WISCONSIN ART EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
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Leadership and Advocacy in Art Education

9/15/2014

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Tim Znidarsich
South West Co-Vice President

Starting a new position as an art educator can be daunting, especially if you are just beginning your career. Starting out as a new teacher, I felt overwhelmed. I had many of the same concerns that all art teachers face; how do I promote my art program, how do I show my administration the importance of the arts, and how can I show core teachers the importance of art in their classrooms?

Throughout my first two years of teaching, I have used many different strategies for promoting and advocating for my students and the art education program. The first thing I did was to be visible. When I say this I do not mean just artwork around the school; I mean making myself visible before school, after school, during prep time, during passing time, and most importantly during lunch. I feel that making a solid connection to the colleagues you work with on a daily basis is pertinent to developing your art program. I also updated the display cases throughout the year with new student artwork to show other students and colleagues what type of learning was occurring in my classroom.  

            The next thing that I did, as most art educators do, is to have a district wide art exhibition of student work. To form an even better bond with my administration, I created personalized invitations for my administration and handed them out in person. Doing this led to the superintendent and multiple other administrators and principals attending the art show. After making this connection, I used the support of the administrators to start an art club for the students. To advocate for the art club, I created a proposal that outlined expenses, student benefits, community benefits, and district benefits. I later wrote a letter to the school board with detailed notes about how the art club would help student development and how it would be beneficial for them. It took me about a year to get the art club approved, but it was well worth the effort and persistence. 

            What I found to be the best way to promote and advocate for my art program and myself was my love and interest for inter-disciplinary units of teaching with other subjects. Bringing art into the science, English, and history classrooms has really shown my fellow teachers and administrators the positive attributes of art education. My administration loves when teachers work together in collaboration and doing this has really helped illustrate how important the arts are to student development as a whole.  Showing other teachers a positive way to integrate art into their teaching has allowed them to explore the arts in their curriculum, and has reinforced the importance of art as an integral part of education today.

Some of my favorite advocacy resources have been blogs and websites from other art educators. They are listed as follows:

http://www.artedguru.com/advocate.html

http://www.artedguru.com

http://artadvocado.com

http://www.arteducators.org/advocacy/advocacy-resources-message

http://www.ebps.net/Page/1521

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Greetings from the West Central region!

9/15/2014

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Lynnae Burns
Your WAEA West Central VP Elect

Greetings from the West Central region! I hope this past summer you found time to nourish and recharge your creative soul. As I write this letter to you, I am putting stamps on postcards that my middle school artists designed the last week of school. This annual activity is one that I look forward to doing, surprising them with an artfully designed postcard wishing them a much deserved summer break.

In this column, I would like to share some art advocacy news from the coulee region in La Crosse:

We kicked off our first annual Arts Festival the second weekend of June. Area artist volunteers, in collaboration with the Pump House Regional Art Center, organized Artspire. Leading up to the Artspire Festival, I worked with a local group of artists and poets to create chalk murals all over our downtown at various sidewalks, business walls and parking lots. The "Arts Initiative" group placed art images and text celebrating the arts to make this event a success in our community. I was delighted and honored to have seven of my students volunteer their time and art talent in chalking over 10 murals for this event. On the eve of this arts festival, our newest art acquisition, a mural painted in the Tromp L’oeil style by muralist, John Pugh, was unveiled to the community, followed by a street dance celebration. Over 40 local artists had their works for sale for the festival. Live music, interactive art-making activities for kids and food all accompanied the event. We had an amazing art exhibit going on inside the Pump House from May 1st throughout June 28th. In response to the theme of "compassion," our K-12 students were invited to participate in creating their personal interpretation of what compassion meant to them. The Compassion Project Exhibit filled the Pump House walls with over 6,000 6"x6" canvas tiles. This exhibit will live on throughout the community, as there was much interest from businesses and local leaders that wanted to hang our artwork in their space when our show came down.

I recently collaborated with over 30 art, music, non-profit and Viterbo University education professors and administration cohorts to plan an "arts integration" initiative. This planning was very exciting. It is our hope that our pre-service art teachers will have a strong ongoing partnership with our local art department in the La Crosse school district and with non-profit organizations and provide them support once they are teaching in their own classrooms. We anxiously wait to see if we will be recipients for this funding. My head and heart is full from brainstorming the possibilities for art integration being a natural way for all educators to teach and not a process that a handful of teachers and students experience. Advocating what we do in the art studio and how we naturally connect the process of artmaking to all disciplines is turning heads. As we all know, the experiences we provide in our classrooms should be authentic art experiences and are essential to the joy of learning for our young.

Do share what exciting art collaborations and artmaking events are going on in your community. I am off to plan a sketch box bike drawing club. Keep creating, collaborating and dreaming!


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Visibility for Art Education

9/11/2014

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Julie Miller

North East Vice President

Visibility. If you want people to support something, they first have to be aware of it. They need to see it and understand it before they will be willing to support it.

Visibility. That’s one of the challenges facing art education today. Too many people see art education as simply drawing and painting and making pretty things. They fail to see that art education can be the vehicle for teaching students important life skills such as creativity, collaboration, communication, responsibility, leadership, independence, thinking, problem solving, and inquiry, to name just a few.

Visibility. That needs to be the focus when advocating for art education. Everyone involved–students, parents, community members and leaders–must be made aware of the values of having students actively involved in an art program. These values go beyond merely learning the color wheel and the elements of art. If students understand, for example, that they are learning to draw or paint as a means of communicating their ideas, it will become more authentic and relevant to them. As students gain creative confidence through the choices and decisions they make during the artistic process, they will be able to become advocates for art education themselves. If parents see the relevancy art has to lasting life skills, they will be more likely to support art education, as well as their students’ efforts at school and at home. The community will also be more likely to offer their support for programs they are familiar with and see the value in.

How do we do this? How do we make our art programs visible? It starts in the classroom. Students should always be made aware of what they are learning and why. This information can be communicated to parents through e-mails, newsletters, teacher websites or notes attached to artwork when it goes home. Options and suggestions for continuing learning at home could be included as well. Making classroom teachers aware of what is happening in the art room is another strategy to garner support. E-mails, copies of lesson plans, samples of projects, and hallway displays with objectives included can all help secure support from teachers and administration. An effective way to reach the community is through regular displays of student work. Whether that is an annual art show, pieces on display in area businesses, business partnerships developed to provide supplies or student incentives, or a space dedicated to student art in a prominent community location, we need to make and keep the community aware that our art programs are alive and well and are having a positive and far-reaching effect on our students’ learning.

Visibility. When I first started teaching, I was frustrated by the fact that there were no local venues for the display of elementary art. I wrote a proposal, put together a portfolio with examples of student work and ideas for displays, and approached a local museum, Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass in Neenah, WI, as well as the YMCA in my district. Both were very receptive to the idea of displaying student art and provided space in their facilities. I provide a new display of student work each month, drawing on support from other area art teachers. For the past five years, these displays have provided a consistent visual reminder to the community of the benefits of a visual arts program. An informational and educational poster describing the process and the objectives always accompany the displays. It has been a win-win arrangement! Students feel pride in the work that they are able to share with the public, parents are provided with an opportunity for a free family outing focusing on the accomplishments of their students, the community gets a peek into what goes on in the art rooms they support with their tax dollars, and the museum has been very pleased by the increased number of new visitors. Whenever possible, I use grade level projects, instead of just one class, to involve as many students as possible.

Visibility. Art educators have the opportunity to share the great learning that goes hand in hand with the great creating in their art rooms. They can make the value of their programs visible to their students, parents, and communities. Advocating for art facilitates collaboration with supporters and other art teachers, which serves to advance the quality of art education. We must not only be leaders in the classroom with our students, but also convey our objectives outside the classroom to ensure visibility and support for the future of art education.


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    Regional VP's

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    Julie Miller, North East Region
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    Tim Znidarsich, South West
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    Lynnae Burns, West Central Region
    Jill Fortin, North Central Region



    Megan Sluyter, North Central Region
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  • Home
    • Home Archive Feb-May 18, 2020
    • Home-Fall 2019-Feb 2020
    • About
    • Membership
    • Contact
  • News
    • Art Times
    • NAEA News & Information
  • Educator
    • Collaborate: 2022 Fall Conference
    • Art & Soul 2021: Highlights
    • 2021 Art & Soul: Fall Conference
    • High School Art Teacher Survey
    • Advocacy
    • Awards
    • WAEA Grants >
      • Hunzinger Grant Application
      • Potawatomi Grant Application
    • Non-WAEA Grants
    • Professional Development
    • Art-Making & Exhibitions
    • 2020 Vision: Fall Conference
  • Student
    • Visual Arts Classic >
      • Board Members (VAC)
    • Visioneer Design Challenge
    • Youth Art Month 2021-22
    • Youth Art Month 2020-21
    • Youth Art Month 2019-20
    • Youth Art Month 2018-19
    • Scholastic Art & Writing
    • Wisconsin School Board Association WAEA Award
    • Student Art Contests & Scholarships
    • Student Art Classes & Camps
  • History & Fellows
    • Fellows 2019-Allen Caucutt
    • Fellows 2019-Anna S. McNeil
    • Fellows 2019-Ron Stokes
    • Fellows 2018-Janet Carson
    • Fellows 2018-Bill Schulman
  • WAEA Board
    • WAEA Calendar 2021 - 22
    • Board Members (VAC)