More Than Refrigerator Paintings

Here’s something that you may not be aware of: McKinleyville High School has a collection of teacher resources from the National Gallery of Art that are available to any teacher in Humboldt County. Wow! Who knew? This includes slide collections, videos, teacher guides and lesson plans, CDs and DVDs on a variety of topics in art history. Justine Smith, who teaches at McKinleyville High will be “showing snippets of what’s available,” and giving participants ideas about how to incorporate these resources into curricula, as well as explaining how they can get their hands on the stuff.

Here’s one of my favorites: “Some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen”: Teaching social justice using the songs of Woody Guthrie and Ani DiFranco. Folk music is more than just a pastime, it has always been the voice of the underprivileged and has been effective in communicating ideas that may otherwise go unheard. Presenter Ronnie Swartz, assistant professor in social work at HSU, has used folk songs in his classes to discuss issues including oppression, discrimination, migrant or union worker issues, poverty and war. Not only do the songs make the issues more understandable and accessible to students, they bring in the perspective of the contemporary working class citizen. Ronnie will discuss ways that educators might apply this technique in the classroom.

While public schools have been managing shrinking budgets by cutting back on arts programs, researchers at schools like Harvard have been compiling more and more information about how important the arts are for developing minds. If you really want to ensure that no child is left behind, you have to recognize them as whole human beings. Every child needs to be educated in their history - a history told through our songs, our stories and our paintings. Every child needs to be versed in the language of visual expression that speaks so much more powerfully than words. Without these tools our children “are in the position of not being able to respond,” says Patty Yancey, “of not being able to be an integral part of the conversation.”

These workshops are intended for teachers, but also for parents and anyone else who works with children. There’s something here for everyone, and if you’ve never thought about the potential for art education beyond a refrigerator painting, come and listen to what these people have to tell you.

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