Teaching for Artistic Behavior

I am currently planning a choice lesson for my middle schoolers and it's got me thinking about the unit I taught last year. Last year, for one quarter, I transformed my art room into a TAB (Teaching for Artistic Behavior) studio for a research project. It was such a fun experience for myself and my students. Normally I would consider my style of teaching to be somewhere between limited to moderate on the choice spectrum (see chart below). I've been trying to incorporate more and more opportunities for choice into my room since seeing how much my students gained from the TAB lessons last year.

I was drawn to TAB because of the lack of motivation I saw in my 8th grade students. I felt like they were only working on projects because it was required of them, not because they really wanted to. I wanted the curriculum to be more relevant and I wanted to push them to think like an artist. 

I began their first TAB lesson by introducing them to two different artists and a few new sculpting techniques they had never used before. On the first day, we watched two clips from art21 which introduced artist Nick Cave and Theaster Gates. We also looked at some art techniques they had never seen before including assemblage and sculpting with toilet paper. 

This WOW planning sheet which is influenced by the 8 studio habits of mind, was extremely helpful when they began to organize their ideas. I organized my art room so that all supplies were more assessable. Students had free range of the art room and several weeks to create a Wonderful Original Work of art. 

The centers available were drawing, painting, sculpture or collage. Students had the option of using the artists as inspiration, but they were allowed to fully explore their interests or another artist if they chose to.

My art room felt like a real studio. Every morning when the students came in, all of them were excited to continue working. They would ask each other for feedback, and if something didn't go as planned (which happened on several occasions), they problem solved and continued to create. 

  

I learned more about my 8th grade students that year than any other year I have been teaching. By the end of the quarter, this class had created the most original works of art that have come out of my art room. They put so much effort into their work and made something they were proud of. 

This style of teaching taught me to step back and give my students more creative freedom. I don't know that I'll ever be a TAB teacher, but I do hope to continue to integrate TAB ideas into my room each year.