Every since Saturday Art School began there has been a strange separation between the boys and the girls. Behavior in social situations, subject matter in drawing, and attention to work has been almost completely separated by gender. Duncum writes about the differences in choice of subject matter between boys and girls. He gives trains, superheros, battle scenes, and adventures as a few examples of what boys chose to draw in comparison to pets, flowers, butterflies, and gardens which girls chose to draw. The first week of class was the best example of this type of situation with most of the boys drawing things like knights and dragons while the majority of the girls drew pictures of themselves and the friends. This past week is the farthest they have gotten away from this that I have noticed, which I believe to be due to Halloween, students of both genders drew pumpkins.
So far we haven't had any violent images created that I know about, the closest we had to violent images what a sign that read "I heart blood" inserted into a altered drawing of a bedroom. One thing that I do notice a lot of is reproduction of images from the internet and t.v. which could lead to violent images. Gaye Green talks about the influence that violent media has on children focusing largely on the violence in the t.v. show The Simpsons. I think this could easily become a problem in a classroom that would be difficult to manage, but might be handled with the removal of free drawing. The removal of this type of assignment may get rid of a lot of unwanted subject matter but it may also hinder the creative process
I wish I could have been there this weekend! I know the kids were excited to work with clay and I can't wait to see what they created. I think this project is a good way to point out potential gender stereotypes. Were the monsters the girls made more cutesy and adorable while the boy's monsters more scary? I think it will be interesting to see the results without any of the background info or hearing the narratives that the kids always come up with.
ReplyDeleteWhile I was in your class, the final product from girls' table was surprisingly masculine. (I think how this project was demosntrated in your class was very 'boy-friendly'. ) I was expecting to see more subtle images of animals, but they ended up making creatures with horns and teeth. (as far as I can remember)
ReplyDeleteAs for social aspect goes, maybe you guys should try giving assigned seating for students. It would be interesting to see what kind of art they would produce.
I would wager my money on them creating a gender-specific norms depending on individual gender(no more table culture), but it would be interesting to see if a boy makes a 'pink' Ninja while girls make 'black' unicorn.
I could see how removing free drawing could both lesson problems as well as hinder creativity. Maybe there is an alternate route to handling the topic? I do not have a lot of experience dealing with large groups of children and zero experience in discussing social issues with a group of kids, but perhaps there is a "kid-friendly" way to have a group discussion or deal with these kinds of issues as they arise. It is interesting to think about.
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