1. After reading the Sakatoni and Pistolesi article on Personal Spaces, in your opinion, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the "Big Idea" approach in teaching art?  

2. Describe your art education. Was it more subject centered? Student Centered? Or Society Centered? 

3. How does your experience compare to the big idea approach that Sakatoni and Pistolesi are advocating? What approach do you think is best for students (of various ages) and why? 

4. What resonated in this article with you? What connections did you make?

2.     I feel very fortunate to have had the art education that I did. I not only grew in my knowledge and technique but my overall self as well. This type of personal and artistic growth I feel was on achievable through a balance of both student and subject centered teaching. While each student needs different and individualized instruction and lessons to grow and develop, there will never be a time where the key elements, principles and techniques of art are not dire to creating a strong foundation for success. 

3.     My art instruction consistently stressed the importance of research as well as developed personal content, those two factors being constant with that of the “Big Idea”.  I think that like all good things in life balance is needed to have the best end result. Being subject centered and having a set of key foundation points to strive to instill in your students I feel is an important driving force, but on the flip side that shouldn’t be all there is to your teaching. Meeting the needs of your students and growing and changing with them will allow them to gain more out of their time with you.

4.     What resonated the most with me in this article was the stressed importance of research for the “Big Idea”. I think that a lot of times people are fearful to teach from examples because they want students to develop ways of their own, not truly recognizing the power within researching artists, mediums, techniques and concepts. 

2. In terms of my art education throughout public schooling I was taught in a more subject-centered way. Most of my art classes taught skills and referenced artists in a formal sense without giving much context to what their works mean or how to take big ideas from art. I took AP Art History in High School and had a professor who really changed my perspective on that by giving me a more socially-centered representation of art. She taught us about how art reflects big themes in society and we talked about pieces in context of their history and setting instead of in a vacuum. I wish that there had been more student-centered opportunities in terms of my art-education. Most public schooling classes taught the same assignment to every class and left little freedom for students to explore other mediums and create art in a non-traditional sense. 

3. I believe that the big idea approach benefits students in helping them make meaning from visual and formal elements. I know that my college -level art history classes have helped me for example make meaning and connect big picture ideas in literature or film. I think that students need a balance of technical lessons, student-focused application and the big idea approach. While I believe strongly in the benefits and perspectives gained from a more abstract and relatable approach, it is not everything needed to support every students needs while fostering developing skills and talents. As well, the big idea approach needs to be adaptable enough to represent themes that exist throughout the world and not just western topics and ideas. It needs to represent new perspectives and be able to change with our shifting society.

I resonated with the idea of spaces becoming an extensions of one's individual self. The idea of making your own place of expression is one that is very important to me. The presence of spaces that support individuals that might not have those spaces elsewhere fosters progress in art. For example, DIY spaces in art or music that allow for marginalized individuals to flourish in a society that does not include them. These spaces allow for new perspectives and identities which I think is so important to foster.

2. My experience with art education was more subject centered. We were taught the basic elements used to draw and then given paper and paints to do our own thing. Even though we were given free reign to choose what we wanted to work on, we still had to show our knowledge of all of the elements we learned.

3. Throughout my education, we never tried the “Big Idea” approach. We never tested our ability to work in different spaces or focused on one specific theme. We just kind of did what we wanted. I believe the “Big Idea” approach is best for students, because this approach will help them develop their understanding of art better by pushing them out of their comfort zone.

4. When the article started talking about middle school lockers and how children decorated took me back to when I was in middle school. Everyone really did have a specific voice with decorating their lockers. I liked have colorful images and objects inside and others did not. I remember I had a purple, removable shelf and pink heart magnets along the walls. A locker truly is a space where a student can express themselves.

2.) In my art education experience, I got a glimpse of the “Big Ideas” approach but it wasn’t executed very well by my teacher. My teacher Ms. Deatherage attempted to use big ideas for projects but she didn’t limit it to just one major theme. She would make us each draw a theme out of a hat and have us create a project based off of that theme. Then each week she would do a demo on a new material and have us practice that new skill in our project. The problem with Ms. Detherage’s approach was she didn’t allow us to take the theme and explore it deeper by doing our own research or by looking into other artists who created with similar materials or themes. We had to just create off of the information she gave us. All of her projects were subject centered and she didn’t allow for our own individuality to come out or for us to explore abstract ideas. And unfortunately, I didn’t feel that I learned enough about a certain material or theme. I always felt confused and frustrated with the assignments she created. 

3.)  Although my art teacher didn’t execute the “Big Ideas” concept very well, I would still like to introduce this approach in my classroom. Knowing that this approach doesn’t work for all students, I still feel it is extremely impactful. I believe giving students the chance to develop their own unique idea from a given topic and allowing for their imagination to run wild is very important. If a teacher gives too strict of a topic, there is no room for curiosity or growth. Students grow by conducting their own research, trying out new materials and challenging themselves with a new theme. I feel the “Big Ideas” approach can work well for all ages, because it allows for students to explore new ideas and thoughts without having to stay inside the walls a teacher created for a specific project. 

4.)   What resonated most with me was the concept of conducting your own background research through the process of a “Big Idea”. This idea was completely foreign to me in high school. I never knew how important it is to look at past artist, study the way different materials work and research new techniques. I am still disappointed in my high school art teacher for not allowing us to research before starting a project. It is crucial for students to understand how important it is to research and I hope to always give my students the proper skills to explore their ideas and teach them to value the power of research. 

1.       After reading Personal Spaces I found the strength to be that students really are given the opportunity to pursue and learn about a topic that is important to them. As an art student in high school, we were given a broad assignment for projects and could break it down or interpret it how we saw fit. I really enjoyed this approach because in the end students could collaborate and share their learning experiences with one another classmates. It also allowed me to see the creative processes of other artists as well as learning how art is interpreted by an audience which further strengthened my own ability to convey my ideas through art. The most apparent weakness to me is the students who are going to take advantage of this approach and not get their work done. Or if students weren’t particularly interested in art in the first place. I could see this becoming a bigger issue in Art 1 classes, where students are only taking the course for a fine arts credit. 

2.       Most my high school art classes were student centered. My teacher encouraged self-exploration and gave us a lot of freedom when it came to our projects. The only art class I had that wasn’t student centered was probably my Art 1 class that was subject centered. 

3.       I think that my own experience had some similarities to the Big Idea approach. I do believe that the Big Idea is the best approach because it is teaching students more than just the technical skills of art. 

4.       I think the part that resonated most with me is where it says “humans create personal spaces”. I completely agree with what is being said, but had never realized that was something I was doing. I can remember being in elementary school and using art as a means of creating an imaginary world. I would spend hours in my room just coming up with crazy backstories for all my creations. I always think that I chose this over toys because it gave me the freedom to create something from the ground up. While I no longer lock myself in my room playing with scraps of doodles, I still submerge myself in to another world when I am creating. I like to create this universe where the painting exists and taking it out of its safe place can be quite vulnerable. 

2. My art education in High School was more subject centered. For example, for my Art I class we focused on shading, couture, proportions through out the whole semester. We would sometimes look at art work, but again the subject was always the subject art. There was not a project, homework, or lecture that connected art with other subjects, ideas, or any society-centered approach. My Art II class included sculpture and drawing. In Art II the subjects were also not centered around society or any other issues, there was no "Big Idea" or theme to base our projects on. However, one year the school did have a project called "Bowls for Soup" which was a society/community centered projected focused on raising funds for food pantries during the winter time, this was a school wide even and everyone was able to participate and create a bowl that would later be sold. In this particular even I feel that it was more society centered as it spread awareness in our school and our community of the need for funds in food pantries. 

3. My experience is very different than the Big Idea that Sakatoni and Pistolesi are advocating for. As I mentioned in question number two, my art education in public schools were very subject centered. I believe that Big Idea is a great approach for all ages as it can be cross disciplinary and inspire students in art but most importantly, learning. I feel that if a Big Idea is broad and interesting enough it could result in a lot of creative work that could potentially encourage students to learn about themselves, each other, society, and other subjects.  

4. I personally like the idea of "Big Idea" because as an art educator it would be amazing to be able to include other subjects into the curriculum by connecting it with one "BIg Idea." I feel like it's an opportunity for both teachers and students to be creative and could lead to amazing work by students that we may not be able to witness if another approach was to be used. One thing that stood out to me was the author's advice to word "Big Ideas" with basic human truths and needs versus the overuse of certain words like "Identity, culture and society." Students in junior high and high school may hear these words being used too many times and I can see how it can be tiresome to them as well. As art educators we want to spark imagination and creativity into students and using Big Ideas previously mentioned may cause the opposite. 

2. My art education really hit all the spectrums. We would have assignments that were subject centered when we were learning the basics but then we would also have assignments that had to deal with you and yourself and personal expression and then also assignments relating to social and society things. 

3. I think my experience was a little more accomplished in the sense that I was able to experience multiple kinds of media as well as subjects to create art and be inspired from. I think the best approach for students is to really let them find their way on their own and get to figure out themselves through art. I feel this way because when my art assignments were too structured I felt trapped in a way. 

4. What really resonated with me most was the idea in general of personal spaces. I have never heard of a project relating to that and I was honestly very intrigued to read about I think when I teach art I will definitely use that.