On December 8, 2014, CCNY’s Art Education Program held a collaborative brainstorming session to develop strategies to teach art about the #BlackLivesMatter movement. My reflections on the event were posted on Harvard’s Arts in Education Continuing the Conversation blog.
Congratulations to the City College graduate art education class of 2013…all hired and ready to teach.
Another successful semester of City Art Lab comes to a close with a jam-packed art exhibition of youth artwork. Hosted at Gallery M, the opening attracted close to 150 youth artists, friends, family, and curious passersby. For more information about the projects the graduate students facilitated, check out their regular blog pots on the City Art Lab website.
These might just be my two favorite classes, two variations on the theme of Community, Identity, and Culture in Art Education: one graduate version and one undergraduate version. A little multicultural education, lots of discussions about how race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, and all our other identities impact power and privilege in education, some culturally-relevant art-making, a dash of how not to essentialize cultures when teaching about their art, and a ton of thinking about what it means to teach art in a way that empowers young people to be active agents of equality and justice in our world. It doens’t get any better.
The final exhibition of teen artwork from this spring’s City Art Lab drew crowds of over 150 family, friends, educators, and fans to Azucarar Gallery in Harlem to celebrate the work of a talented group of young artists. The exhibition was curated and installed by the graduate students in City College’s Art Education program. Not a bad way to finish up the semester.