Lincoln and Perkins School Visual Arts teacher Courtney Dentel, who is also the Pre-K through 12th grade Visual and Media Arts Department Leader, recently was a presenter at the New York State Art Teachers Association’s (NYSATA) Artistic Intelligence Conference in Binghamton.
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She presented with Alyssa Marchand, one of Dentel’s students when she was an adjunct professor at Nazareth University several years ago. Alyssa is currently an elementary art teacher at Discovery Charter School in Rochester and is a member of NYSATA’s Board of Trustees.
Conference presenters explored human creative potential and if applicable, its relationship to Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Dentel and Marchand’s Nurturing Artistic Intelligence in Young Artists workshop on November 22nd largely focused on various learning units they have developed for their younger students, addressing the question of how to guide our youngest learners through thoughtful and intelligent art making. These units were designed to spur “the high level of artistic thinking that young emerging artists are capable of,” Dentel said.
She and Marchand also discussed the importance of students’ voice and choice in art making, problem solving, and the Studio Habits of Mind in their classrooms.
Dentel explained: “When designing learning units, it’s imperative to question
if the creative process is truly guiding our students to the highest level of thinking, which is to create or to produce new or original work according to Bloom’s Taxonomy” - a framework that organizes learning objectives by difficulty, starting with basic understanding and moving up to advanced skills like evaluation and creation.
Further, she argues that asking students to reproduce a teacher example is simply asking them to follow directions which is not providing students with the chance to authentically think and explore their personal ideas like artists do.
“Following directions to reproduce exactly what the teacher created is not truly
creating; it is duplicating _ which is at the lowest level of Bloom’s. We often don’t give children enough credit for how naturally creative and intelligent they are. The more opportunities we provide our students with to explore and express their brilliant ideas and the more their individual artistic expression is nurtured, the more creative and innovative they will be through their childhood development into adulthood,” Dentel said.
“Moving away from teacher directed projects that result in cute and beautifully
refined art projects is challenging because we need to remove our adult expectation of what is aesthetically pleasing to look at, and what makes a ‘pretty’ display in our halls. We need to believe in our young students as artists and allow their personal ideas and aesthetics to shine through their authentic art making process,” she asserts.
Dentel said individuals attending she and Marchand’s presentation seemed to really enjoy it and some requested links to their combined digital presentation that can be viewed here: Nurturing Artistic Intelligence in Young Artists
“I think fellow art teachers were excited to see how our schools’ youngest artists are capable of thinking at higher levels and to learn about the methods we employ to facilitate that level of creativity,’’ she said.
“We had a great turn-out with about 20 art educators attending our workshop,” Marchand said. “I think the workshop went well and the attendees were excited to hear new ideas to bring back to their own classrooms. Courtney and I really enjoyed putting this together and I was thrilled that she wanted to partner with me. The theme of this year's conference was Artistic Intelligence, which is what drew me to reach out to Courtney. She and I both share a love for teaching young artists and are passionate about making sure they are held to the same high standards as older artists. It's really important for both of us that students are taught at a young age
to build strong artistic habits and be given the space to problem solve, collaborate, and think creatively while developing unique and individual art.”
Kelley School art teacher Kaylee Stoneham attended Dentel and Marchand’s workshop.
“It was important to me to support Courtney as she presented a topic crucial to Newark students’ development,” Stoneham said. “Her talk about supporting each student’s voice and choice in their artistic process is core to my teaching philosophy and I believe necessary for the social emotional development of our students. Courtney did a particularly good job of sharing many concrete examples that teachers could take with them and apply immediately.”
Dentel and Marchand are co-chairs of NYSATA’s Region 2, which includes Allegany, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Wayne, Seneca, Steuben, and Yates counties.
She and Dentel organize workshops and outings and other art-related activities for NYSATA members in Region 2 that include preschool through university level art educators, art administrators, museum educators, school administrators, friends and benefactors.