Sarah Ross

What egalitarian ideals have shaped our conception of public education? How has the promise of democratic schools been undermined by white privilege, racism, class-based discrimination, inequitable funding, colonialism, patriarchy, and disregard for the human impact on the natural world? This course builds a foundation for understanding the politics of schooling by exploring the struggle for democratic education in Chicago, contextualized by contemporary global decolonial practices in education. Students will consider how shifting conceptions of schooling are responses to the contemporary cultural moment¿recognizing how curriculum supports the beliefs and needs of the status quo as well as how curriculum might critique and propose new ways of being as individuals and as societies. The course explores a broad range of histories, philosophies, and approaches to schooling, including Freedom Schools, Native American boarding schools, transformative justice in education, play and free child movements, teacher-led movements, environmental studies, and the fight to defend ethnic studies programs as well as attempts to re-segregate and privatize public schools.

Artists, designers and scholars to be studied include Tonika Lewis, Eve Ewing, Elizabeth Todd-Breland, Jose Resendiz, Borderless Studios, Interference Archive and Alexis Rockman. Readings from the field of art education by Doug Blandy, Laurie Hicks, and Mark Graham will trace the emergence of eco-art and place-based art education curriculum. Field trips include visits to school sites, Chicago Board of Education meetings and exploration of CBOE archives.

Course assignments include short response papers and course readings. Students conduct and report on six hours of observations in schools, sites of school decision-making, and in places where people attempt to build democratic processes related to schools. Students will conduct independent research on topics related to contemporary issues and schooling. Each student will prepare and present a culminating project proposal for a school whose curriculum and structures address their political and social concerns and pedagogical vision.

The focus of this course is to support a sense of purpose and agency in prospective art teachers, teaching artists, and cultural workers by exploring how individual and collaborative cultural production reflects and influences conceptions of race, class, ethnicity, geography, sexuality, and physical/cognitive abilities in a diversity of communities and settings. Students will interrogate the cultural contexts-aesthetics, artmaking approaches, social, political, historical, theoretical, technological, and pedagogical-that frame the making, interpreting, analyzing, sharing, and teaching of art, design, and visual culture in school and community settings. Students will develop content for art and culture projects and curriculum sequences based upon contemporary topics, issues, and themes.

Students will explore the work of contemporary artists and cultural workers who integrate diverse artmaking approaches, cultural histories, theoretical orientations, and psychological perspectives into their arts-based practices. Artists and readings will be chosen based upon timely and emergent issues, concepts, and themes affecting a diversity of communities. Methods and strategies for integrating various literacies--verbal, visual, media, technological, computational--into cultural projects and curriculum will be explored.

Yes course will ask students to understand how individual and collaborative cultural production reflects and influences conceptions of race, class, ethnicity, geography, sexuality, and physical/cognitive abilities in a diversity of communities and settings. Students will also Understand how cultural contexts frame the making, interpreting, analyzing, sharing, and teaching art, design, and visual culture in school and community settings.

The objective for this course is to enable students to collaborate with diverse populations and to broaden their ability to make art with people. A combination of lecture, discussion, and community fieldwork will provide an opportunity to link teaching philosophy with experience. Topics include social theory, identity formation, political activism, critical pedagogy, 'public art,' and art as a force for social transformation. Course requirements include: research, project proposals, curriculum development, participation in an approved collaborative community-based project, and documentation. Students will be expected to spend at least three hours per week at their community field site. This course counts as studio credit.

This seminar involves readings and discussions of works by twentieth-century social theorists who have had or might have consequences for artists' approaches to their own practices, as well as the interpretation of artistic production in general. It is not intended to be a survey of aesthetic theories, but rather will consider various questions concerning social relations and institutions, as well as basic premises that inform different conceptual approaches to these issues. Students will also read work that deals with the production and consumption of art using particular social-theoretical frameworks. Open to all students senior level and above.

How does a museum label shape our understanding of the art and artist? How do wayfinding signs in a city create an experience of space and place? And how do interpretive signs at memorials, in neighborhoods and city parks omit or celebrate history? In this course students will explore systems of meaning and the roles that artists, educators and institutions play in interpreting, reproducing and transforming culture. Drawing from art history, theory, and criticism students will learn to develop critical pedagogy that explores the role of interpretation as both an institutional and art practice. Students will work in both art collections and in public space to create interpretive materials and forms that consider the dimensions of interpretive work. Course content includes research of museum practices and also critical projects by artists such as Lize Mogel, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Sandra De La Loza, Alexandra Bell, Andrea Carlson, James Luna, Fred Wilson, among others.

Section 001: Thesis Fieldwork - The individual student and instructor will meet at agreed times to provide supervision and dialogue relating to the clinical experience. The choice of field site is agreed upon by student, instructor, and site supervisor. Students will spend 12 hours per week for 3 semester hours credit. This course can be taken for 3 or 6 semester hours. Section 002: Career and Professional Experience Elective Internship - Graduate CAPX education and internships in art education allow students to work in part-time, art-related CAPX positions in approved organizations and institutions. Students are assigned a CAPX faculty adviser. Participation requires a total of 210 hours, with a minimum weekly average of 15 work hours with the internship organization. Call the Career and Professional Experience Program at 312/ 499-4130 for further information. Permission to register for this course must be obtained from the director of the CAPX Program.