Cultivating Critical Conversations in Art Education

These stories from art educators highlight how art and visual culture can bridge learning with lived experience. Written by and for art educators from all backgrounds and contexts, this volume offers guidance for expanding students’ opportunities to critically examine current events, histories, and cultural assumptions in ways that are relevant and inclusive of all identities. Readers will learn how to use contemporary art and dialogue as tools to acknowledge and value the unique perspectives of each person. Authors from diverse settings offer topics, insights, resources, and research for centering voices and critical conversations in K–12, higher education, museums, and nontraditional classrooms. Including artwork in full-color, the book addresses such questions as:

• ● How can a teacher reflect on their own assumptions and biases before crafting lessons and discussion prompts?
• ● In what ways can contemporary art encourage dialogue in art learning spaces?
• ● What happens when current national issues intersect with the personal lives of students?
• ● How can teachers democratize the classroom so all students are represented?
• ● How can teachers demonstrate ways to critically examine information?

Book Features:

• ● Offers insights from art educators in public, independent, museum, and community settings.
• ● Addresses the role of art teachers in responding to the current highly politicized educational climate.
• ● Critically examines concepts of practice, power, and vulnerability in teaching.
• ● Discusses issues of race, LGBTQ+ rights, family structures, current events, democratic values, and social change as they concern students.
• ● Provides examples of dialogue in various art learning spaces and contexts.
• ● Includes many full-color images of artwork throughout the text.

Connie Stewart is professor emeritus at the University of Northern Colorado and coauthor of Teaching Contemporary Art With Young People: Themes in Art for K–12 Classrooms. Eli Burke is an interdisciplinary artist and PhD candidate in art and visual culture education at the University of Arizona and former education director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson. Lisa Hochtritt is director of the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program at Maryland Institute College of Art. Toya Northington is a multidisciplinary artist and director of equity, inclusion, and belonging at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.

“This book offers its readers a much-needed resource for dialogical interventions capable of dampening the contemporary uproar of outrage and insensitivity. … I heartily applaud the coeditors for successfully assembling these chapters for its audiences. A critical voice makes itself heard.”
—From the Foreword by James Haywood Rolling Jr., professor, Syracuse University

“Rather than frame art education as a series of technical exercises, this invaluable contribution to the field brings to the fore the importance of engaging contemporary culture in the visual arts and examines how divergent ideas can spur creativity and empower critical conversations around difference and community. The authors discuss a diversity of experiences as both practitioners and scholars in navigating consequential subject matter, empowering marginalized perspectives, and decentering traditional modes of instruction.”
—Roberto Visani, associate professor, department of art and music, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

“A book we all need when we need it most! Brimming with vital perspectives stemming from art-based dialogue, this book urges us to grow, to change, to examine our own power, to be brave, and to listen. Doing so is both an invitation and a mandate for compassionate rethinking in our art rooms, our schools, our communities, and beyond.”
—Sara Wilson McKay, associate professor, Virginia Commonwealth University and past chair, NAEA Research Commission

Contents (FINAL)

Foreword James Haywood Rolling Jr.  ix

Preface Connie Stewart  xi

Acknowledgments  xiii

Introduction Connie Stewart, Eli Burke, Lisa Hochtritt, and Toya Northington  1

Part I. Conversations in Art Educational Settings

1.  Exploring Debatable Topics With Divergent Thinking Strategies: A Visual Narrative  7
Rebecca Shipe

2.  Let’s Talk: Engaging in Critical Conversations in the Art Room  11
Amy Pfeiler-Wunder and Mary Kate Bergh

3.  Children Can Talk About Hard Things  16
Kimberly Lane

4.  Investigating Contemporary Art in the Elementary Classroom  19
Amy Felder

5.  Challenging Content and Critical Conversations in the Classroom  21
Kryssi Staikidis

6.  “Yes, and . . .” Extending Conversations in Art Classrooms  26
Nikki Sandschaper

7.  Challenging Implicit Bias: Using Contemporary Art to Understand the Power of Personal Autonomy  27
Kristin A. Ponden

8.  Approaching a Liberatory Future of Museum Education: Reflections on Practice and Pedagogy  29
Ariana Robles, Amara Higuera, Gladys Preciado, and Alice Bebbington

9.  Addressing Facilitator Power in Youth Museum Programs  32
Simona Zappas

10.  Rethinking Feelings in Antiracist Art Pedagogy  34
Injeong Yoon-Ramirez

11.  Shifting the Conversation: Scaffolding Sociocultural Dialogue in the Elementary Art Classroom  38
Beth Link

12.  Artistic Responses to Race  42
Naomi Lifschitz-Grant, Robb Epps, and Taylor Styles

13.  Using Group Reflection and Dialogue as Tools for Antiracist Teaching  49
Amanda Tobin Ripley, Hannah Heller, and Michelle Antonisse

14.  Shaming Queerness in Art Spaces: Would You Change That If You Could?  52
Libya Doman

15.  Rethinking Disability in Art Classrooms  55
Kelly M. Gross

Part II. Structuring the Learning Environment for Open Discussion

16.  Creating Spaces to Support Difficult Dialogues  59
Lisa Hochtritt

17.  Centering Culture Through Critical Conversations  63
Katie Coogan and Margaret Walker

18.  Conversations Over Wi-Fi: Reorienting Student-Centered Art Discussions Online  66
Ashley Mask

19.  Building Community by Using Opening and Closing Circles  69
Valeska Maria Populoh

20.  Gallery Art Hive as Dialogic Space  72
Natasha S. Reid

21.  Artists as Activists: Engaging Middle School Artists in Creating Art That Matters  74
Julie Toole

22.  Finding the Hidden Questions  77
Alice C. Pennisi

23.  Talking About Art: When Questions Are the Answer  79
Erica Richard

24.  Critical Conversations in Conservative Communities  80
Kelly Beach and Dianna Montano, with Connie Stewart

25.  Facilitating Dialogue About Loss and Grief in the Gallery  82
Harrison Orr and Carissa DiCindio

26.  How Superficial Themes in the Art Classroom Can Erase the Narrative of Marginalized Students and Communities  85
Ketal Patel

27.  Problematizing Conversations: Creating Art to Engage in Difficult Discussions  88
William Estrada

28.  Two Colleagues Talk About Care: Responding to the Emotional States of Our Students  91
Chris Cain and John Humphrey, with Connie Stewart

Part III. Inviting Reflective Stories

29.  A Not-So-Queer Education  95
Eli Burke

30.  Story as Pedagogy: Narrative Co-Inquiry With Teachers, Students, and Communities  98
Pamela Harris Lawton

31.  Generating LGBTQ+ Community Through Dialogue  100
Adam J. Greteman, Nic M. Weststrate, and Karen Morris

32.  Power Play in the Art Critique  104
Kerry Downey and Aparna Sarkar

33.  Negotiating White Privilege in a Visual Culture Intervention  107
Lisa Novak and Breckon Chastain

34.  Critical Conversations in Art History: The State of the Field From Students’ Perspectives  110
Rebecka Black, Aiyana Cady-Alviar, Damaria Moye, and Denise Zubizarreta

35.  Opening a Conversation About Adoption Through the Artwork of JooYoung Choi  113
Borim Song

36.  Art and Compassionate Dialogue: Finding and Giving Voice Through Intuitive Knowing and Artistic Research  117
Rébecca Bourgault and Catherine Rosamond

37.  Questioning White Privilege Through Contemporary Art  120
Donalyn Heise and Alisse Guerra

38.  Investigations of Racism Through a Hexagon Project in an Online College Art Methods Course  122
JaeHan Bae

39.  Giving Voice to the Story of Migration  125
Naomi Lifschitz-Grant, Allison Ellis, and Catherine Holmes

40.  Fifth Dimension Discourse: Afrofuturism and the Creation of Brave Spaces in Art Teaching  128
Kathy J. Brown and Lauren Cross

41.  Start Where You Are  133
Toya Northington

Resources That Inspire  137

About the Editors and Contributors  145

Index  153