Art Education Students Attend NAEA Convention
This year, a small group of highly motivated art education students decided to take advantage of the opportunities for professional growth offered by the National Art Education Association National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mary Beth Koszut (MFA’11), Molly Lynd (BA’10), Mike Morris (BFA’10), and Lauren Wenk (BA’10) were overjoyed to receive funds from Bradley’s Parents Board that defrayed costs of the trip. To help with funding, students arranged a fundraiser with Subway in Campustown. The Department of Art and the Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts generously also contributed.
The NAEA’s website described: “The five-day convention includes over 1,000 participatory workshops, panels. . . research reports, discussions, exhibits, and tours . . . keynote addresses by world-acclaimed educators, artists, researchers, and scholars. [It is] a once-a-year opportunity to meet in a major American city and connect with colleagues from all over the world. Each year some 140-200 exhibitor booths displaying the latest art textbooks, high-tech software, prints, slides, curriculum materials, equipment, and programs, as well as the latest studio and art history media are made available for examination and review to art educator delegates. It is a professional development opportunity to update yourself on the vista of state-of-the-art materials to advance visual art instruction in your program.”
Students report the convention was all that was promised and more. Most encouraging was the sense of joining a group of like-minded people dedicated to improving the lives of students through art education. Molly Lynd and Mike Morris (Vice-President of Bradley’s NAEA chapter) were excited to learn an approach to teaching called Teaching Artistic Behavior (TAB). Rather than focusing on individual projects, the goal of TAB is to facilitate independent, individualized creation. Students might have several stations available to them in a TAB art classroon, and they are taught to think as an artist would in choosing their materials and goals.
Graduate student in art Mary Beth Koszut (Treasurer of Bradley’s NAEA chapter) most enjoyed meeting Paul Duncum and Peter London, art education professors from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The four students would attend various lectures and workshops, then meet back with each other to share what they had learned. All four students received all kinds of “freebies,” from Sharpie markers to a Vincent Van Gogh action figure! In addition, they visited the internationally acclaimed Minneapolis Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Center. The students returned excited about sharing new ideas and information with their peers, and they are already discussing attending the convention again next year.
-Heather Brammeier