Art Education in Critical Times

I have often asked student teachers where their lesson plan ideas originate. They routinely admit to using social media platforms to search for curricular ideas. Thus, social media sites have become part of the art educator’s toolbox and, as such, they need to be critically investigated. In examining the case of one platform, Pinterest, I seek to explore and analyze the following question: What is the hidden curriculum of Pinterest and how does it affect the art classroom?

My line of inquiry is spurred by my experience with preservice art teachers and informed by practices of investigation gleaned from cultural studies. “For those immersed from cradle to grave in a media and consumer society, it is therefore important to learn how to understand, interpret, and criticize its meanings and messages” (Kellner, 1995, p. 2). We, as art educators, are undoubtedly influenced by the digital society in which we are apart. There are meanings and messages-good, bad, and somewhere in-between-embedded within the platforms that serve as helpful sites for curriculum planning and development. We are consumers of the content that we find, engage with, and in turn share with members of our digital circles. These actions are not passive. Cultural studies resists the notion that to consume such productions is to become a hopeless victim of “false consciousness” (Storey, 2010, p. 140). Rather, we are active, conscious consumers and producers of digital content. Furthermore, we are culpable for the curricular content we are consume via digital platforms and then reproduce in classroom spaces. This podcast represents my attempt to shed light on one such platform, analyze its’ contents in a critically conscious manner (Freire, 2005), and offer suggestions on how to replicate such pauses for investigation and reflection with art educators preparing to teach.

Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed (Thirtieth anniversary ed.). New York: Continuum.

Kellner, D. (1995).Media culture cultural studies, identity, and politics between the modern and the postmodern. London; New York: Routledge.

Storey, J. (2010). Ch. 7. Consumption in everyday life. Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture: Introduction.Pp- 138-159 Third Edition.