Blog #4: Chapter 3: Community- Based Art Education Across the Lifespan

With the Junior High Students visit quickly approaching I can't help but be excited. I really am looking forward to completing this project with them. When reading chapter three in the book the first header that stuck out to me was, " Work With the Community to Develop Pride" and that is exactly what were doing - encouraging school pride because each piece of the installation correlates to a part that students are proud of as well as encouraging it within the school culture. In this section on page forty-two it talks about leading all participates to broaden their idea of art. I feel like we have already begun to do this with the students and will continue to become more prevalent as we finish this up with them. A quote that stuck out to me was, " This can lead all participants, including the facilitators, to broaden their definition of art - including who is an artist - and expands the realm of possibilities in which artists live and work, and by which they enrich our communities daily." I feel as though we are doing this with the junior high students and with us as UNI students. We are enriching our community and it makes me excited for the end result.

I was also able to connect this project with the, "Work With Community to Express Identity" section of chapter three. It encourages us all as stakeholders to creatively express a sense of self,  sense of place, and a sense of community. I feel that we are encouraging the junior high students to do this in their installation because it is solely based on the things that they thought were most influential to their school and what they wanted this piece of art to be a representation of. It states in the section, " We are developing strategies for "life- long, self -determined, multi-contextual skills for productive and creative participation in society." I feel like this should be something we all strive for and if we encourage this with the future generations of students we are helping them become better people, and that's part of our job as educators isn't it? We could all use a little more connection between each other so why not make art.

"We develop understanding through validating diversity and contextualism" was a quote in chapter three that really got my wheels turning. If we encourage CBAE in our classrooms this will lead to all participants gaining a better understanding of others' opinions, lives, and experiences. We can build a lot of trust when working on something together because of the discussions, learning, and conversations that happen while art making.

Being able to complete this project at UNI provides a lot of resources that may not have been possible at a public junior high. Working collaboratively is bettering all stakeholders involved. Partnering with UNI Art Education and students was really influential to the success of making this installation. In chapter three it has a section on partnering with institutions and although we've only had a little bit of insight on the necessary planning, I can see that it is extensive with time management of the project, materials, funding, space needs, etc. These all had to be figured out to make this project work and let me tell you, I am only a very small portion of this. I think that it will really help me in the future as an art educator that wants to encourage community based art education in my own classroom setting.