COVID-19 has shown a point of vulnerability in the education system and has reminded us how important stories and experiences are, especially from the perspective of marginalized students. A much harsher reality has shaped their lives and experiences, and educators need to rethink their educational practices and theories in the context of the…

The United States has a visually stunning history of documenting its natural lands. In the late 1800s, Hudson River School painters captured national parks in the west (National Park Service, 2017). Ansel Adams is famously known for his rich black-and-white photographs of Yosemite and other national parks from the 1920s. In the 1930s, the Works…

Sarah Mostow was hired to provide professional development to a group of 10 elementary art teachers who worked at a charter school network in New York City. Searching for what she could offer the charter school teachers, who possessed diverse backgrounds and teaching styles, she wanted to find a structure they could adapt. She decided to distill…

The Early Childhood Education program at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) prepares more than 600 students each year to be educators in early childhood (birth-Grade 2) classrooms as teaching assistants or to continue their education in 4-year institutions. In March 2020, as COVID-19 devastated urban neighborhoods, a journey was…

This article explores how the notion of a serendipitous curriculum relates to young children's artmaking events in an early childhood center in the Midwest. A new materialist theoretical lens is used that not only considers the agency and action of children, but also enables ALL matter within a relation to act. In doing so, it offers a way to…

Digital culture and creativity are often framed as immaterial (Casemajor, 2015), distinct from traditional media, such as paint and clay, and divorced from the immediate, embodied, and political realities of the arts classroom. 3D printing troubles this distinction, providing a concrete way for students' digitally created artifacts to manifest in,…

Twenty-two individuals are drawing, painting, collaging, sculpting with cardboard, and building with wooden blocks. Some are working collaboratively, and others work alone. Dialogue with the teacher and social interaction between learners catalyze the learning experience. The core curriculum goal, expressing ideas through self-directed art…

What should science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) education look like? In the context of educational policy, the STEAM conversation has intensified and spread across the United States and some other counties (Eger, 2015; Yakman & Lee, 2012). This article advocates an arts-integrated approach to STEAM education and discusses…

To be awake means to have active attention, particularly the attention to carry a project into effect and execute a plan (Greene, 1977). Additionally, to be wide-awake requires a level of consciousness that provokes reflection and awareness in the quest for meaning, which can in turn contribute to the formation of self and ability to make sense of…

Art therapists use pictorial image making to help patients communicate feelings through creative expression and cope with traumatic experiences through the artistic processes (Ulman, 2001). With children, art therapy is used as a way to discern their emotional states and determine their relationships to the external world (Edwards, 2008). However,…

This article describes a culture-based art curriculum for preservice elementary education majors which incorporates activities through which they can explore, cultivate, and foster creativity, aesthetic awareness and self-expression through cultural awareness, understanding, representation, and identity. The author utilizes visual culture theory…

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the events that occurred at Pulse nightclub and how a social justice camp collided to create opportunities for campers, preservice teachers, and faculty mentors to use creative activities to connect community members during a time of tragedy. The author begins with a brief introduction to critical…

In this article, the author writes about her early years as an elementary school art teacher. In her early years, students received a formalist, discipline based art education. Every lesson began with students, pK-3, viewing a thoughtfully selected collection of paintings created by a famous artist. After viewing this carefully curated selection…

This article describes a project designed to explore how art educators can use "assemblage" to facilitate collaborative learning in their classrooms. It also explores how "assemblage thinking" facilitates collaboration by moving beyond static approaches to artmaking and encouraging students to draw on their own identities to…

The economic state of California is representative of the larger financial health of the United States. The budget cuts and the faltering status of art education in public schools has contrasted much of the rhetoric and statistics for art education and employment in the visual arts. Yet, contemporaneously, California has also witnessed the largest…