Heritage through the lens.

A Multicultural approach in art education requires knowledge about differing cultures, values and traditions. Teachers and students need to work on identifying, describing and respecting the values that exist within local, national and international communities. This also means moving beyond our stereotypes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion and socioeconomic class. Only when we can recognize and deal with our own biases in a positive constructive manner, can we effectively help our students in recognizing and dealing with their biases.

Providing Culturally Relevant Content

For many years, I assumed that I taught multicultural art by virtue of its cultural diversity. For example, by presenting examples of African masks, viewing the art elements of line, shape and color, followed by the production of copies of these forms, I was missing the point. This process avoided the real challenge of critically apprehending the meaning of the object, artist and process in the sociocultural context.

New insight into providing culturally relevant content for curriculum development, led me to the need to become acquainted with the history of our community. I wanted to develop a project that involved local people, resources and historical sites. Using my photography students as investigators, the "Discovering Our Heritage" photography project was formed.

"Discovering Our Heritage"

Being a newcomer to the area, and dealing with the 90s teenager, far removed from the generation of her or his forefathers, we discovered many interesting facts. One tale the students enjoyed dealt with the origin of our city's name. Our town has been known as Troy, Alabama, since 1845. However, in one account, it was almost named Zebulon, but one of the founding fathers had a problem with writing the letter "Z." Another tale asserted that Troy was named by a former resident of Troy, New York. The students discovered after much investigation, that the name Troy was in all probability extracted from the story of Helen and Paris in Greek literature, as classical literature supplied names for many other southern towns.

I required the students to take black-and-white photographs depicting the history of local art, buildings, artifacts, land sites, memorials and traditions. Using our darkroom, the students developed their film, then enlarged their three best negatives to a 5 x 7" (13 x 18 cm) size to complete the assignment. In sharing these photographs, the students became interested in finding out what other students had discovered. One student added a creative flair to her photographs when she used children dressed in turn of the century clothing posed in front of a historical log cabin and country store located at the local Pike Pioneer Museum. Discovering the lifestyle of people living in Pike County, Alabama, during the late 1800s and early 1900s gave our students the rich resources they needed to identify and develop the foundation for their local cultures, values and traditions.

Open Exchange of Ideas

I discovered that when we investigate and experience the art and history of our own and other cultures, it encourages an open exchange of ideas between learners, teachers and the community. We create art learning environments that assist individual growth. We break down the cultural barriers by finding unity in the common foundation called heritage.

Pamela T. Smith is the art teacher at the Charles Henderson High School in Troy, Alabama.