Choice-Based Art Education: Media-Specific Choice

When people think about Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB), they generally think of a studio that allows for free choice in any media. But what about the classes that are media-specific? How does a teacher address TAB in that setting? Doesn’t limiting the media to just one or two materials go against TAB? (The answer is no, it doesn’t.) When referencing the TAB philosophy, one of the main tenets is the question, “What do artists do?” Artists often spend their career working in just one or two media.

I run a ceramics program that consists of a three-level pathway: Ceramics 1, Ceramics 2, and Ceramics 3. The goal of the first two levels is for students to become more familiar with the material (clay) and the Artistic Thinking Process (ATP), ending with them being independent artists by senior year in Ceramics 3.

The Artistic Thinking Process
Most artists use the ATP when creating a new piece of art, regardless of the medium. The ATP has four stages: inspiration (gathering ideas), development (research, sketching, creating mock-ups, practicing techniques, planning), creation (the making of the artwork), and reflection (making revisions throughout the creation process, looking at the finished product and reflecting on what worked and what didn’t). The ATP can be a linear process, but more often it is cyclical, with artists in a loop of constant art-making, sometimes bouncing between stages.

Ceramics 1
In Ceramics 1, students learn basic techniques—pinch, coil, slab, and sculpting—in teacher-led projects. I know what you’re thinking: TAB is all about choice, so why are you giving a teacher-led project? TAB follows a choice continuum, meaning that it doesn’t have to be “all choice, all the time.” There are times when teacher-led lessons are appropriate, and times when full student choice is appropriate. How much choice and when depends on several factors, and one of those factors is learning basic techniques.

Once students have learned the basic hand-building techniques, we dive into using the ATP. Students learn about ways to develop their ideas through sketching, research, experimenting, and creating mock-ups. They bring their development to life in the creation stage while learning that reflection isn’t just something they do at the end of the process, it’s an ongoing exercise.

Students practice the ATP through categories such as nature, animals, portraiture, and architecture. They choose how they interpret the topic and the best way to build it. This is a low-stakes way of beginning the pathway to understanding both working with clay and utilizing the ATP. The year allows for the understanding that failure is part of the process and that we learn from risk-taking and when things go “wrong.”

Ceramics 2
In Ceramics 2, there are still a few teacher-led explorations, such as the Nerikomi technique, or colored clay, but the focus is for students to go deeper with their work. This is the year when we move onto more complex themes and add more context in their work. At this level, I’ve seen students start to find their styles, voices, and preference for either the sculptural side or the functional side of ceramics.

Ceramics 3
Ceramics 3 becomes almost like an independent study course. Students are no longer given a theme unless they ask for one, which is one of the beauties of TAB—being able to meet students where they are as artists. Students at this level can dictate how they create and use the ATP. They can decide where they want to go and what they want to explore. They come in with ideas and research and are ready to do their own thing.
I am there to help facilitate those ideas. And because students have been focused on just one medium for two years, they have learned the ins and outs of working with the material and have been able to hone their thinking skills as artists.

It’s a beautiful thing to watch students grow as artists both in skill and creativity over the course of a single-media program. To see my ceramics students thinking and behaving like artists is a tremendous feeling all art teachers want. Believing in the TAB philosophy and applying it to a single-media program has been a truly enriching adventure for both my students and for me.