Art Class – A Productive Struggle

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In a recent blog post on my site, I talked about two simple principles to follow to help art students learn to persist, envision, and become problem solvers:

1. Set your students up for success.
2. Give them a problem to solve.

How can you manage the art class to reinforce this kind of learning: persisting, envisioning, and problem solving? Here are six rules to follow when you teach art.

1. Do not draw on students’ papers.

It’s always a temptation when a student is struggling to fix the drawing with a few lines of your own. However, when you draw on a student’s work, you eliminate the opportunity for him to learn to persist in finding his own solutions. You also steal his ownership of the drawing and make it your own. If you must demonstrate how to draw, draw on your own scratch paper to demonstrate how to do a certain technique.

2. Do not allow students to start over if they “made a mistake.”

Some children – often they are perfectionists – want to crumple page after page of drawings that had a “mistake” on it. Don’t let them. Teach them, instead, to find a way to incorporate their “mistake” into the rest of the drawing.

3. Suggest ways of changing “mistakes” into assets.

When a student has made a “mistake,” encourage her to suggest ways of changing these “problems” into solutions that make the drawing one of her best.

4. Do not tell students to draw “correctly.”

Instead, remind them that there is no wrong way to draw. Each person’s drawing will be different because we are all different people. Use art classes as times to celebrate each artist’s/student’s uniqueness.

As I noted in the last blog, each artist/student is trying to solve an art problem. Put the emphasis on the process of how the problem was solved, so that students learn from art that they ARE problem solvers.

In an art class, we AREN’T looking for mechanical accuracy!

5. Evaluate wisely.

If, as we have noted in #2, there are no mistakes in an art class, how do you evaluate student work?

Simply tell tell each student what you see in her work. For example, you might say, “You are using a lot of grey,” or, “You used jagged lines to decorate the fish,” or, “Your picture is turning out very bright (or very dark),” or, “You put your cat on a pillow.” Noting what the student has done is the best affirmation you can offer.

Do not make negative comments about a student’s work. For example, do not say, “You used too much orange,” or, “Your insect doesn’t look right.” Do not ask questions that sound negative. For example, do not ask, “What is THAT?”

Use questions that encourage students to discuss how they solved the problem the art class presents. For example, ask, “Can you tell me about your picture and what you wanted to accomplish?” or, “Do you want to add anything to the picture?”

6. Allow for disappointing results.

Remind students that it’s normal to not like everything you draw, and it’s normal to feel frustrated sometimes. In spite of all your encouraging methods, students sometimes get upset over their work. When that happens, tell them to take a break before trying to fix their drawings. Once they’ve had enough time away from the problems presented by the art project, encourage them to return and persist.

Making art is challenging work, and if the challenge is accompanied by enough support to insure success, art can be a terrific opportunity for students to learn to solve problems on their own… so allow their art class to be a productive struggle!

Do you need other resources to help you teach art in your homeschool, art project ideas or even suggestions for homeschool art curriculum?  Check out these other articles on how to homeschool art.

John Hofland, the owner of ArtAchieve, an online art curriculum, has taught art and theater in both middle school and at the university level for over 40 years and has worked professionally in theater and film. He and his family have worked in or visited over 35 countries, and the art lessons he writes are based on objects they have discovered during their travels. John and his wife have homeschooled their two daughters. You may find John on Facebook,  Twitter, and on his website’s blog, “Inside ArtAchieve.” You can read more from John at ArtAchieve.