Winner of the 2014 Manuel Barkan Award
"art education article of the year"
New School Art Styles:
the Project of Art Education
Though the field of art education increasingly advocates for the importance of having clear criteria for judging the quality of a student’s arts learning, we have not yet been as thorough and rigorous with ourselves in articulating the necessary qualities
of the basic building block of visual arts curriculum—the art project. Perhaps the assumption that visual arts education will be project-based (unfortunately often translated in actual practice as product-based) has been so dominant and unquestioned, the field has not adequately theorized the structures, uses, varieties, and sequencing of these projects as an educational form.....
We cannot envision and manifest new styles of art education without examining and reconsidering art education curriculum as it is currently taught. We must be willing to let go of some of the old familiar projects (and their myriad variations) in order to make room for other sorts of projects and other kinds of art experiences....

For the complete text of
New School Art Styles: the Project of Art Education by Olivia Gude
as published in the January 2013 issue of
Art Education, the Journal of the National Art Education Association
download this pdf file: