Constructing Meaning

 

At the Donald Judd Foundation in Marfa, Texas, site of many artistic constructions.

Success and achievement in the arts demands engagement in the four fundamental creative practices  of imagination, investigation, construction, and reflection in multiple contexts. These meta-cognitive activities nurture the effective work habits of curiosity, creativity, and innovation, critical thinking and problem-solving, communication, and collaboration, each of which transfer to all aspects of learning and life in the twenty-first century.”

—National Core Arts Standards: A Conceptual Framework for Arts Learning (bit.ly/14VEbBN)

The statement above was presented by a national coalition of dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts educators who are working to develop and align new national standards for the arts. As of this writing, the final version of the new standards is scheduled to be released in March of 2014. (It is important to note that the standards are voluntary and each individual state will determine if it will adopt these standards.

As a reviewer of the new standards, I was pleased to see the use of the term construction, such as in the quote above. Construction in simplest terms may apply to the building of physical objects or structures, but it becomes more complex and meaningful when applied to concepts, knowledge, ideas, stories, theories, and the like. Also implied in construction is the idea that one is building from the ground up, from simple to complex, or on what has come before, in a logical and meaningful progression. Isn’t this what we want for all our lessons, for all our students? To help them effectively construct artistic meaning?

 

Arts standards, whether national or state, are the building blocks of construction to support the ongoing development of meaningful arts education today. Along with our students, as art teachers and life-long learners ourselves, we are always “under construction.”