The better question is how
It is clear that when a teacher begins to imagine how they are structuring their curriculum we have a hope that we will be able to teach everything in of importance about our subject. The reality is that we get 90 minutes a day for five days a week (or at least I do). There are important decisions to make about what is worthwhile to learn and understand. Grant Wiggins (and school administration) asks us to decide as art educators what is valuable. As an educator of high school ages students, I want to engage them in a curriculum that addresses things that matter to them, and that will most likely not include the elements of art. Olivia Gude said it best when she described that the modern art curriculum is neither sufficient or necessary to inspire a meaningful education in the arts. A goal for most school is to engage the students in the classroom, and its clear that the predesigned models of a curriculum are neither engaging to teach or to learn. Getting the lists and spreadsheets of what I am required by my county to teach can sometimes be at odds with the supportive research on big ideas. This thematic approach is more successful in involving students in their own learning. However, the conundrum is that as Wiggin wrote, If questions begin to determine the direction of the course, it will no longer be possible to write a sequence of lesson plans in advance. The benefits of teaching a curriculum based on big ideas are that students become invested in their own learning. Once students can structure meaning around their learning they become engaged and the line of inquiry. Students will begin to enjoy learning. As Hamlin and Fusaro have described, the new standard of art education needs to focus on creating, presenting, responding, and connecting meaning. What enduring questions are important to our kids? These are things that should be accounted for when designing a unit that will hopefully engage students. As Bolin described "Through such approaches to art making students grapple with important issues of life, and in doing so begin asking significant questions that enlarge their worldviews." The problem we face as educators though is that often curriculum is pre-designed and county wide with little wiggle room. There is a fear that with allowing students too much creative freedom they will become delinquent, and moreover, if the curriculum is structured in a way that focuses on student-driven inquiry, how can it be tested?
Bolin, Paul E. “We Are What We Ask.” Art Education, vol. 49, no. 5, 1996, doi:10.2307/3193607.
Gude, Olivia. "The Principals of Possibility: Considerations for a 21st -Century Art & Culture Curriculum." Art Education, Vol. 60, No. 1, 2007
Wiggins, Grant. "The Futility of Trying to Teach Everything of Importance." Educational Leadership. 1989.
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