You may have noticed over the years that there are differences between the Gilmour Academy Lower School Art Program and those found in other schools. As with every other advantage Gilmour offers its students, this difference is carefully considered.
Art is commonly perceived as many things. To some, it exists as an object of status, a feature of luxury, with little purpose other than it own beauty and price. At the opposite extreme, Art has been identified as a purely subjective outlet, an expression without rules or boundaries of the individual. Others have defined Art as a means of finding truth, of describing human ideals and dreams when words cannot. Still more see Art as a means to find the restroom or sell frozen chicken. It occurs to me that all of these points of view are true, as so for the infinite variety of others that occur in the collective pool of human thought accumulated over the last 20,000 or so years of Art History.
Therein lies the dilemma: If Art is so old and so vast a thing, how do we teach it? My dilemma and those of all elementary instructors takes it a step further: If Art is so old and so vast a thing, how do we teach it to small children? Art teachers have met this challenging question with a range of approaches that mirrors in complexity and variable validity the myriad interpretations of what Art is. This makes sense after all, because there is no way to do the one without the other.
The Gilmour Academy Lower School Art Program has attempted over the last twelve years of my tenure here to develop the broadest perspective on Art?s definition possible; to introduce students to the fundamental facts of Art?s nature and purpose that they might begin to develop and engage their own concepts of what Art is and apply them to their lives. Foremost is that Art is language. Few interpretations of Art?s purpose deny its role as a means of communication: Every image humans create or consume is a packet of information which generates some response from its audience. The written character, the mathematical symbol, any ideogram that can be marked on a surface is a tiny picture, refined from the basic human talent for indentifying patterns and determining meaning from them. Second, but no less important is that Art is universal. This is more than an art class cliché. Rather; it is an art class cliché because it?s true. Besides being the foundations of all writing, The Visual Arts are the exercise of human abilities and propensities to create and interpret visually. We humans use it for everything from the construction of skyscrapers to the selection of our socks. It?s as simple equation as this:

We see others and what they do.
We get meaning from what we see.
We and what we do are seen by others.
We communicate meaning when we are seen.

Understanding the implications of this provides us with the foundations of understanding Art and its potential.
In our culture, there is such a daily deluge of visual information from our common media- from what we chose to buy, to drive, to root for- that the image has become collectively indispensible to our existence but individually disposable. We are often completely unaware that we are being flooded with information through pictures and visual impulses; they come at us so rapidly and in such density. It seems logical, then, to make the third necessity of the Lower School Art Program fostering awareness of the effect of images on our thoughts and actions and how they have been used to do so.
Just as important to all of these necessities, though, is the dilemma of how to teach in such a way that students want to engage the material and want to make what they?ve learned somehow a part of their lives. This too is a fundamental component of communication. How do we get students to like finding out just how sophisticated and important Art is? We all know that kids tend to be action-oriented as a group; they want to do something, not merely hear about it. They also tend to want to try out a lot of things. Acknowledging these things is essential to their learning process. Just as common to children is their fascination with the visual and their desire to communicate through pictures, movement and other nonverbal means. The challenge of designing Lower School Art Program has consistently been centered on balancing the activity of learning with the presentation of material essential for instruction. It boils down to a function of time and a keen examination of the ratio of instruction to activity each student is prepared to handle one on one and among their classmates. It is constantly changing on several levels. So with it, must the program change.
This year, we have made some large changes to the Art program based on experience and desires for new structures and strategies to work in, research and feedback from families and close examination of the needs of our students. Balancing essential high level instruction and enjoyable, motivating classroom experience was the paramount motive. Additionally greater emphasis has been placed on communicating the rationale and the execution of the program to the parental community to foster greater understanding within the community and opportunities for parents to engage and enrich their student?s Art experience in concert with the class.

Key changes include:
1. Increased class length for one of the two Art periods. The new schedule uses a 45 minute block as the basic instructional period. Formerly periods lasted 50 minutes. This was done to facilitate the new lunch/recess block. For grades 1-6, one class per week will be a standard 45 minute period. The other will be a 90 minute block, or ?Studio Period? which will present the class with opportunities extended engagement with products or be subdivided to address multiple topics or lessons as need arises. The standard block will generally be employed as the segment in which topics are introduced and discussed in depth, while the 90 minute block will be allotted to the hands-on component of the class.
2. Grades 1-4 will be half-year experiences. This is a sacrifice made in order to obtain the time in schedule necessary to have the studio period. It has the benefit of reducing the number of classes to prepare for in a given semester and thus allow for greater focus in instruction and assessment on each grade level, maximized availability of space within the room in the storage and display of student work, and ease the scheduling and arrangement of Art displays over the course of the year. K, 5th grade and 6th grade will still be full year courses.
3. For all grades, projects are conceived along to three distinct lines according to three essential motivations. The heart of the class remains its curriculum, devoted to serious and deep exploration of creativity as an essential component of human life. This is uncompromised. However, while the need for children to experience spontaneity and variety in learning and for families to retain certain treasured artifacts of their student?s elementary school experience have been programmed into project design throughout, this year marks a departure in that, for the first time, certain projects have been identified and developed to address distinct needs both for the student and the community of families. The essential curricular projects that make up the trunk of the course are identified now as ?Pathway Projects?. These are conceived as they have always been, to guide and equip students in the exploration of Visual Art, culture and creativity in general. These are being augmented by more briefly conceived and executed work designed to provide the students with diversion from the often lengthy process and sequence of the core projects. Besides offering exposure to different processes and mediums, these ?Breakout Projects? are also generally employed as previews of topics of instruction to come or reinforcement of established material within the curriculum. The final type of project is a modified breakout project, similarly designed to provide short term diversion and curricular enrichment, but with the added component of having its mode of execution (dimension, medium choice, complexity) largely determined by the student according to an overall theme intended to yield a product that will preserve a meaningful snapshot of the creator at the time of creation. These are being referred to as ?Memento Projects?.
4. Two types of opportunities for experiencing the work of the art class will be offered. First will be at least two scheduled formal student art shows over the course of the year, ?Gallery Walks?, which will allow families to see the accomplishments of their students and also witness some of the evidence of process generated over the course of the work?s completion. These are intended to be educational for parents as well as celebrations of the children. Dates for these opportunities will coincide with the conclusion of each semester and will most likely be coordinated with the concert schedule in music class. Dates will be posted at their soonest availability. The second type of opportunity will focus on illustrating the idea of process so fundamental to the program and how it translates into student work and understanding. Titled ?Eyes on the Process? visitations will take place during the school day and allow parents to examine student work in progress and discuss with Mr. Tait just what makes the project and the program tick. Details and dates on these opportunities will also be provided as they become available.

These are exciting changes. From the experience gained with them this year, there will, no doubt, be further refinement, adjustment and optimization in the interest of creating the best, most valuable Art experience for Gilmour Academy Lower School students. Mr. Tait is always available for questions and feedback at his email address, taitj@gilmour.org.