Education Commons^™

Dreams Of A Motley Graduation Cap: A Proposal For Stand-Up Comedy In Higher Education, David Patterson

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

It is said that the most valuable tool an education at a liberal arts university is how it produces well rounded people with a better understanding of themselves and the world around them. To produce people not only aware of current issues, but with the toolbelt needed to assess them and shed new light. If this is true, then I propose that the goals of liberal arts university are synonymous with the goals of a comedian.

In this thesis, I mean to draw ties to the world of stand up comedy and within the world of liberal arts academia. I …

Problem-Solving Pedagogy: A Foundation For Restructuring, Updating, And Improving Undergraduate Theory And Musicianship Curricula, Michael T. Simonelli

Masters Theses

The goal of this thesis is to provide the ideological and practical foundation for an improved approach to undergraduate theory and musicianship pedagogy. I will discuss the structure of conventional theory programs and explore problems inherent to traditional curriculum design. Problem-solving pedagogy, an approach rooted in creative composition and improvisation, will be presented as a complement to traditional theory pedagogy. Balancing problem-solving pedagogy with a more traditional pedagogical approach will provide a practical foundation for improving undergraduate theory and musicianship curricula.

An Arts-Based Classroom Confronts Educations Metanarratives: Grand Narratives, Local Stories And A Classroom Teacher's Story, David Rufo

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This paper examines and deconstructs how a 4th/5th grade independent school teacher and his teaching partner were assessed based on their classroom management and teaching styles. The school administrator’s perspective and critique of this teaching team is expressed through a six-page performance evaluation report. As a member of the teaching team, the author presents an alternate perspective; advocating for self-initiated, interdisciplinary and creative approaches to learning. He viewed his practices as a site for a critical pedagogical discourse, ongoing analysis, reflection and revision. Here the author reflects on how two conflicting teaching paradigms perceive and evaluate the management style of …

Inoperative Art Education, Nadine M. Kalin, Daniel T. Barney

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Increasingly, assessment has encroached on art education, inextricably linking visual arts learning to standardized performances wherein, art educators are becoming technicians accountable to the neoliberal state of education. Under these circumstances, the authors’ hearts and minds are understandably heavy for a postponement of art education as usual, proposing the question: Given the permission to escape art education’s current workings, what might art educators abandon, and how might they undertake this? IN order to delve into this provocation, the authors propose a limbo space of deferral in relation to art education that might inspire any predetermined usages inoperable. From this paradoxical …

The Creatures We “Assessinate”: Mental Testing As Science Fiction In Chicago Public High Schools In 1909, Clayton Funk

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This article tracks the development of what educators and psychologists, in 1909, termed “mental testing” in relation to art education in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). According to CPS Superintendent Edwin G. Cooley (1857-1923) American civilization was in trouble due to the influx of Southern and Eastern European immigrants in Chicago. He and other educators sought to ward off the social collapse they feared with the efficiency of science. As part of what Sol Cohen termed the “medicalization of education,” Chicago’s Department of Child Study tested students for mental capacity and those considered less intelligence were placed in technical classes, while …