Choice-based art education

what is cbae?

Founded by Douglas and Jaquith (2009), choice-based art education (CBAE) advocates for students spending the majority of their class time engaging in play, experimentation, and artworks of their choice. "Choice-based art education provides for the development of artistic behaviors by enabling students to discover what it means to be an artist through the authentic creation of artwork" (Douglas & Jaquith, 2009, p.3). Choice-based teachers employ information-filled media centers and mini-lessons to develop student's skills and knowledge about artmaking and art history. 

Teaching for artistic behavior (TAB) is the teaching philosophy that the choice-based pedagogy is built upon. TAB networks of teachers have been supporting each other since the late 1990's and TAB was established as an organization in 2001 (Douglas & Jaquith, 2009). There are countless teachers who have been inspired by the TAB philosophy and its practices and there are just as many different ways of incorporating it into each of those classrooms. CBAE was where my journey into choice began in 2010, and I personally attribute the current popularity of choice-focused pedagogies to CBAE practitioners sharing their work over the last decade. If you're interested in investigating further, I've included links to several exceptional CBAE inspired teachers' websites in a separate section below. 

benefits

limitations

Treating the student as an artist demonstrates trust in the student and respect for their ideas.

Allowing complete freedom for the student-artist creates spaces of possibility that the teacher could not have planned.

Discussion of scaffolding or teaching independent learning skills is limited or non-existent.

Centers are very important to the classroom organization and can be difficult to manage for different classroom environments.

Practitioners and resources

Application to the Plug and play curriculum

As I stated previously, CBAE was the first choice-focused pedagogy I was exposed to. Because of that, much of what I practice is informed by those early experiences with CBAE and TAB. I have since strayed pretty far from where I started, but one element I've held onto since day one are the artistic behaviors. One of the largest displays on the walls of my classroom is a bubble map of just a few artistic behaviors. Each lesson in the Plug and Play curriculum is framed by an objective, product, and artistic behavior. 

discussion

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references

Douglas, K. M., & Jaquith, D. B. (2009). Engaging learners through artmaking: Choice-based art education in the classroom. United States: Teachers College Press.