Sara E. Thomas
This unit will address three specific needs that I see in all of my students. These needs are: fostering tolerance, encouraging critical thinking and facilitating successful self-expression. The first step is to teach them to be critical thinkers and to question EVERYTHING! Specifically, in this unit, I would like them to question stereotypes and learn to think twice before they make assumptions about another human being. I believe that this is extremely important. In the halls I often hear them being disrespectful to one another – making rude comments. I think that much of this language is used out of ignorance, and they are not actually thinking about what they are saying. I would like to teach them to be tolerant and respectful of each other.
HSC is a melting pot; it mirrors the variety of different races that are present throughout our entire country. Because of this diversity I believe that it is extremely important to teach tolerance and critical thinking. Tatum says, "My students have learned that there is a taboo against talking about race, especially in racially mixed settings," (Tatum 36). I observe this exact sentiment in my students. They are often quick to discuss stereotypes with their own race, but become uncomfortable or defensive when others draw attention to their race. Most of my Black and Latino students are in the stage of racial development Tatum classifies as the encounter stage; they are aware of the significance of their race, but they are not yet sure what to do with this realization. (Tatum 55) She also states that this is the stage many students get lost in because they now have a heightened awareness of negative stereotypes about themselves and are often not provided with positive role models within their race (Tatum 74). Students are surrounded by negative images of themselves on the television, through music and media. Students need to be proud of who they are and learn to ignore the negative images they see and focus on positive ones. I would like to provide them with a variety of Black and Latino artists and authors as positive role models who have become successful and also successfully found ways to express themselves, instead of keeping quiet.
Many of my white students are in the stage Tatum calls disintegration. They are certainly aware of racism through conversations and often times first hand experiences with their peers (Tatum 96). However, though they are aware and may want to do something about it, I see that many of them are very uncomfortable talking about it. I hope that through open discussions in this class they will become more comfortable discussing these issues.
I would like students to learn about and embrace each others' cultural differences and celebrate their similarities. Most importantly I would like students to become critical thinkers and not accept stereotypes or jump to conclusions about others. By deconstructing stereotypes and creating a safe learning environment I would like to make students aware of all of the misinformation that they are confronted with. I would like them to leave my room with the skills to assess what they are told, research and think critically to determine whether or not what they are told is legitimate information.
Identity is a self-concept formed by family, history, social and economical factors. It is not simply formed by your environment. It is formed through both nature and nurture. Every human goes through identity formation. (Hancock May 10, 2005) The things that we identify with can bring us closer to people and can drive us apart. When an artist expresses a part of their own identity that we share or can relate to we are much more passionate about that piece of artwork.
Stereotypes are overly simplistic and exaggerate generalizations. They are usually acquired through secondhand information instead of firsthand and are often passed on through observation and imitation, ignorantly. (Hancock May 17, 2005) We use stereotypes everyday to help us get through life; it is one way that as humans we assimilate information. I have a stereotype that school lunch is unhealthy. It is a generalized exaggeration which prompts me not to buy school lunch. However, if I were to tell another teacher that "School lunch is unhealthy," they would be very surprised to find that you can buy a salad everyday. This is a stereotype which motivates me to bring in my own healthy lunch, however it is not entirely true. Stereotypes can be helpful for categorizing information, but you should always be sure to get your facts straight before perpetuating them. I would like to list all of the possible stereotypes for each ethnicity and talk about where or why the stereotypes may have originated. I would also like to find an example to use on student's level (The example we used in seminar was getting out of a parking ticket) I would like to talk to them about when they feel as though they've been treated unfairly (followed in stores or at the museum – I see this all the time!) We will also clarify that prejudice is an emotional attitude one holds towards a particular group of people to which they themselves do not belong. Discrimination is the behavioral application of prejudice. So you can be prejudiced but choose not to express the prejudice. (Hancock May 17, 2005)
A large part of your identity is influenced things which you were born into – like ethnicity, socio-economic class, etc. These are all things which become a part of you that you cannot change, however you can change how you look at them. Ethnicity is a set of cultural traits or behaviors often including cooking, traditions and religion. (Hancock May 17, 2005) For white students exploring their ethnicity be more of a challenge, as often times we do not have as many family traditions as other ethnicities. Still, I will urge students to ask their families and find out as much as they can about any family or cultural traditions.
Through deconstructing stereotypes and exploration of identity I would like students to gain a greater sense of self and what makes them unique. I would like them to be able to express a piece of themselves in every piece of artwork they do. Art is the perfect catalyst for this because, "Art has no race or gender. Art…was for me a realm where every imposed boundary could be transgressed" (Hooks xi). I would like to start inspiring students to create artwork which has meaning for them personally. It is easy to give students an assignment like a still life where they are simply recreating objects from observation; however, how are they invested in the outcome of a still life? The challenge is to find lessons where students can make personal choices about their artwork while also learning the fundamentals of drawing, painting and sculpture.When speaking about Lois Mailou Jones and Romare Beardon, Hooks says, "when they no longer focused exclusively on European traditions and drew upon the cultural legacy of the African-American diasporic experience – that they fully discovered their artistic identity" (Hooks 5). Once Beardon and Jones had learned aesthetics and traditional art they used the base they had learned and made their artwork their own. They infused it with their own culture, race and personal history. This is what I would like my students to learn. I propose to do this by teaching through a series of eight lessons, each with a different focus on an aspect of life that influences identity. These aspects will include each student's environment, culture, traditions, family, friends, experiences, physical appearance, fear, dreams and aspirations.
Through the above discussion I would like students to come out of the conversation with the understanding that artwork surrounds us from the chairs we sit in to the cars we drive. Everything has an aesthetic design to it. I would like our definition of artwork to focus on two things: art as a form of personal expression, and art as creating something aesthetically pleasing. "One can be critically aware of visual politics – the way race, gender, and class shape art – without abandoning a fierce commitment to aesthetics" (Hooks xii). The most important part of artwork for students in this class will be the expressive part of the artwork, because that is what they bring to the artwork, not the aesthetics. Aesthetics can be learned. Emotion and expression in artwork comes from their passions and their personal experience. The piece of themselves they put into each piece of artwork is not something I can teach. It has to come from within them and that is what makes art so wonderful and different.
I will be using identity as a way to encourage students to include themselves in their artwork and also as a tool to help them start discovering that their identity is something which has been constructed by the things around them and that they
do
have control over it and they
can
change it. Each of my students is at a point in their life when they are going to start making valuable decisions about what type of person they are going to be. I would like them to explore how their values and morals have been shaped to help them make these decisions. I would also like them to understand that even though it feels like they may not have much in common with some of their classmates, they have more in common than they will ever realize.
