Moriah Thielges

"We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model - which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people - we have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it's an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they begin to flourish." - Sir Ken Robinson

 

    As an art educator in the twenty-first century, my primary role to the students is to lead them into a self-directed model of learning that sets the stage for life-long development. In the rapidly changing future with challenges, directions, and exploration that we cannot even predict, students stepping into the future must be conductors of original problem-solving and designers of ingenuity. The art classroom should be an environment that promotes successes and failures, attempting risks and learning unpredictable and unstructured paths to achievement.

 

    It has been said that curriculum should be based off of two theories: the information as a window, and the information as a mirror. I want my class to be a window for the students to view the world through, to gain information about the conditions and circumstances of our culture and cultures throughout the increasingly globalized world. I want them to gain understanding and comfort of the variety that the world presents, and to gain the skills to go through the process of finding the answers to the questions they confront.

 

    Reflectively, I see the classroom for a child to incorporate this knowledge into their own perspective and relate it to their own cultures and information. Each student has a different perspective and different ideas to present to the classroom which will bring exposure, acceptance, and curiosity to the different thought processes that can occur on a daily basis. Each student also has different interests and skills that can be explored and incorporated into their projects. These skills and thought processes should be practiced and considered to create webs of knowledge and connected themes that carry to many other aspects of the student's life.

 

    Every individual is a creative, problem-solving, lifelong learner; many people are led to believe, sometimes at very young ages, that there is a specific quality to being creative and that they do not possess it. This is an incredible disservice not only to the individual, whose expanding potential is halted unnecessarily, but also for the growth of the potential that this person could provide. The potential of authentic intention and contribution to the future, the community, and a path of integrity is such an important element of the well-rounded education of each student. Art education is a truly open-ended and fundamental aspect of the hollistic learning of the twenty-first century individual.