Promoting Self and Community Empowerment Through Critical Pedagogy in a Community Art Program

This paper explores the benefits of using critical pedagogy as the method of instruction and learning in a community art program known as the Greater Tomorrow Youth Art Program (GTYAP), located in Austin, Texas. Instructors in the program encourage participants to ask pertinent questions about their artistic, social and cultural experiences and observations in the community for the purposes of promoting educational knowledge, self-empowerment and community participation. This approach to instruction increases participants’ understanding of the role of art in the social, economic, and cultural development of the community.

Theoretical Background: Critical Pedagogy

Critical pedagogy is an educational theory that encourages learners to direct their educational activities toward the examination of identified social problems, such as racial discrimination, gender inequality and economic disenfranchisement. For learners, critical pedagogy facilitates profound consciousness of the consequences of social injustice. Learners are encouraged to question assumptions that sustain oppressive ideologies and practices. Critical pedagogy also encourages learners to take responsibility for their individual and collective conditions of life within the community.

Historically, the development of critical pedagogy as a method of teaching and learning may be traced to the widespread awareness and demand for social equality and justice, as seen in the activities of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Some educators, such as Paulo Freire, Jonathan Kozol and Peter McLaren, have theorized that teaching and learning processes in the average classroom in American public schools reflect the sociocultural inequalities and disenfranchisement found within American society. In reference to Freire’s contributions to the tenets of critical pedagogy, Tom Finkelpearl stated that:

Freire was never content with the goals of traditional education. Rather, he developed an educational approach that sought to teach critical consciousness, learn from students, redefine the power relations between teacher and student, promote dialogue across the economic, political, and educational lines that divide society, and inspire action on the part of the underclass. … His educational goals do not center on a single problem, but approach the larger social arena within which the problems exist.

Along the same line of thought as Freire’s on critical pedagogy, several art educators have raised questions about the contents of the art curriculum in terms of cultural diversity and gender representation among other issues of concern (Grant & Sleeter, Stuhr, Chalmers). In general education, questions have been raised about whose interests are represented in the school curriculum, the benefits of the traditional hierarchical structure of the teaching and learning process, and the validity of traditional ways of evaluating teaching and learning effectiveness. On the issue of equity in American classrooms, James Banks stated that:

Teachers in each discipline can analyze their teaching procedures and styles to determine the extent to which they reflect multicultural issues and concerns. An equity pedagogy exists when teachers modify their teaching in ways that will facilitate the academic achievement of students from diverse racial, cultural, gender, and social-class groups. This includes using a variety of teaching styles and approaches that are consistent with the wide range of learning styles within various cultural and ethnic groups …(22).

In addition to facilitating equity in the classroom, critical pedagogy seeks to relate formal education in the schools to its application in the larger society. This objective is achieved by encouraging learners to ask questions bout how the knowledge they acquired through formal instruction impacts their personal development in real-life contexts within society. Critical pedagogy places more value on experiential and cooperative learning over the traditional competitive approach. Ultimately, the goal of critical pedagogy is to provide learners with life-long skills for self-empowerment and active participation in decision-making processes on issues that affect their lives in the micro community and macro society.

Instructional activities in GTYAP are structured to provide opportunity to participate in decision-making processes that relates to their learning activities. Instructors and participants in the program use reflective dialogue in evaluating learning outcomes. It is anticipated that learning experiences in the program, as described above, will enhance participants’ creative thinking and responsiveness to issues that are important to their wellbeing in society.

Background of Community Art Program Reviewed

Greater Tomorrow Youth Art Program (GTYAP) is a unique collaboration among community artists, public-school art teachers, community arts organizations, local citizens and the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin). Established in 2003, the goal of the program is to provide interdisciplinary arts enrichment activities for underprivileged children living in low-income neighborhoods in East Austin. The core objectives of the program are to nurture the creative potential of youth participants by providing them with opportunities for the creation of personal meanings, and to promote participants’ understanding of culture through art by increasing their awareness of the role that practicing artists play in society. The program is especially beneficial for participants that are receiving limited or no art lessons in school and cannot afford paid art instruction.

GTYAP is located in the Creative Research Laboratory (CRL) in the Department of Art and Art History at UT-Austin. The CRL was established in November of 2001 for the purposes of facilitating cutting-edge research in the arts, conducting art exhibitions, and promoting outreach activities in art and design. Today, the CRL houses studios in printmaking, photography, design and land arts. In addition, a year-round schedule of art exhibitions and community outreach activities are conducted in the gallery spaces. The CRL is located off campus in the reputable Flatbed World Headquarters in East Austin.

Flatbed World Headquarters is one of the most advanced ateliers in the United States. Flatbed was co-founded in 1989 by two prominent American printmakers, Katherine Brimberry and Mark Smith. The Flatbed complex consists of an 18,000-square-foot space that was converted from a warehouse into art studios, galleries and administrative offices. It is located in the culturally vibrant Boggy Creek area of central East Austin. The Flatbed houses seven autonomous art establishments that include Flatbed studios and galleries; the CRL studios and galleries; Gallery 68; Linda Kaffee studio; CF Architecture; Judy Paul studio; and Eric Zimmerman and Brant Watson studio. There are a total of six art galleries at the Flatbed complex and they are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays though Saturdays, and by appointment except on public holidays.
This environment of excellence in the creative arts provides participants in GTYAP with an inspiring learning space. They also have proximity to observing professional artists at work and viewing outstanding works of art.

GTYAP Programming Objectives

GTYAP is designed to augment the arts education that participants receive in school, and to provide comprehensive learning experiences in art for participants that are not receiving any arts education in school. Learning activities in the program reflect the curriculum and instruction contents stated in the National Standards for Art Education and the Curriculum Frameworks for Art in the Austin Independent School District. GTYAP programming objectives are:

1. To impart social, cultural and historical knowledge about the arts.
2. To help participants develop individual artistic expression under the direction of professional artists.
3. To facilitate conflict resolution, creative reasoning and analytical skills through the arts.
4. To help participants understand the nature of various modes of artistic expression through activities in visual art, music, dance and performance art.
5. To increase participants’ awareness of vocational and avocational opportunities in the arts.
6. To encourage participants to cultivate active participation in community activities and issues that affect their personal wellbeing within community.

GTYAP Organization and Services

I, Christopher Adejumo of the Department of Art and Art History at UT-Austin, am the founder and director of GTYAP, and the Department of Art and Art History acts in a fiduciary capacity in receiving GTYAP grants and donations. Annually, GTYAP invites selected local artists practicing in various domains to work in the program as guest instructors. Since its inception, undergraduate and graduate students in the visual-art-studies and art-education divisions at UT-Austin have worked at GTYAP as volunteers through a service-learning collaboration. GTYAP is part of the larger UT-Austin outreach initiatives in the Austin area, and it conducts three major arts activities in summer. They are: (1) Now and Tomorrow Art Exhibition; (2) Limited Saturday Art Workshops; and (3) Comprehensive Youth Summer Art Program.

Now and Tomorrow Art Exhibition

In Now and Tomorrow art exhibition, artwork produced by pre-kindergarten through twelfth-grade students in the Austin area are displayed in the main gallery of the CRL for a period of five weeks. The exhibition marks the conclusion of year-round collaborative art workshops between myself and selected public-school art programs in the Austin area. An average of eight schools are involved in the collaboration on a yearly basis, and some of the artwork produced in the workshops are displayed in Now and Tomorrow Art Exhibition. The exhibition is designed to facilitate interaction between participating students, art teachers, parents and members of the UT-Austin community. Furthermore, the exhibition provides a forum for the promotion of art as an important subject in the school curriculum.

The Now and Tomorrow art exhibition provides participating teachers and students with the opportunity to view K-12 art outside the public schools. Based on comments made by some participants in previous Now and Tomorrow exhibitions, it presented a forum for asking important questions about the values of K-12 art. One of the teachers that participated in the 2007 exhibition stated that it inspired her to think more about ways of connecting her art classes with the community for the purposes of making her lessons more meaningful for students.

Limited Saturday Art Workshops

GTYAP collaborates with the CRL in conducting Saturday art workshops in a section of the main gallery during the Now and Tomorrow exhibition. The workshops provide youth participants with the opportunity to interact directly with UT-Austin’s art-education faculty, Visual Art Studies/Art Education (VAS/AED) students and the CRL staff members. This environment of collaboration helps to bridge the gap in communication between the university community, area public schools and residents of East Austin and neighboring communities. The Saturday art workshops have provided undergraduate and graduate students in the VAS/AED Division with the opportunity to observe and participate in art instruction in an alternative setting.

Comprehensive Youth Summer Art Program

In addition to Now and Tomorrow Art Exhibition and the related Saturday art workshops, GTYAP conducts an interdisciplinary youth summer art program at the CRL from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, for the duration of six weeks. The first hour of programming is devoted to studio art, followed by a 30-minute break period. The last hour of each session is devoted to performance art, dance, music or poetry, or a combination of two or more of these domains. I collaborate with community-based experts in these arts disciplines in providing instruction in the program. An average of 25 participants are enrolled in the program each summer session, and the age group served is between nine and 16 years. In order to address the needs of each participant, learning in the program entails group activities and individualized instruction. Through critical pedagogy, participants are encouraged to ask pertinent questions about some of the social problems they have observed in the community, and to generate ideas for practicable solutions.

GTYAP adopts a child-centered strategy that enables youth participants to engage in reflective dialogue, hands-on learning and social interaction. The program encourages participants to draw on experiences acquired in school and the larger community in the construction of meaningful, purposeful and applicable knowledge. In GTYAP, art activities are structured as channels for cognitive development and the acquisition of knowledge, as opposed to isolated tasks. The program provides participants with an optimal learning environment in which they observe and appreciate art, and discuss the values of the arts in their education.

Community Served by the Youth Summer Art Program: East Austin

Geographically, the area known as East Austin is bounded on the West by Interstate 35, on the South by Town Lake, on the East by US Route 183, and on the North by Airport Boulevard. The East Austin population has an average of ninth-grade education. With an average household income of $21,000., East Austin has the lowest median income in the Greater Austin metropolitan area. In spite of these depressing statistics, East Austin has rich cultural heritage and potential for socio-economic growth. Historically, this community birthed the first Historically Black College in Texas, Houston-Tillotson College, and led Texas in community-based public art installations in the 1960s and 1970s. These positive attributes and other creative possibilities are discussed and explored in the summer art program.

Problem Addressed

Parents of participants in GTYAP and visitors to the program all agree that children living in the area are in need of afterschool programs for the purpose of keeping the youngsters productively engaged when they are not in school. Summer breaks from school are especially challenging periods for keeping the youth meaningfully occupied. Based on the findings of a study conducted by Harvard Project Zero on the benefits of community art programs, Jessica Davis stated:

In entitling this volume “Safe Havens,” we recognize one emergent theme that crosses all the centers we portray, resonates throughout the field, and which seems especially salient because it addresses the relationship of these centers to the communities they serve. . . . Safe Havens describes the oasis of alternatives the center offers: alternatives to failure; alternatives to the realization of low expectation; alternatives to street life; alternatives to alienation and disenfranchisement (12-13).

GTYAP provides youth participants with a safe environment for the exploration of artistic skills and the development of their intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences (Gardner). The program provides participants with an alternative to extended idle periods and the destructive behaviors that youngsters sometimes engage in during those periods.

Arts Activities in the Youth Summer Art Program

Arts activities at the youth summer art program are based on weekly themes devised by the instructors, such as “the arts as cultural expression,” “using nature as a theme in the arts” and “representation of human images in the arts.” Programming sessions usually begin with broad-based group discussion on the chosen theme, followed by the introduction and demonstration of the art medium to be used in related studio projects. During the regular group discussions, participants are encouraged to relate chosen themes to personal observations and experiences in school and the home environment. They are also encouraged to ask causal and generative questions for the purpose of building on existing knowledge and responding to problematic observations and experiences.

After demonstrating the process of using the chosen art medium for their studio projects, participants are often taken on a tour of some of the art studios and galleries at the Flatbed complex. The purpose of these studio and gallery visits is to expose participants to various art media and production processes (especially the medium that they would be working in), and works of professional artists. Another benefit of the studio and gallery visits is that participants have often made references to some of the observed studio processes and artworks that inspired them in their art-production processes. For example, in preparation for a printmaking session in the summer of 2004, participants were taken on a tour of the printmaking studio of Flatbed press. During the visit, the children were shown the various sections of the studio by one of the resident master printmakers, Gerald Manson. Manson gave each visiting participant a miniature test print of a lithograph, and the participants compared and spoke about their gifts from Manson for the rest of the session. They were also introduced to one of Flatbed’s professional printers, Tracy Mayrello, who graciously allowed the group to observe her process of producing limited-edition etching.

Following their tour of Flatbed studio, the participants visited two of the Flatbed galleries to view displayed limited-edition prints. Some of the prominent artists whose works have been viewed by participants in GTYAP include Joe Segal, Michael Ray Charles, Melissa Miller, Zanne Hochberg, Ann Conner, Russel Lee, Julie Speed and Bob Schneider.

GTYAP participants’ access to the Flatbed makes the galleries a major part of their learning resources in the program. As a result, several of the participants have developed the practice of visiting the galleries independently without prompting from their instructors. In fact, several of the participants have asked the instructors for permission to visit the galleries during some art-production activities, for purposes of conducting related inquiry. Based on follow-up group dialogues between participants and their instructors, the benefits of self-guided visits to the galleries include improved knowledge of art media, styles and contents.

Participants in the program are encouraged to approach their Flatbed gallery visits with an inquiry-based approach as a way of facilitating knowledge of contextual factors such as when a work of art was produced, for whom it was produced, challenges involved in the production and identification of the ideas, feelings, concepts and meanings represented in the work. These gallery visits are often conducted in pairs or small groups, and this enables them to share ideas from their observations, and to explore new possibilities through dialogue in the open gallery spaces. In both the gallery and studio production settings, participants in the program often use narratives, stories and gestures in relaying their gallery experiences. Their instructors anticipate that they will remain inquisitive about art beyond their participation in GTYAP, and that their positive experiences in the program will serve as foundation for a lifelong interest in art production and in art galleries and museums. The gallery visits enhance participants’ observation, imaginative, narrative and analytical skills. They have demonstrated independence in making choices that impact their art production, and increased self-confidence in their communication of ideas.

Play is another activity that GTYAP uses to facilitate reflective dialogue among participants. Approximately 30 minutes of programming time in each session is devoted to light refreshments and socializing. During this period, participants often share personal views about their observations and experiences in the program and beyond. This period of cordial interaction among participants promotes heightened self-awareness and increased consciousness about the benefits of listening to various opinions, especially for the improvement of one’s understanding of art. Through play and dialogue, participants in the program communicate personal ideas and opinions, and learn how to listen to the views and convictions of their peers. This environment of friendship and sharing is antithetical to the cultural separatism and social alienation that pervades the larger society. As a result of extended playful interaction, several of the participants have developed friendships that extend beyond the program. It is anticipated that the joy and satisfaction derived in their interpersonal communication will inspire them to continue to interact with others in the community in constructive ways.

In “Now and Tomorrow II,“ a review of GTYAP by the Austin Chronicle, published on July 1, 2005, the weekly newspaper commented that:

It is the vision of these types of programs that our children develop an awareness of their own innovative character, strengths, and nurturing capacities. The children develop a profound awareness of the collective and larger culture in which they live and an understanding that they as individuals contribute to the welfare of one another. That's what Greater Tomorrow Youth Art Program is doing. That's it. That's huge.

Conclusion

GTYAP exposes participants to the works of professional artists in Flatbed studios and galleries, and invites practicing community artists to work with them in the program. Participants are encouraged to ask questions about the contexts in which art works are produced and viewed. In addition, participants in the program are taken to prominent gallery spaces in the community to view their own art works on display. Some of the places in which their works have been shown include the CRL’s main and corridor galleries, the Center for African and African American Studies at UT-Austin, the Corridor Gallery in the Department of Art and Art History at UT-Austin and Mitchie’s Gallery in Austin. The participants are also encouraged to take part in arts and cultural events within the larger community, such as the African American Heritage Festival, Kwanza celebration, Tejas Hispanic Storytelling Festival, Austin Fine Arts Festival, Carnival Brasiliero and Cinco de Mayo. Collectively, these activities provide participants with meaningful arts and cultural experiences as an alternative to juvenile delinquency. As a result, GTYAP is a safe haven for nurturing the imagination and creativity of youth participants, and for preparing them for future roles as community builders.

This essay is part of the Community Arts Convening & Research Project, 2008, funded by a Nathan Cummings Foundation grant to the Maryland Institute College of Art. The essay was reviewed and selected by the project's Editorial Board: Ron Bechet, Xavier University of Louisiana; Lori Hager, University of Oregon; Marina Gutierrez, Cooper Union; Ken Krafchek, Maryland Institute College of Art; Sonia Mañjon, California College of the Arts; Amalia Mesa-Bains, California State University Monterey Bay; Paul Teruel, Columbia College Chicago; and Stephani Woodson, Arizona State University.

Christopher O. Adejumo is an associate professor of Visual Art Studies/Art Education at the University of Texas at Austin. He has published over 25 book chapters, articles and instructional guides on visual art and art education. Adejumo is the founder and director of the Greater Tomorrow Youth Art Program in Austin, and the Youth Summer Art Program at the University of Texas at Austin.

Works Cited

Banks, J.A. “Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals.” Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives. Ed. James A. Banks & Cherry A. McGee Banks. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007. 3-26.

Chalmers, F.G. Celebrating Pluralism: Art, Education, and Cultural Diversity. Los Angeles: The Getty Education Institute for the Arts, 1996.

Davis, Jessica, and Elisabeth Soep, Sunaina Maira, Natania Remba, Deborah Putnoi. Safe Havens: Portraits of Educational Effectiveness in Community Art Centers that Focus on Education in Economically Disadvantaged Communities. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Project Zero, 1993.

Finkelpearl, T. Dialogues in Public Art. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2000.

Freire, P. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum Publishing Corporation, 1984.

Gardner, H. “Multiple Intelligences: Implications for Art and Creativity.” Artistic Intelligences: Implications for Education. Ed. William J. Moody. New York: Teachers College Press, 1990. 11-27.

Grant, C.A., and C.E. Sleeter, C.E. “On multicultural art education and social equity.” Discipline-based Art Education and Cultural Diversity: A National Invitational Seminar Sponsored by The Getty Center For Education in the Arts, August 6-9, 1992, Austin, Texas: Seminar Proceedings. Los Angeles, Calif.: Getty Center for Education in the Arts, 1993. 4-5.

Kozol, J. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1992.

McLaren, P. Life in Schools. An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education. Reading: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.,1998.

Stuhr, P. “Multicultural art education and social reconstruction.“ Studies in Art Education, 35.3 (1994): 171-178.

“Now and Tomorrow II.” Austin Chronicle 1 July 2005.

Original CAN/API publication: October 2008