AED 813 “2: Public Pedagogy of Upstander Art” Part 4
It was Linda Stein who said, “my hunger to become exposed to new psychological terrain provide the spur for me to meet and learn about others who are different from me.” This is an essential rationale for what teachers aim to achieve with their students, especially those interested in promoting ideals of social justice in their classroom. We want our students to take interest in people, ideas, and processes outside themselves. Understanding and social movement comes from exposure to those who are different from us and learning to empathize, accept, and promote their human rights. Teaching young people about the diverse human story is hopeful to inspire change through actions taken against inequities. This is the biggest implication for my educational practices in the middle school art room, a place for students to feel empowerment through expression. Art has served and will continue to serve as a catalyst for ideas of equity for the human race as presented in Holocaust Heros, Ed’s posters, the works of my peers here in our online blogs, and most importantly, our next generation of learners and activists.
I so greatly enjoyed looking over everyone’s culmination of the Justice, Upstander, and Empower entries. I felt connected when I saw Elizabeth, Meg, and Andrea’s collages with similar messages to mine- concerned and speaking out for the human rights of immigrants and refugees. It is a poignant piece of our human past, our present political dialogue, and a crucial part of our future treatment of one another. I loved when Courtney said that “being an upstander reaches beyond just being accepting of others.” By this, I believe she means actually advocating for change through action- whether teaching, creating, or just acting as an upstander against injustice.
Further, I enjoyed the stories and struggles of family presented in my peer’s blogs such as Caroline’s telling of the touching moment between a mother and her child when she explains the importance of self-identity and confidence in the face of a bully. This is something I believe our students and children need to see and feel more of for themselves. Individuality is a positive and powerful thing. Speaking of individuality, I saw my peers get really creative as well- Lance creating a sound collage for justice, Shelby showing familial abuse and separation as a unique perspective on difference and privilege, and Kerry’s metaphor of the diverse eggs for empowerment.
My personal favorite activity from this exploration was creating the comic strip for the Empower blog; it felt so personal to me and my struggle with becoming an upstander. The website I used allows you to invite you students to create comic stories as well, which I love and will keep as an item on the backburner for future projects with my students. I found the Upstander task most challenging, because learning the code proved to be difficult. Again as a free streaming software requiring no download, it is also an accessible and promising tool for creation to use in the classroom with an emphasis on teaching technology and coding.
In Elizabeth’s final reflective entry, she shared a Ted Talk about the trouble with single stories- a message that stuck with me on how we perceive “others” in our world. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the woman speaking in the video, explains the role of privilege and power in perpetuating the single stories that warp our understanding of vastly different and complex people in our lives. I would like to believe as teachers, we have a very special kind of power, where we can decide how to present stories - not just one. It is a significant responsibility to provide perspectives for our students, especially ones connecting to social justice and the human condition.
