Well, we've all arrived in Minneapolis safely and enjoyed our first day of the conference. After conference check-in, Kristin & Nate went off to polish their presentation and Corrie and I tried to cover more ground by going to two different sessions.
My first session was "Re-searching Art Education from 1959-1969" and included comments by Elliot Eisner and Arthur Efland on the Art Education Journal, Studies in Art Education. I will take any and every opportunity to listen to Dr. Eisner speak...he is truly one of my Art Education heroes. My favorite quote from his remarks:
"At our very best, what we're (art educators) are all about, is transferring experience into art." WOW.
Corrie asked a question about Art Education professors facing the challenge of staying true to our field while trying to gain respect by connecting our ideas to other fields in terms of publishing, Dr. Eisner gave a lengthy response and then..."Let's have some easier questions." Indeed.
Another session I attended was titled "Preparing Reflective Art Teachers," presented by Dr. Kathy Unrath. She discussed several reflective projects that her Art Education students engage in in order to consistently reflect on their teaching and to stay open to and aware of those pivotal moments in the journey to becoming an art educator. All of the projects had a visual component that I felt our own SU students would enjoy. I would love to get a chance to include some of these assignments in course to come.
Corrie saw a really great presentation she raved about and I hope to get her to "guest blog" about it tomorrow.
We went to the annual Crayola party, which is always fun but seemed scaled down this year, perhaps because of the economy. As always, there were many tables available for attendees to try the latest Crayola products and have some fun. A giant sculpture was being constructed by many people using Crayola's new papier-mache product. There were also glittery watercolor paints (Julianne!) and paint mediums and also colored pencil pigment sticks without the wood. A fun, jump/swing quartet played some great music. There were some free goodies and we met some really nice colleagues from oregon and California as well as caught up with NYSATA pal Cindy Wells.
Tomorrow our plan is to head over to the Walker Art Center and climb the Claus Oldenburg sculpture...only kidding. Stay tuned!
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Hi Kath! It sounds like you are having a great time!! I wish I could be there! Thanks for blogging to keep us informed :) Kristin and Nate's Tech Seminar sounds like it went over great! Tell everyone I said Hi :) p/s the bake sale went great!! $40 from the bake sale and $37 from the grazing station!!! :)
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