I recently attended the National Art Education Association Convention in Boston. It was an amazing experience and I learned so much while there. I went to several sessions that were all lead by talented and inspiring art educators, but a few stood out the most to me. One of the sessions was led by Emma Mullins Zucker, an art educator who studied at the City College of New York and teaches Elementary Art in East Bronx. For her thesis, she studied teacher perspectives on the best practices for teaching an arts curriculum rich in social justice topics to the youngest learners.
Here is a link where she elaborates more on how she conducted her research.
I was drawn to this session because integrating social justice into my curriculum is something I've been trying to do more of and I haven't found many resources that focus on teaching these ideas to younger learners.
During the session, Emma shared different ways educators can plant seeds of compassion and respect for ALL people, animals, and the earth through art.
She shared resources including a
Social Justice Resources Guide which listed many different visual artists, books, and websites that could be used in the art room and a
Lesson Resource Guide which shared images and descriptions of PreK-1st grade projects.
A suggestion that stood out in her
presentation was to display images of artists from around the world in her classroom, but also display student's portraits alongside those artists to reenforce the idea that everyone is an artist. She also suggested leading each lesson with an artist and to point out things about that artist that might help the children relate.
Emma's presentation was such an inspiring and informative session. I look forward to using these lessons and resources in my art room.
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