Getting Started
Website Purpose:
This website makes connections between Gardner's Nine Multiple Intelligences and famous living/relevant contemporary artists.
By clicking on each of the nine multiple intelligences you can obtain more information on that specific Gardner learning preference.
By letting your cursor hover over one of the multiple intelligences a menu of contemporary artist names will appear. Clicking on the contemporary artist will link you to a page containing more information regarding:
I encourage art educators to utilize this website as a resource. It is meant to encourage curricular inclusion of all learning types and provide examples of contemporary and relevant artistic processes that utilize different types of learning.
By clicking on each of the nine multiple intelligences you can obtain more information on that specific Gardner learning preference.
By letting your cursor hover over one of the multiple intelligences a menu of contemporary artist names will appear. Clicking on the contemporary artist will link you to a page containing more information regarding:
- The specific artist
- Their artistic process
- How it relates to a specific Gardner learning preference.
I encourage art educators to utilize this website as a resource. It is meant to encourage curricular inclusion of all learning types and provide examples of contemporary and relevant artistic processes that utilize different types of learning.
The Three Functions of the Website:
1) Inspiration:
At it's simplest this website can function as a self-esteem booster for students that are struggling. Let's suggest for the purposes of example, that you recognize a student in your classroom that is struggling. Knowing that this student excels in math and sciences you can show them artists that utilize a mathematical process to yield visual art. Imagine how that student will feel when they know that there is a future for them in the arts. Imagine how that student will feel when they realize there are artists that "speak their language".
2) Developing Lessons that Allow For Student Choice:
If you want to, however, this website can function as a teaching tool as well as an inspirational one. I've been developing a lesson plan that utilizes student choice and identity development within the context of cartoon and comic character design. At first I was content to examine visual elements and principles and how these items communicate because this is what appeals to me as an artist. However while researching how artists develop and determine personalities for their character designs, I was struck by the many different processes an artist engages in, in order to develop a finished character. Julie Taymor, for example, when designing a costume will start with movement and dance before she begins to sketch. Taymor will pantomime a character's movement (a lion for example will lead with it's shoulders). Through a process Taymor refers to as Ideography, she will then simplify her pantomime one short movement that she feels embodies her character. What a terrific example of a bodily-kinesthetic learning preference. Taymor understands her own physicality best and then can apply what she has learned to the numerous aspects of designing and directing. When I discovered this, the objective of my assignment changed. I was no longer as interested in teaching how to communicate visually. That was only one method of developing character. I was more interested in exposing students to multiple different methods and letting them chose which one best suited their way of learning.
3) Appealing to All Students:
Peppering Lessons with a variety of MI allow for students to be inspired by their own strengths and generates a variety of results, each an individual response to the assignment. It's difficult to always perceive your students individual learning preferences. Using these artists' processes to build lesson plans can help you learn what your students strengths and weaknesses are. Not all of your students are taking art classes to become artists, the MI approach will enrich your students lives in a unique way, thus providing a satisfying and lifelong experience. This will in turn promote a more culturally educated society.
The Role of Contemporary Art
As the educator and analysts Arthur Efland states in his essay: School Art Style, there is a growing divide between the contemporary art world and the art that students produce in the traditional public school setting.
"When mathematics is taught in the school, there is some correspondence between what is taught as mathematics and the mathmatical understandings at large in the minds of men and women in the world outside of the school. This is less so with art, where there is little resemblence or relation between what professional artists do and what children are asked to do. "
(Efland, 39, 1976)
The reason I chose to use 21st century artists is that their work is more relevant to the changing global world that our students live in today. If we encourage the education of the contemporary arts, we can better prepare students by equipping them with work and processes that speak to the art world they will be interacting with upon graduation. It would be anachronistic and irresponsible to insist on the education of 20th century artistic skills, while the definition of "visual art" continues to change. Instead, we should make it our goal, as educators, to know the art world as it is currently and see the teaching opportunities that this changing art world presents.
The role of the arts classrooms in the past has been to identify and strengthen the skills of students that wish to pursue arts in the future. The problem with this role is it does not acknowledge those students that are unfamiliar with or intimidated by the arts. It occurred to me during my study of students with cognitive disabilities that the arts should allow for a form of expression and communication that most lessons do not currently accommodate. Rather than making students feel inferior the arts should provide a way to lift these students and expose them to new opportunities. With the growing number of interdisciplinary artists performing in museums around the world, the visual arts are growing beyond the confines of visual context. Now more than ever it is necessary that we, as educators, recognize this change as we should also recognize the need for our students to access visual art in a variety of different ways.
I'd like to provide an alternative resource that pushes back against the concept of "School Art" and encourages and allows that students construct their own learning, centered around their own interests, and the multiple ways in which they learn.
The role of the arts classrooms in the past has been to identify and strengthen the skills of students that wish to pursue arts in the future. The problem with this role is it does not acknowledge those students that are unfamiliar with or intimidated by the arts. It occurred to me during my study of students with cognitive disabilities that the arts should allow for a form of expression and communication that most lessons do not currently accommodate. Rather than making students feel inferior the arts should provide a way to lift these students and expose them to new opportunities. With the growing number of interdisciplinary artists performing in museums around the world, the visual arts are growing beyond the confines of visual context. Now more than ever it is necessary that we, as educators, recognize this change as we should also recognize the need for our students to access visual art in a variety of different ways.
I'd like to provide an alternative resource that pushes back against the concept of "School Art" and encourages and allows that students construct their own learning, centered around their own interests, and the multiple ways in which they learn.