empower young learners come from an ideological framework in which knowledge is negotiated and local significances are produced conversationally by learners and facilitators. Tension exists between the ideological position and the role of the gallery as ‘expert’: this conflict creates ambivalence towards the learner. The discourse of the ‘expert’ and the discourse of ‘local negotiation’ employ different pedagogic strategies, creating tension in the ways in which knowledge is reproduced for the visitor and participant. This article explores interrogatory pilot work with young people at Tate Modern. I use a hermeneutical approach to explore the interpretive roles of facilitator and participant when language‐based strategies are used to look at art. This research aims to construct a pedagogy that enables young people to learn about art in ways that take account of their situation as learners.     

Sexualised music media and children’s gender role and self-identity development: a four-phase study

There has been much concern about the perceived increase in sexualised media and its potential impact on children’s well-being and development. This phenomenon was examined in a four-phase study focusing, specifically on music media. Phase 1 investigated the prevalence of sexualised music media broadcast on Australian free-to-air television in child-friendly time periods. Phase 2 examined children’s preferred music genres, artists and videos to assess their engagement with sexualised music media. Phase 3 examined children’s perceptions of gender roles and self-identities. Phase 4 explored children’s imitations of music media artists and performances. The study used a mixed-method approach incorporating content analysis, individual and group interviews, children’s activities and observations. Findings reveal that music media is a substantive influence shaping children’s everyday lives and proposes educating children about media influences from a young age.     

Unconscious and unnoticed professional practice within an outstanding school for children and young people with complex learning difficulties and disabilities

This article describes a three‐year project undertaken at Pear Tree School for children and young people with severe and multiple and profound learning difficulties. Lesley Sullivan, the school's head teacher, believed that much of the value within the work of this outstanding school went unidentified by existing approaches to planning, monitoring and evaluation. Richard Crombie, educational psychologist, was engaged to work on the project. Also involved were Kate Walker and Rebecca Warnock, deputy head teachers, as well as the whole staff, children and some parents. The project takes as its starting point that essential, but very often unnoticed and unconscious, professional practice is rooted in implicit processes learnt experientially. We set ourselves the task of finding meaningful frameworks for identifying and developing that practice. This meant close observation within and outside school coupled with feeding back to staff, and their subsequent engagement with and use of explanatory frameworks.     

Translocal assemblage and the practice of alternative media toward racial justice: a pedagogical perspective

There is a growing cultural and social movement among youth who draw on spoken word poetry and documentary style videos to participate in the new media landscape. Many multimedia poems have appeared on social media sites such as YouTube and Vimeo as a form of participatory politics. In this article, the author takes up a discussion of translocal practices and ‘translocal assemblage’ wherein individuals and groups engage in the exchange of ideas across space and time. One example is a multimedia poem about the underrepresentation and invisibility of racialized minority students at a major American university. This viral multimedia poem remixed elsewhere based on students’ experiences at another university demonstrates not only the potential of translocal assemblage in participatory politics but also the practice of alternative media in the movement toward racial justice. That is, young people are finding civic resources and building on each other’s work to challenge the social order. Pedagogically, the author built on the theoretical underpinning of translocal assemblage to shape work with students in the college classroom who, in turn, produced other genres of alternative media. The resultant video documentaries about locally unjust social arrangements make evident the subtle nature of cultural flows that have direct consequences for critical studies in education.     

The professional development needs of staff in Wales on behaviour management and attendance: findings from the NBAR Report

This paper presents the evidence collected for the National Behaviour and Attendance Review (NBAR) in Wales on the professional development needs of staff on behaviour management and school attendance. These data were collected in two stages between 2006 and 2008. At Stage 1, data were collected from four pre‐selected professional focus groups who met throughout Wales to consider specific topics relating to the behaviour of children and young people in schools at the present time (n = 121). At Stage 2, relevant professional focus groups were established to specifically examine the themes of professional development and training in behaviour management and attendance in both North and South Wales (n = 62). This latter group activity built on the preliminary work of the NBAR review group’s own sub‐group on professional development and training. The paper considers the outcome of all these findings and their implications for future practice in Wales.     

Wirkungen des Lernens mit Videofällen bei Lehrkräften

Case-based learning with videos is regarded as a promising way to promote the analytical abilities of teaching staff as a basis for their professional actions. For that purpose, the competence to assess and diagnose situations of learning and instruction is crucial, i.e., especially the ability to apply conceptual knowledge to pedagogical cases and to take teacher as well as learner perspectives into account. The article reports on the results of an experimental field intervention study aimed to convey this competence effectively by providing different forms of instructional support to over 100 students of English Studies (2?×?2 design, conceptual knowledge: present/not present; teacher and learner perspectives: present/not present). The central focus is on identifying further effects that personal characteristics (individual learning conditions, e.g., prior knowledge, tolerance of ambiguity) and process characteristics (cognitive load; cognitive, emotional, and motivational activation) have on the development of this competence, and how strong these effects are. Multiple linear regression analyses show that this type of learning with case-based videos places less demand on personal factors, and that the quality of the learning process plays a decisive role.