The labels of art class: Am I second class?

This post was originally started 11/21/2014

The arts are the second class citizens of my school district.  I feel comfortable writing this because it wasn't me who gave me that label.  It happened when "every teacher at every school will get an ELMO projector" happened.

It wasn't every teacher.  It was every classroom teacher.

It took me a year and a half to get one, but I did finally get one.  Our wonderful tech support guy went through a lot to get it, find it, and make sure it was installed.  What wasn't wonderful was when he came to check on it and complained about what a pain it was to finagle, and said just that: "the special teachers are like second class citizens around here..."

Ugh.  That was deflating.

That's where it ended.  Kind of sad.  

March is Youth Art Month! Make a button!

I saw a great post on the Art Teacher's Facebook page that inspired a mini lesson.  An art teacher had her students design buttons to celebrate Youth Art Month and the staff will be wearing them all month.  I immediately thought, "I want to do that!"  I love buttons, I love art, and I am ALWAYS looking for ways to teach my students and classroom teachers arts advocacy.

I already had several packs of Design-A-Button (who doesn't?)  To help my students understand what Youth Art Month is, or why it is important, we watched an advocacy video on YouTube.  (We also watched this one which is terribly awesome in a Lovin' Spoonfuls kind of way).  Then finally, because I love nothing more than worksheets, I made a worksheet to help students brainstorm.  I gathered the images off of Pinterest and Google image search.

I did not have students cut them out, since I only needed about 15, I selected a few to cut out and assemble.  I attached this note (which I took from here) and placed them in teacher's mailboxes:

March is Youth Art Month!

Please show your support for quality school arts programs by wearing this button each day of March.  Did you know that quality art education:

 -develops students’ creative problem-­solving and critical thinking abilities;

-teaches sensitivity to beauty, order, and other expressive qualities;
-gives students a deeper understanding of multicultural values and beliefs;
-reinforces and brings to life what students learn in other subjects
- interrelates student learning in art production, art  history,  art  criticism and aesthetics

Thank you!