Patty Bode and Multicultural Art Education

Hey All! This is Corrie Burdick, your guest blogger for today. Wanted to share with you some infomration about a great session that I attended yesterday. The presenter was Patty Bode and she talked about what art teachers need to know to teach in today's urban art classrooms. It was a great session because she addressed it from the perspective of the students. Bottom line, they want to do things that are relevant to their lives. One of the best quotes from the kids was "dead guys and alive ones too." Also, the role of visual culture in the art classroom as a way to understand how students make meaning about images. They want to be asked about their thoughts, their understandings of the world around them and how they are to make sense of all the media they encounter. She has a 2008 publication that sounds like it would be a good thing to read about how we can reconceptualize multicultural art education for today's classroom. She was dynamic and I left feeling very inspired! So she's definitely on my radar now as someone to watch!

Also, I attended the technology session by our very own Nate Nottingham and Kristin Goble. It was fabulous and they packed the house. Obviously an important topic for teachers based upon the number of people in the room and the great conversation that ensued from the presentation. Great job Kristin and Nate! They really represented Syracuse University Art Education well!

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's presentation from Judy Chicago and the introduction of her art curriculum. I saw the prelimianary presentation for this at the conference in chicago two years ago and it was like a religious experience for me so I can't wait to see where how far it has come....more on that later. You all need to make plans now to attend next year in Baltimore, totally driveable and this conference will rock your world! See you all!~