Art in the
Elementary Classroom

This website was put together as a portfolio for a class I took at Cal State-LA, --"Developing Visual Literacy." My hope is that the lessons, ideas, and philosophy presented here may be of benefit to you.

C. Coates

Multicultural Arts Education: A Philosophy

The aim of multicultural education is that each student understand and value his/her own and other groups' contibutions to the cultural legacies of humankind and to appreciate the importance of diversity as a positive world and social view. The arts are a major cultural expression and lend themselves readily to multicultural education. Muticultural arts education must:

-provide individuals with the ability to understand their own cultural heritage and traditions

-provide individuals with the ability to examine, question and be conscious of how cultural changes affect their own cultural assumptions and feelings and provide the basis for individuals and groups to take greater control of their own lives, and

-provide individuals with the ability to expand their own aesthetic decision making skills as they become empowered by recognizing and understanding aesthetic choices developed by many different peoples.

To accomplish this aim requires both transmission of knowledge and development of attitudes. "It is one thing to develop knowledge and awareness of human similarities and another to develop empathey. Knowledge is anecessary but insufficient ingredient. the goal is informed empathy, or knowlege plus sensitivity in trying to imagine oneself in another's shoes or bare feet."

Bennett, Comprehensive Multicultural Education, 1986, pp. 194-5

Lessons:
Color Wheel and Mixing colors
Collage
Contour Drawing
Mask Making
Sculpture

Links about Color Theory
Chronological Bibliography on Color Theory - chronological list of books and seminal articles on color and color theory.
Color Matters - Physiological and psychological effects of color: appetite, sexuality, cultural symbolism.
Color Perception
Color Theory

Design Organizations
American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)
Color Marketing Group - not-for-profit, international association of Color Designers involved in the use of color as it applies to the profitable marketing of goods and services.
Graphic Artists Guild Foundation

Know of another interesting art link? Add here