Black History Month, a TAB project

TAB: Teaching Artistic Behaviors. I am on a journey now, into the TAB universe. The TAB classroom is choice-based. It personalizes learning and makes differentiation so much easier. Students take responsibility for their learning and self-assess their progress, and state and national standards still get addressed. Basically, students get to choose what they work on, according to your guidelines and with your careful facilitation.

I’m sure I’m going about it in the stupidest way possible, but let’s not forget that my path to success has always been a windy one (a Jeremy Bearimy, if you will).

So,

I provided my Art 2 with a short list of Black artists with interesting visual styles. I tried to curate it a little bit, not to censor or keep anyone off the list, but to give them a good starting point rather than a novel to sift through. However, the list consisted of only names. I didn’t include any sort of description of the person or what type of art they do so the students would have to discover that on their own, without skipping anyone for a pointless reason. 

I tried to keep it varied, including painters, illustrators, graffiti artists, current artists, artists from other decades, well known, lesser-known, men, women, and other. 

The list:

Faith Ringgold
Jacob Lawrence
Betye Saar
Jonathan Green
Radcliffe Bailey
Romare Bearden
Billy Graham
(the artist, not the preacher)
Kehinde Wiley
Margaret Taylor-Burroughs
Horace Pippin
Aaron Douglas
Alma Thomas
Corey Barksdale
Jerry Pinkney
Lina Iris Viktor
Jean Michele Basquiat
Ezi Wear
Xane Asiamah
Jordan Casteel
Jamea Richmond-Edwards
Ebony G. Patterson

The students can use a computer, tablet, or phone to Google the artists. The main requirement that they have on this project is to choose an artist that they like or whose style they’d like to be inspired by and go from there. The rest will play out in the same way as our last project, which was completely open-ended. The students could choose their medium, size, substrate (surface), and subject. Most limitations came from what we have available in the room. Otherwise, anything appropriate is allowed. This is Art 2 so they’ve already learned the basics of how to use the tools and how to clean up after themselves, so that’s why I’ve skipped some of the early instructional parts of TAB with them.

It’s all experimental from here. They are my guinea pigs and I am a mad scientist. All I really want is for them to become explorative and learn that they have no limits on learning. In the reality of only having tried this for the past 2 weeks with no formal training, I’ve received mixed results, basic artwork, and plenty of students not doing much of anything. The few students who were already good and interested in pushing themselves are going to thrive in this environment. I *have* seen many students who have never done anything at all in my room start working on their own art, and that is my goal for the rest of them. The process itself should create some self-motivation within these kids, but I’m seeing a lot of hesitation. I think it’s part laziness and part confusion. We’ll get there. I hope.

 

“The dot above the ‘i’ contains Tuesdays, July, and the point where ‘nothing never occurs.'”

Black History Month, a rambling.

One important aspect of education that we don’t always consciously think about in teaching is race and cultural background. You’re fooling yourself if you think that these things aren’t a factor in the classroom. Any number of hurdles can materialize as a result of diversity in the classroom including but not limited to language barriers, vast economic differences, or religious restrictions. And of course, differences of all shapes and types should be *celebrated* as well.

I personally feel like I have a unique perspective on this topic, being one of 2 non-white teachers at my school of about 100 staff and about 1,700 students. I am full Filipino, although I could probably pass for half-white and the other teacher is [South East Asian]. I don’t know what percentage of our students are non-white, but I have on average 1 non-white student per class of 30. The state make-up is 93% white, 4% black, 1.75% two or more races, .8% asian, .6% other, .2% Native American.

Yes, this makes a difference. Yes, I feel an obligation sometimes.

I don’t know what all the other teachers teach when they refer to history, world cultures, world literature, American literature, etc. I trust that most are sensitive to the needs of students of non-white backgrounds, but I honestly don’t know if that’s true. I think that some of them may lack the empathy or even the basic thought processes to feel the need to address it at all.

I feel like I should really be putting more effort into these thoughts and acting on some of the urges I’ve had to start a school club on race and diversity. I just never knew where to start. Thinking “out loud” here, I wonder if maybe finding a race/diversity sensitivity training for teachers would be a great way to start that journey. I’m afraid of putting too many things on my plate but I also can’t stress enough how important this is.

For now, I digress.

February is Black History Month, which I find to be necessary in this very White space. I personally don’t wish to relegate it to *only* this time of year. I would love to see more and more and more persons of color in the spotlight at all times. A goal of mine is to create a wall of portraits in my classroom, specifically of non-white women and some non-white and non-straight men so students outside the majority can feel represented, at least somewhere.

When asked to simply list any visual artist they know without Googling, most of my Art 1 kids had trouble thinking of any at all, but some came up with some combination of the renaissance men (aka the ninja turtles), Warhol, da Vinci, Picasso, Haring, Banksy, Bob Ross, Dr. Seuss, Walt Disney. VERY seldom, I saw Khalo written down, otherwise there were no other women listed and absolutely no Black or Asian or Middle Eastern or Latinx or Pacific Islander people. I should’ve phrased the question to list any non-white, non-European artists you know or have heard of. I wouldn’t have gotten any results.

First, you have to understand that the arts are extremely limited in this area. Sports, as in most mid-western-type locations are of utmost importance and math and English are probably next. We have but ONE single art teacher among the 14 elementary schools in the county. You can imagine how little they hear about visual or literary artists of any kind. Middle schools get 9 weeks of art during a year, if they’re lucky. Throughout high school, we require one full year of art as a pre-req for graduation.

Is being able to list the names of visual artists essential to a successful adult life? No, not even if your plan is to become a Jeopardy! champ. But learning about individual artists  can teach you a lot about culture, overcoming struggles, using art to escape or translate your emotions, style, process, design, accomplishment, and failure. Introducing students to Black artists can broaden their scope of knowledge, allow them to see successful and artistic people of color, learn about someone they’ve never heard of and possibly spread the news, and either learn from someone like them or someone not like them. Both are important and valid.

As a result of this mixture of feelings, I’ve incorporated a Black History Month project into my Art 2 curriculum, and looking forward, will probably do the same next year with Art 1. I’ve rambled on long enough here, so a description of the project itself is in my next post 🙂