Adopting the lens of "new histories" as the basis for my inquiry into the institutional legacy of the art program at Toronto's Central Technical School (CTS), I created a methodological framework informed by the traditional art form of the polyptych, in which many panels are joined together to show and tell multilayered stories connected…

It is said that "a picture is worth a thousand words" as visual images can express complex and multilayered ideas. Sometimes photographic imagery is so strong and resonant of certain success, struggles, or events that it becomes key to a community or generation. As historic records, photographs are uniquely able to present not only success and…

It is a common acceptance that contemporary schoolchildren live in a world that is intensely visual and commercially motivated, where what is imagined and what is experienced intermingle. Because of this, contemporary education should encourage a child to make reference to, and connection with their "out-of-school" life. The core critical…

Thinking metaphorically requires a reorganization of concepts. Reorganization is the essential ingredient for thinking metaphorically. The ability to conceptually reorganize becomes challenged as metaphors are created and comprehended since anomaly or absurdity must be reconciled with previous experiences structured differently. This ability can…

The paper discusses the pedagogy of the image text, a term that encompasses the graphic novels of Nakazawa and Spiegelman and the heavily illustrated novels of Sebald. Increasingly, artist-authors have turned to the image-text medium to represent catastrophic social events, and these three authors' works are discussed as seminal documents of…

As artists of many centuries have known, there is a psychology and spirituality behind every color, every shape, and every movement. In his pioneering work, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Wassily Kandinsky explained his vision to free art from material reality to inner life. He called for a spiritual revolution that would allow artists to…

This overview of aesthetics and aesthetic education covers definitions and approaches to aesthetic education; discusses two notable ways educational technologists can influence aesthetics in learning situations with use of visuals and music; and lists strategies educational media producers can incorporate in productions to enhance aesthetic…

Throughout the year, students of Contemporary Issues and the Visual Arts class, an interdisciplinary course for high school juniors and seniors at a large Canadian suburban high school, devised and created a number of individual and collective artistic investigations and creative cultural interventions, both within the classroom and the larger…