Point of View: Burning Bridges

I created a survey in a Facebook art teacher’s group asking, “What is the primary art education goal for grades K–4 in a public-school environment?” Here are the results:

51% creative expression
19% teaching problem solving
16% using art to connect and deepen understanding of all subject areas
8% teaching skills and techniques
4% building fine motor skills
2% media exploration
<1% a therapeutic outlet
0% learning about famous artists
0% to copy an example and create a pleasing product

Pros and Cons of Cookie-Cutter Art
Student artworks like these Monet bridges line the hallways of hundreds of schools across America, and perhaps the globe. Those who support such projects point to the following attributes:

They’re highly praised by parents, administrators, and fellow teachers.
Results are consistent and a high percentage of students succeed.
Students aren’t ready to explore individually yet.
It teaches specific skills, tool handling, and builds confidence.
Students are comfortable with this structure; it’s used in most classes like math, science, etc.
It’s like learning piano: You have to teach scales before you can compose a song.
Professional artists copy the masters as part of their practice; we should too.
Students learn about the artist.
Planning is easy, requiring only process and media experience.
Everyone learns the same thing at the same time.
It’s easy to demonstrate the meeting of curriculum standards and to grade on a rubric.
It’s better than no art at all.

Those who do not support cookie-cutter projects often cite the following reasons:

There’s no differentiation.
There are no personal connections.
Students didn’t learn anything about themselves in the process.
There’s no problem solving or learning to explore individually.
It disengages learners.
The product is more important than the process.
There’s no room for interpretation or creativity.
Fewer core content connections are made.
Students aren’t creating, they’re following a formula.
It doesn’t build confidence in exploring oneself.
There’s a sense of correct and incorrect results.
Students’ self-esteem may suffer by not meeting the exemplar proficiency.
The audience cannot infer anything about the student who made it.

What Should We Do Instead?

Show many examples of Monet’s works, then take students outside to create en plein air.
Teach the bridge, but have students create their own individual environment.
Study bridges and have students draw the bridge from where they are to where they want to be, or to their dream world.
Start the Monet bridges as a sketch or preliminary activity, then do the “real” individualized project after.

My survey identified that the key components to art education are creative expression, teaching problem solving, and using art to connect and deepen understanding of all subject areas in a public school setting.

Cookie-cutter projects, no matter how cute, fall short and may ultimately be destructive to our profession. You don’t need a teaching certificate to do this kind of lesson.

In an elementary setting, you may be asked to lead certain cookie-cutter lessons because they are “traditions” of the school. Over time, you may be able to steer expectations in other directions. If you find joy in doing one or two lessons like this every year, the damage is likely minimal or nonexistant, but it shouldn’t make up the majority of your lessons. Our students are able to do so much more than cookie-cutter projects allow.