Art Education has Evolved
Arts Education has changed, even if most of the Art Teachers don't know it. It's changed because it is no longer necessary for individual creative development, and in particular the stages of artistic development, to happen from a cupboard or Art Cart. It's no longer necessary to spend half the class getting materials ready and tidying them all up again. It can just BE about creativity and creative development. Isn't that nice!
iPad has altered Art Education FOREVER.
The mediums haven't really changed for a few hundred years. Sure, the materials that make up the paint, and the methods for making the pencils have changed, but paint is still paint, charcoal still charcoal... even on iPad.
For years my friend and I created lessons for enhancing children's creative development. These planning sessions would involve a LOT of trial and error, and would always end up with one question. "How long will it take to CLEAN UP?"
Each medium had it's benefits to developement and detriments to the length of time the lesson could continue before having to start cleaning up before the kids went off to the next class.
More importantly for US, as teachers was What impression could be made that might carry them through a day filled with paragraphs filled with letters, and numbers all over the board!! (No offence to the other teachers, but keeping kids in their right brain was always important to us creatives!)
Aesthetics, methods and techniques were the main aspects of our curriculum. Spacial development and internalised creative development were our goals... in one class, once a week.
Why an Artistic iPad evolution?
I have taken my children through almost every technique for drawing, painting, watercolour, crayon, mixed media... you name it. I did this in SECONDS as opposed to the weeks it used to take me in schools, thanks to iPad!
LOTS of time involved in teaching ART is getting everything in on place, ready to start! And lots more goes in cleaning it all up again. Art class shouldn't be about tidying up, it should be about being creative.
I'll take you through a short example of the Art lessons on cross-hatching, in real time.
Let's get set up. Tap. Okay, all set up.
"Okay, here's how you to it..." I say.
Tap pencil, make criss - cross lines, make jagged scratchy lines.
Tap, tap, scratchy lines the other way... Done.
"Understand? Any questions?" I ask.
A short pause.
"Yes Dad. Can I go try that on my iPad now?"
"Yes, you sure can," I say
Art lesson finished! Tap. All cleaned up.
This is FAR MORE EFFECTIVE for teaching curriculum-based outcomes of aesthetics, methods and techniques than that Art Cart I pushed around for years.*Here are the best iPad Apps for Art & Creativity we've found. I encourage you to explore your own creativity. It's good for you.
Arts Departments, be responsible!
iPad, in my opinion, should be fully embraced by the Arts Departments in any responsible institution. If iPad was brought into the classroom, children could explore so much more of the artistic realms faster, more efficiently, and in a MUCH MORE ENGAGING WAY than a limited cupboard filled with unsustainable arts supplies.
I feel passionately about this as you can see. Feel free to connect with me if you've got something to say. :) ** Note on Art Teaching: I managed to do this for only four years, and I taught in four schools in Philadelphia, USA and London, England. I taught children from ages 5 to 17. I taught everything from pottery to pop-art murals along fifty yards of schoolyard, and I taught hundreds of students. But I could not do it...
I could not do it any LONGER than that. Why? Because it took me this long to see that an effective Art Education could not really be achieved IN THIS WAY. (Ooh, I bet this get's some eyebrows raised.) A short Art session once (or even twice) a week is as effective as giving your potted plants half a glass of water once a week in the middle of summer! It's just not going to get them to blossom - if they survive. They need more than this.
The same was true of the ART SUPPLIES. You'd never believe how hard it was to scrape-by with the ridiculously low budget we were always given. Five gallons of paint for 200 students per semester means they can all paint one small painting (if no paint is wasted) - what a waste of Art Teacher's brainpower, and what an insult to the children.