Art Lessons for the 21st Century: A Postmodern Curriculum

          With nervous fingers, I sealed and kissed my book proposal goodbye and good luck, and dropped it in the mailbox today.  I'm feeling a bit like a five year old.  Jeez.

Barbara Kruger

          That being said, I'm SO committed to getting this curriculum "out there."  If anything can save the arts in public as well private schools, it'll be revamping the intent and outcomes of the arts.  Yes, art education should remain expressive, meaningful, creative, and should allow for imagination to free flow.  But current financial and  accountable times are drastically requiring the continuing existence of the arts to also benefit the academic, core subjects.  (Yeah, art is a core, but not according to to many state and federal mandates, hunh?)
          So what to do?  Raging against the machine isn't working- not the most articulate among us who write, speak, blog, paint, organize, or simply cry.  
          My proposal summary begins:

Some say public education is going down the tubes, art education leading the pack.  Switching it up, explicitly adding meaning, language, and sociology, may make the art room important, visible, and crucial to the students of the 21^st century, as well as to administrator and politicians running the budgets.  And adding a postmodern twist and new considerations to the old elements and principles of art might just shock the ground upon which old art education moseys.

          I believe it's time, in our schools under the contemporary restraints and attacks, to look deeply at art education as we know it.  Many among us are doing this.  Most are not.  The old paradigm of art education is shifting radically.  With power, passion, and meaning, art education can enhance individual and communal health.  Attention to a social justice and postmodern curriculum may just be the ticket, eh?

         So much to think about, and more to share.