Published in ConnectED Newsletter - Volume 6 - Issue 4 - June 2023
On May 10, 2023, Marit Dewhurst, Professor of Art Education, gave a talk at the University of Cincinnati as part of the Bastos Family Creative Educator Series. Entitled “Doing Our Homework: Preparing to Facilitate Social Justice Art Education” and based on the soon-to-be-published second edition of Prof. Dewhurst’s first book, Social justice art: A framework for activist art pedagogy, the talk highlighted core principles of social justice art education as well as critical pre-homework that educators must engage in prior to embarking on any social justice oriented art education.
Since 2014, when the book was originally published, we have witnessed an explosion of interest in the topic and this unique mode of teaching. In addition, our worlds have been dramatically altered by social moments for justice that have brought both new and seasoned educators to the conversation, eager to bring more activist art-making into their practice. Throughout this, artists and social justice scholars have shifted and deepened their collective understandings about what is needed and what might be possible in their art-making, their learning, and their teaching. And yet, while there is increased interest in this approach to teaching art, there is little discussion of how to prepare for this work. This talk centered on the need for art educators to reflect on their power, purpose, and positionality; to identify community strengths; to develop power-sharing strategies; and to nurture relationship building in order to avoid doing harm when facilitating social justice art education.
Prof. Dewhurst claims that to engage in social justice art education (SJAE) is to step into a different way of teaching and learning, not just a what of teaching and learning. “There is no set curriculum, no cookie cutter lesson plans, no one-size-fits-all. But there is we and there is with. We build a practice of SJAE with each other, with our collaborators, with our communities, and with the artists who have come before us and will continue to make art after us,” she explains. She adds that, throughout the book, readers will notice an intentional shift to we in her descriptions of the ways to prepare to do SJAE, the core processes, and the sample strategies. “This we is meant to be an invitation to collectivity; SJAE is not a solo activity. We who engage in SJAE learn with and from each other, we reflect and adapt, we make mistakes, we lean on each other, we try again, we stretch in tandem, we encourage and hold each other accountable to the core principles, and we create new ways of making with our communities.”
At its core, SJAE demands that art educators approach their visions of teaching and learning from a dramatically different angle than what most have experienced, read about, or facilitated in their lives as learners and educators. Prof. Dewhurst argues, “It asks us to set aside the hierarchical power dynamics of conventional schooling. It invites us to imagine and recall forms of collaborative solution-finding that prioritize compassion and possibility. It urges us to embrace the messiness and ambiguity of unfolding artworks and community building. It asks us to critique the dominant ways of thinking, making, and doing that we have absorbed from social structures and to resist the ways that harm us while uplifting the ways of equity, justice, and love.” She also argues that making art to change systems of oppression requires that we imagine and share ways of being that are fundamentally different from dominant ways of being and working together. “For sure, none of this is easy—and yet, it is possible, albeit with some preparation, collaboration, and ongoing reflection. We cannot skip the warm-ups if we want to play the game without pulling a muscle or dropping the ball.”
Last Updated: 06/01/2023 17:33