By Lauren Cipkin, Senior
I recently went on a CPS bus trip and had the chance to observe art classes at Infinity High School in Little Village.
I had been on CPS bus trips to Little Village before, and I had a vision in my mind on what to expect when walking into the school, but I wasn’t prepared for Infinity being a Math and Science school. Upon walking into an art room I didn’t see any paints, pencils, colored pencils, or large working tables, all I saw was a computer lab instead. I was a bit taken aback by this and I’m not going to lie, was a bit disappointed. I personally have a focus in drawing and painting, so this literally felt like a whole new world.
Getting the sense that I and the others felt out of place, the teacher we were observing proceeded to explain
to us that since the school was a math and science school, the curriculum required that the every subject have a “technology lens” thus making all the art digitally based, providing classes like web design, film and animation and digital photography. She also explained how she felt this was the “art of the future” providing the fact that arts technology was more beneficial to the at risk students of CPS by teaching them skills that could possibly get them a job in the future due to the low chances of them proceeding into college.
My immediate reaction to this was not a good one, and it was taking everything in my power to not go out on
a tangent of how I was pro paint and pencils and the benefits of teaching hands-on art to the classroom. I’ve always been a supporter of the digital arts, and personally have done works in digital media that I have loved, but having ONLY arts technology being taught is schools? The thought of it just didn’t make sense. Not every student is prone to liking technology, and I can speak for myself in saying I enjoy the hands-on art making experience better than one I can get from a mouse or even a drawing tablet.
After fuming internally for the next few art periods, I soon calmed down and started to think about the subject
a bit more clearly. Was arts technology the better choice for CPS/at-risk students? Were the skills of learning website design, film and animation in their art classes more beneficial to them leaving high school? The more questions I started asking myself the more at a crossroads I felt about the subject.
After the trip I started thinking more and more about the subject and wanted to learn more. I immediately started doing searches on my computer to see what other people were saying about this subject. I discovered an article based on a study from Crenshaw, Los Angeles, where college professors collaborated with K-12 teachers to
help them improve the test scores and graduation rates of Crenshaw High School, using digital tools to get at-risk students excited about learning though arts technology when they launched a program called “GameDesk”, which takes state-based standards for high school art and math and re-imagines them through the multimedia platform of building video games from scratch. The program seemed to be a hit and one of the two teachers
who participated in the program stated, "Although these students often have a difficult time engaging with mathematics, they threw themselves into the task of mastering the programming in the Game Maker software. The normally rambunctious students were silent and engaged with their work -- enjoying themselves while working out problems on ratios, proportions, graphing, and conversions." The same peak of interest was one
I observed within the students at Infinity high school in the web design class, and could see many future possibilities for these students due to them learning this information. So as a future educator, these types
of results are the kind I loved to see - Arts technology being the key component in getting students interested
in learning and opening more doors of opportunity for students? Yes! But as good as that sounded, all I kept thinking was what about the students who just genuinely liked art?
These programs sounded wonderful, but it left little room for a mental escape from the other content areas, and for students who struggle to grasp the math/science concepts that these arts tech programs use, it didn’t seem to be best fit for them. As far as traditional art classes go in at risk schools, there have been studies proving that art programs have been keeping students on task in school too. The National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA) released results of a three-year national study that demonstrates the benefits of arts programs for at-risk youth. The study was call the YouthARTS Development Project, and was a test model developed by the NEA
in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice, Americans for the Arts, and regional and local arts councils, evaluated three successful arts programs that target at-risk youth. The finding showed that youth involved in arts programs significantly decreased their frequency of delinquent behavior and experienced fewer court referrals. Other benefits were increased communication skills and improved ability to stick with tasks
from beginning to end.
So in the end, the question is what is more important at high risk schools – providing more art tech classes
that peak student interest to keep the students motivated? Or providing traditional art classes that keep students from staying out of trouble and falling into the bad lifestyle choices around them? Personally, I believe neither question should have more weight than the other, and having just an arts tech curriculum in schools nor just a traditional art program in schools would be the wrong choice. Both are extremely important to student growth and in the end art is art and will always be the same thing: an expression of creativity. Both digital and traditional art are different forms of media, and the results will differ substantially at times, but when you look at it from afar it’s all art, and the fact that all types of art are being taught at high risk schools is the most important factor if you ask me!
References
http://www.ncarts.org/newsletter/fall99pgs/benefit.html
http://www.edutopia.org/digital-literacy-video-games
I recently went on a CPS bus trip and had the chance to observe art classes at Infinity High School in Little Village.
I had been on CPS bus trips to Little Village before, and I had a vision in my mind on what to expect when walking into the school, but I wasn’t prepared for Infinity being a Math and Science school. Upon walking into an art room I didn’t see any paints, pencils, colored pencils, or large working tables, all I saw was a computer lab instead. I was a bit taken aback by this and I’m not going to lie, was a bit disappointed. I personally have a focus in drawing and painting, so this literally felt like a whole new world.
Getting the sense that I and the others felt out of place, the teacher we were observing proceeded to explain
to us that since the school was a math and science school, the curriculum required that the every subject have a “technology lens” thus making all the art digitally based, providing classes like web design, film and animation and digital photography. She also explained how she felt this was the “art of the future” providing the fact that arts technology was more beneficial to the at risk students of CPS by teaching them skills that could possibly get them a job in the future due to the low chances of them proceeding into college.
My immediate reaction to this was not a good one, and it was taking everything in my power to not go out on
a tangent of how I was pro paint and pencils and the benefits of teaching hands-on art to the classroom. I’ve always been a supporter of the digital arts, and personally have done works in digital media that I have loved, but having ONLY arts technology being taught is schools? The thought of it just didn’t make sense. Not every student is prone to liking technology, and I can speak for myself in saying I enjoy the hands-on art making experience better than one I can get from a mouse or even a drawing tablet.
After fuming internally for the next few art periods, I soon calmed down and started to think about the subject
a bit more clearly. Was arts technology the better choice for CPS/at-risk students? Were the skills of learning website design, film and animation in their art classes more beneficial to them leaving high school? The more questions I started asking myself the more at a crossroads I felt about the subject.
After the trip I started thinking more and more about the subject and wanted to learn more. I immediately started doing searches on my computer to see what other people were saying about this subject. I discovered an article based on a study from Crenshaw, Los Angeles, where college professors collaborated with K-12 teachers to
help them improve the test scores and graduation rates of Crenshaw High School, using digital tools to get at-risk students excited about learning though arts technology when they launched a program called “GameDesk”, which takes state-based standards for high school art and math and re-imagines them through the multimedia platform of building video games from scratch. The program seemed to be a hit and one of the two teachers
who participated in the program stated, "Although these students often have a difficult time engaging with mathematics, they threw themselves into the task of mastering the programming in the Game Maker software. The normally rambunctious students were silent and engaged with their work -- enjoying themselves while working out problems on ratios, proportions, graphing, and conversions." The same peak of interest was one
I observed within the students at Infinity high school in the web design class, and could see many future possibilities for these students due to them learning this information. So as a future educator, these types
of results are the kind I loved to see - Arts technology being the key component in getting students interested
in learning and opening more doors of opportunity for students? Yes! But as good as that sounded, all I kept thinking was what about the students who just genuinely liked art?
These programs sounded wonderful, but it left little room for a mental escape from the other content areas, and for students who struggle to grasp the math/science concepts that these arts tech programs use, it didn’t seem to be best fit for them. As far as traditional art classes go in at risk schools, there have been studies proving that art programs have been keeping students on task in school too. The National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA) released results of a three-year national study that demonstrates the benefits of arts programs for at-risk youth. The study was call the YouthARTS Development Project, and was a test model developed by the NEA
in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice, Americans for the Arts, and regional and local arts councils, evaluated three successful arts programs that target at-risk youth. The finding showed that youth involved in arts programs significantly decreased their frequency of delinquent behavior and experienced fewer court referrals. Other benefits were increased communication skills and improved ability to stick with tasks
from beginning to end.
So in the end, the question is what is more important at high risk schools – providing more art tech classes
that peak student interest to keep the students motivated? Or providing traditional art classes that keep students from staying out of trouble and falling into the bad lifestyle choices around them? Personally, I believe neither question should have more weight than the other, and having just an arts tech curriculum in schools nor just a traditional art program in schools would be the wrong choice. Both are extremely important to student growth and in the end art is art and will always be the same thing: an expression of creativity. Both digital and traditional art are different forms of media, and the results will differ substantially at times, but when you look at it from afar it’s all art, and the fact that all types of art are being taught at high risk schools is the most important factor if you ask me!
References
http://www.ncarts.org/newsletter/fall99pgs/benefit.html
http://www.edutopia.org/digital-literacy-video-games