How about the teachers?

By Jack Lew

Let's also look at how we deliver arts education in today's classrooms. When I was a student back in the Sixties, we worked in traditional media of that era - pencil, woodcuts, watercolor, and clay. We didn't have digital tools that today's generation grew up with. While the fundamentals of art and design can still be learned through traditional media, there is an array of possibilities with new tools such as computer graphics, the web, and handheld devices just to name a few. Understandably, there is resistance from teachers of the previous generation when they have not had the same exposure as their students, but what a shame that these teachers are not empowered with these new tools. Perhaps it begins with providing appropriate training for our teachers.

December 1, 2008 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) |

1 Comments

By Jim on December 1, 2008 11:47 AM

This is actually the problem facing a society in crisis in which most leaders are from an older generation brought up in older paradigms governing the meaning of business, politics, education, etc. It is probably what prompted the earlier "deconstructionist" theories of why we must work to constantly throw some chaos into the system to generate new patterns. In this case the youth may be the "chaos" creating tools for deconstructing our old paradigms making room for the ones to come.

This Conversation For decades, as teaching of the arts has been cut back in our public schools, alarms have been raised about the dire consequences for American culture. Artists and arts organizations stepped in to try to... more

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