I have the students enter a lot of contests: they provide a strong focus for the group and there’s a consensus to work on these. You can attribute all artistic design activities in a contest — balance, form, line, color, plus bring in an artist to inspire them further. The students do lots of graphics —kids today see more graphics, know logos, etc. They are visually more verse at imagery than earlier in my career.
Doing contests drives my curriculum:
1) You have to get your school out there to let them know you exist, especially as one of the new small schools. There’s no money for the arts and we need businesses and foundations to recognize this. I ask the kids, “Would you like be in our new gallery?” The arts teacher needs to be one of a forward-planner of people. We had an exhibit in Jan/Feb 2006— so we had curators back in October of 2005— this in a brand new school that was 6 weeks old. “I whipped the kids into shape” and when the school officially opened in the new facility, Project Excellence was the first exhibit representing the arts.
Contests help learning about the community, about the violence rate, the gang rate. This is a high school population; it’s amazing how fast they’re techno-savvy. It’s been a rapid vertical climb for me, myself.
2) They contribute to students’ sense of self-worth. Simply competing and trying, whether they win or not, is not important. By simply participating there’s a sense of personal accomplishment. They gain recognition for genuine accomplishment.
Sometimes with contests there’s a very selective jury, sometimes it’s a blanket submission. Sometimes we just put the artwork up in the classroom. I use their language, e.g., TYGHT [someone who exemplifies an anti radical thinker] — and they eat it up!! It’s not corny at all. Even if it’s just around the classroom they loved it.
I also exhibit the work in the hallways in school — the kids get higher esteem for work seen by visitors.
It’s all about arts for art’s sake and having a resident arts teacher makes the difference in a building. Years back, Strong Schools, Strong Arts- was an article in NAEA-true-yes!
