Smilan,+Cathy

ABSTRACT “A myriad of issues affect PK-12 public school art educators’ work lives, including how and by whom art is taught in schools” In this article the pedagogy of art education-what one needs to know about art content and instructional strategies specific to art content-is critical to the development of authentic art integrated learning opportunities. The authors present a model based on the premise that highly qualified professionals should coordinate all art-based learning within schools. The role of art educators as leaders, in charge of promoting creative thinking dispositions, and designing/planning art integrated curricula that leads to the development of school wide art learning. This article also defines arts integration as: “an integrated approach that supports simultaneous teaching and learning focused on experiences that lead to increased and accessible understandings in art as well as other disciplines.” (Similan, 2004) The qualities of authentic integration (making it different from interdisciplinary) include 1. “unites concepts and parallel skills and employs real-world based organizing components related to the learner, thus authenticating each individual’s experiences.” (Beane, 2007) 2. learning that is meaningfully connected to art content and art instruction, 3. involves the student’s search for and construction of complex knowledge that leads to understanding relationships of larger social issues, and 4. engagement in real and tangible work involving critical thinking, art-based, and problem-based methodologies that are developed in collaborative efforts among teachers. (AI is co-planned and co-taught and responsive to student’s situations, replacing discrete, pre-determined curricula.) This article also defines a planning model for arts integration and the role of the arts coordinator, principal, teaching artist, on an arts integration team.
 * Art Teachers as Leaders of Authentic Art Integration. Cathy Smilan and Kathy Marzilli Miraglia. Art Education 62 No 6 November 2009. **