Katie Kretchmar

Art Education as a Critical Venue for Establishing Identity Through Values

What Influences your self-image?

The purpose of my paper is to persuade Art Educators and other policymakers to understand the importance of art education and curriculum

in developing Identity. Current efforts are not meeting the needsof students because:

There is a lack of emphasis on identity in all aspects of life.

There is a lack of exploration related to self-image based on internal values instead of products owned.

There is a lack of understanding that a positive self-image givespeople a security that helps them pursue change and influence social policy.

There are few art educators taking the initiative to develop curriculum that encourages students to actively explore their values, self-image, and Identity.

I found very little research on art education lessons or projects that dealt successfully with the issues of identity and more specifically self-image and values. This leads me to believe that this is an important and valid issue for research.

Art education programs are frequently suppressed in school systems and art educators need to take the lead in creating change.

Art educators need to renew and revitalize the art curriculum by incorporating better multicultural, identity, visual culture, new media, and creativity lessons and projects that help encourage play, critical exploration, and questioning.

I really enjoyed reading Olivia Gude’s articles as they were very informative and tended to deal with topics of interest to me.

The discussions provided a fantastic forum for us to equally and collectively inform issues and expanded material for further research and implementation.

Is there a specific type of lesson and/or strategy that is significantly more effective with different socio-economic populations and/or learning style modalities?

What are the best informal and formal methods for measuring values and self-identity that are both valid (will produce consistent results over time) and reliable (measure the items that are intended to be measured)? How can these measurement tools be utilized legally and ethically within different school systems with different ages?

I wish there had been more information in regards to testing and assessment methods in art education. (recommendations)

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