No Artist Left Behind

My first note to Parents and Friends:
Last week at this time, I was sitting in a beautiful room in the Chicago Hilton with about 30 other art teachers from around the country. I was at the National Art Education Convention. Mona in her blue aviator glasses was in the window of one of the stores I walked by each day on Michigan Ave. Can you find me in my sunglasses reflected in the window?
The session was about the Choice-based Art Classroom --something I had heard of, but never investigated. The session was led by two teachers from different parts of the country who have adopted the arrangement for their kindergarten through eight classrooms. The room is divided into Studios. Each day after the teacher makes a brief (5 minute) presentation about the subject of the day or an artist in the news or a review of how to do a certain process, students go to the studio of their choice to begin working on the project of their choice! Students have been instructed in the appropriate use of all of the tools and materials in each studio. Some students may work on an art project for many weeks; others will work in 3 to 4 studios per class period.
Aha! Something I could do to get more authentic art work from my students and provide them with more true artistic behavior. The jiggle for the group of teachers is "Teaching for Artistic Behavior." I have always wished that my students would not wait for me to tell them how to make their art. But I have been enabling them to depend on me for their artisitic decisions. It is time to give them the opportunity to make good and bad decisions.
We are beginning to move things around in the art room this week. We already have quite a few of the cabinets and boxes rearranged to get all of the Fibers in one corner of the room. We are also beginning to organize a Research area with books, filing cabinets and art prints. Next week we will be getting all of the painting and drawing materials arranged into two distinct studio areas. After those, there will be a Clay/Sculpture area. We will also try to find room for meeting to discuss at the beginning of our classes and to view work at the end of classes.
We may have piles of boxes and draws around the art room for a few weeks. I have a HEAP of things to learn about how to do this. Isn't it amazing that after teaching for more than 29 years, I have something new to learn?