Guest Editor - Randy Granger

     When PAEA President, Kris Fontes, approached me this past spring to write an article for the 2012 PAEA summer newsletter that addressed design education I was deeply touched and excited. The opportunity to try to inform, excite, and inspire other accomplished art, design, and museum educators across Pennsylvania in advance of the upcoming PAEA "Design 2012 Annual Conference" was critical. I made numerous writing attempts from multiple angles over the past six weeks only to end up with the same points that I had illuminated in a previous article on design education and the arts classroom, written back in 2006. I wrote the article in my final months as President of PAEA and at the request of Boston University's Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character. The article was published in Boston University's publication, Character and via ASCD's Character Education Network in 2006. The article received a highly positive reception across Pennsylvania and from art and design educators around the nation. That same article is reprinted below (exactly as it appeared in the Fall 2006 edition of Boston University's Character) in the hopes that its message may still be received as fresh, inspirational and hopeful as we prepare for the infinite possibilities and opportunities of this year's pioneering PAEA Conference dedicated to "Design for Life". I look forward to seeing many of you at the conference. RWG

Ethics in Art Education

by

Randy W. Granger, NBCT

The Randy W. Granger Chair in the Visual Arts, William Penn Charter School

     I believe that the paramount responsibility of a teacher of the visual arts is to constantly seek, honor, and draw forth the artist in every child. With this intention, the arts classroom becomes a place where character is built, where excellence is experienced, where the desire to produce what is useful to the community is cultivated, and where perseverance to accomplish what may be difficult is honed.

     I believe that to predictably and reliably platform student success in any discipline, the teacher must first be trustworthy and inspirational, then continually reflective and highly sensitive to learners and to the process of learning. Combined with this, a teacher must constantly draw upon his own and the students' creativity, imagination, resourcefulness, and connectivity in developing the structures and tools for student success. I believe that all people are capable of making informed aesthetic judgments and creating aesthetically sound works of art. Every student has the capacity to successfully engage the aesthetic learning process given clear expectations and a collaborative structure for success guided by the teacher.

     The art classroom can be designed as a safe haven for learning. It is a place where the artist in every person can be encouraged to come forth in an atmosphere of respect for creative process. In a highly visible way, the classroom can reveal a comprehensive system of organization and structure for promoting student achievement in a wide variety of artistic areas. I recommend not having a "teacher zone" and constantly reconfiguring the room to reflect the student activities of the day. Creating dedicated student work zones around the perimeter of the room invites students to enter the room and immediately engage the work, developing their initiative and "can do" spirit. The arts classroom is a potential home to "forward looking learning" (learning that is focused on finding solutions that do not already exist), where students, teachers, and parents work in partnership to develop skills, attitudes, and sensibilities with a spirit of optimism and a respect for others. In this environment students develop valuable qualities such as self-confidence, in addition to arts training. These skills enable students to creatively take risks to successfully solve problems in the future. The students I teach confirm that they value what the arts teach them about their own imagination, possibilities, and self.

     I use curricula grounded in the design for thinking process that we developed at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. This innovative problem-solving model provides a philosophical foundation for teaching and learning and engages students in analyzing and understanding their creative thought processes as they invent solutions to life's challenges. The design process provides a structure that helps students think broadly, analytically, and reflectively across and among disciplines. It is a model that ensures cognition (metacognition, higher order thinking) and collaboration through seven domains of design activity, thereby empowering students to achieve to a higher degree of success with greater predictability and to experience excellence through their own creative vision. The use of this model is especially suited to learning environments where forward-looking learning is the educational goal. Using this model teaches students to communicate with precision and clarity, both visually and in spoken and written language.

     Students engaged in forward-looking problems that have a real world component experience great excitement, enthusiasm, and seriousness of purpose that leads to pride in achievement and passion for what "could be." They appreciate how the arts can be a point of entry to any design destination. For example, I invite my students to focus on several assistive technology projects each year, so that they acquire an understanding of service to others through the arts, as well as an understanding of how the arts can bring people together and even change people's lives.

     As an art teacher, I experience first-hand the deep sense of pride and accomplishment of my students when the products borne of their art experience have made a difference in other people's lives. This happens especially in areas where the design for thinking process is applied to find new assistive technology solutions. In a collaborative process using design as a bridge to art and science, students understand that art production can address real needs in the world. Each project not only provides improved solutions for various underserved populations, but also has a profoundly life-transforming effect on me as a teacher and on my students as future citizens of the world. My classes have successfully designed and produced a variety of assistive solutions: pool walkers and beach walkers for children with cerebral palsy; safety storage solutions for walkers and wheelchairs on school busses; portable hand wash units for a children's zoo; shower and pool wheelchairs for children; bus step appliances for school busses carrying children with ambulatory challenges; and a patented beach wheelchair that respects the dignity of the user. Each of these projects has confirmed the power of the arts to bring people together in service to others.

     When a teacher of the visual arts collaborates in imaginative vision with student teams to solve real-world problems, the artist in every child is engaged, inspired, and drawn forth in both mind and spirit. When the arts classroom becomes a safe community of respect with a focus on producing what is useful, character is built through perseverance to accomplish a goal that will serve humankind. What is initially perceived as difficult becomes an inspirational challenge to be met with collaborative creativity and optimism. There are no problems, there are only solutions waiting to be discovered by the imaginations of our students in a constructive, learning community.