Education Commons^™

(Re)Constructing Erased Narratives: Unearthing Strange Fruit, Maria D. Leake

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This article focuses on the artistic practices of Vincent Valdez, who (re)constructs hidden narratives regarding the lynching of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in South Texas from 1848 until 1928. Valdez counters the historical gaps and omissions of Latino history from textbooks as a form of failure which he addresses not as a historian, but as an artist looking at the past through a contemporary lens. The conceptual framework of this research references critical race theory and its relationship with culturally sustaining pedagogies to challenge exclusionary practices that selectively privilege the histories of some groups over others. Implications for confronting the master …

On Being Naïve: A Queer Aesthete In Art Education, Adam Greteman

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In this article, the author utilizes the work of Quentin Crisp to explore the possibility of cultivating the naïve as a way to reframe failure. To be “naïve” is perhaps a form of failure; a failure to be worldly or knowledgeable in one’s doing and becoming. Accusations of naïveté are used, after all, to distinguish the work one is doing from others that have not “gotten it right” or fail to see what you as a scholar see in a more critical, less naïve, vein. What I ponder here then is this thing called “naïveté?” How might the “naïf” help …

Reframing New Art Teacher Support: From Failure To Freedom, Christina Hanawalt

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In order to support new art teachers and encourage them as leaders of contemporary art education curricula, those invested in the preparation and development of beginning art teachers must examine the forces at play in new teachers’ professional lives, as well as the problems with existing support structures. In this article, I present seven perspectives on the new art teacher experience, ranging from feelings of failure, to problems inherent in preparation and induction practices, to issues of teacher identity and socialization, to the pursuit of professional agency within school cultures. I suggest readers view these perspectives as seven artworks hanging …

The Failure Of Whiteness In Art Education: A Personal Narrative Informed By Critical Race Theory, Sunny Spillane

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This article explores failure from the perspective of a white art educator interested in social justice and educational equity. Interconnected notions of failure are explored, including: the author’s learning from personal failure as a process of professional growth over the course of her career; the specter of “school failure” and its impact on K-12 students’ educational opportunities and experiences; entrenched, systemic inequities in public schools and their failure to serve marginalized students and communities; and the potential complicity of the author’s individual professional failures – if left unaddressed – in perpetuating racialized inequities in art education. Whiteness, or white power, …

My Failure With An Ojibwe Artist: Reflections On Initial Intercultural Relationships, Kevin Slivka

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In this article, I examine a first meeting with Ojibwe artist, Terry Kemper, during which I failed to initiate our meeting with the gift of tobacco. I explore failure in a relational event with Kemper and discuss the intentions of my ethnographic research, my researcher-identity, and my mistake of initially neglecting Ojibwe protocol during my first meeting with the artist, in addition to the role of tobacco in Ojibwe communities. Through aesthetic inquiry I reframe failure in an installation entitled, "Toward Reconciliation” that has potential pedagogical implications, with hope that it avoids a static and impotent result. I intend the …

Failure To Operationalize: Investing In Critical Multicultural Art Education, Joni Boyd Acuff

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

ProPublica (2015) completed a study looking at three decades of federal data on fatal police shootings and found that Black males are 21 times more likely to be shot dead by police than White males the same age. The deaths of unarmed Black males by armed White males and police officers has moved America into a tense racial divide in many areas of the United States. With this data in mind, the author makes a call for art educators to assume an educational framework that guides the destabilization of institutional power and places equity at the forefront of art teaching. …

Failure To Be A “Real American”? → Challenging Failure: An Impetus To Shape Scholarship And Teaching, Christina Chin

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

The author reflects on personal experiences, highlighting vignettes of her perceived “failure to be a ‘real American,’” and recounts these stories through her own voice. With the hopes that her journey might inspire, inflame empathic frustrations with an inegalitarian status quo, and remind others of how important it is for us to participate in fighting for justice, she shares her experiences and developing understandings as she has learned to embrace more counterhegemonic scholarship and practices. She describes how her childhood experiences and daily life experiences as an adult have shaped her work as a researcher and teacher of art education. …

Access And Failure, Beth Balliro

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Many art education advocates call for expanded arts offerings in schools, particularly in urban settings. These calls for greater and more equitable arts access are presented as efforts toward racial and social justice, yet often lack a vision for a culturally affirming pedagogy. Through the dialogue of the author and her former student, this article explores how more arts access, without significant pedagogical revamping, may in fact reinforce the persistent failure of urban schools to provide purposeful education, particularly for Black male artists.

Failed Paper: Skirting The Call For And About Failure Through Failure., Jorge R. Lucero

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

No abstract provided.

Reflective Communities: Mentoring Teacher Candidates During The (In)Between Spaces Of The Practicum, Joana Hyatt

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This article critiques traditional student teaching formats that fail to examine the social conditions of the spaces between the time of becoming and the place of being educators during practicum fieldwork. The lack of negotiable spaces for student teachers to resolve problematic situations, myths, cultural differences, and relational aspects of teaching have been documented. Exploring the methods of arts-based inquiry, a group of teacher candidates illustrated their experiences of becoming art educators by producing artwork, videos, and narratives. Student teachers then reflected on their shared roles, making other avenues of collaboration available. When the affective domains of learning to teach …

Toward A Poor Exhibition: The Fail(Lure) Of Curare And Currere, Laura Lee Mccartney

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This article offers a look at a/r/tographic inquiry designed to interrogate curator fail(lures) in Dress Stories, an exhibition of 150 personal clothing objects rendered in the Cora Stafford Gallery at the University of North Texas from September 25-28, 2012. The article presents opportunities to linger with the four steps for experimenting with currere, outlined by William F. Pinar and Madeleine R. Grumet in Toward a Poor Curriculum (1976) to consider the benefits of allowing for uncertainty in curating the curriculum of my lived experiences. A poor exhibition allowed me to become lost so I might be found as a …

Editorial: Reframing Fail(Ure): Failure To See? Failure To Connect? Failure To Be?, Sharif Bey

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

No abstract provided.