ARED 2110: Playful Pedagogy

Addressing popular culture seems a difficult task for every art program. There are worries of creating inappropriate artworks, offending those who differ from the dominant culture, but also making sure that the art program still exist on a educational level where techniques and histories are being learned (Duncan, 2009).

As for my personal experience, throughout most of high school my art teacher focused largely on "pulling from the students" as he would say. There were very few "assigned" lessons once you mastered the techniques taught in Drawing 1 students were pretty much given free will to chose the outcome of their artwork. The time spent, the medium, the composition, and the subject matter were all decided by the student. Of course he was there to assist in all stages of the process but for the most part he watched the process we were creating for ourselves and the way we were developing as artist. At the time I was confused, I did not understand why he wouldn't assign us a particular assignment and at times frustrated. But now I understand more than ever why he didn't push us but instead pulled when we needed help. He was allowing us to explore, explore mediums and techniques but also and perhaps most importantly explore what we wanted to create works of art about. As always, there were the students who only wanted to create canvases painted with quotes found from Pinterest which I'm sure made him want to pull his hair out and doubt the whole system. But there were others who with the freedom could finally explore ideas that are regularly ignored in the high school curricula, ideas of popular culture. Because of his system, it was the students discovery and his assistance along the way that made these artworks so successful. But also allowed him to escape the worries associated with a program driven by popular culture because his focus was on what the students wanted to create and from that he could cater to specific students about their ideas.

In a way I think his ideals still remain in my art making today, it has helped me to find a way to explore my own ideas more before giving up on them.

---

Refrences

Duncan, P. (2009). Toward a popular pedagogy: Popular culture and the pleasure of transgression. Studies in Art Education, 50(3), 232-244.