Teaching with Cultural Diversity

How can I teach art in ways that makes my students take pride in their own cultural identity while gaining respect and appreciation for the art and customs of other cultures? 

Marvin Bartel http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/multiculturalart.html

Much of what we know about historic cultures is through objects we are likely to consider as art.

How can we teach about other cultures without stereotyping them?

Hung Liu

Is it appropriate to make assumptions about a culture that has no word for art?

For example, Native American cultures have no word for art. They do not separate “art” from life.

Is it right to imitate what might be sacred or at least traditional in another culture? 

Marvin Bartel http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/multiculturalart.html

The Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona

If I know an artist’s intentions, I can motivate my students to create art based on similar intentions related to the culture of the students in my class.

Marvin Bartel http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/multiculturalart.html

Learn about artists as part of a larger unit. Here a Days of the Dead celebration honors Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

School Wide Themes or Celebrations

Cilau Valadez Agustin Cruz Prudencio

John Dahlsen Totems

Look for contemporary artists whointegrate historical or cultural ideas.

Brian Jungen

James Mishler

One approach is to start with the cultures represented in your school and community.

Another is to start with a theme or big idea and show how it has been expressed in art from many cultures and times. Try to include visual culture and both contemporary and historic artworks.

Know what you are talking about.

How to Get Started

Ernest Boyer’s Human Commonalities

All of us:• experience the life cycles.• work.• use symbols.• know time and place.• search for a larger purpose.• have an aesthetic response.• seek social bonding.• have a connection to nature.

The Symbol of the HandWhat can it mean?

How to Get Started

One approach is to start with the cultures represented in your school and community.

Come up with a theme or big idea. This can be as simple as identity, community, story, nature, ecology, cycles, etc. Keep concepts simple. Consider how that idea is expressed in art. Look for many art examples from different times, places, and cultures that will appeal to students. Try to include visual culture and both contemporary and historic artworks.

Think about how you will engage your students. How can you present each lesson in an interesting way? Sharing a book, showing and discussing an Animoto video, PowerPoint, or Prezi?

Search Out Your Own Multicultural Experiences

Join SchoolArts and CRIZMAC in Oaxaca, Mexico, or Santa Fe, New Mexico