Submitted by Sonja Dziedzic, Art Teacher, Emerson Middle School (not verified) on May 16, 2007 - 11:01.
While I agree with the necessity of needing to engage students in learning to communicate and read visual information, I call it visual literacy and so do many others. I DO think that it can and should be taught by those that have a visual background. I DO think the place to teach it is in the art room...and I think it IS being taught in the art rooms where there are certified art specialists to teach and where students have meaningful amounts of time to be engaged in making and discussing art and all that is visual. Teaching graphics and design is certainly best taught by someone with that background. I think the struggle is with the current paradigm in our society that the only type of literacy that matters is the written word. I think you would be hard pressed to find a teacher of the arts that would not love to have it recognized by those in society at large that we need to engage students in ALL kinds of communication. I DO NOT feel that the better way to do it is to lump all forms of communication together into one class. There would not be many human beings qualified to teach every area well. The most effective way to accomplish this is to open the dilaogue among teachers of the arts, including writing and languages, music too (although not visual is communication in its own right) and helping students to see the connections in all areas of communication.
Some call it Visual Literacy
Submitted by Sonja Dziedzic, Art Teacher, Emerson Middle School (not verified) on May 16, 2007 - 11:01.
While I agree with the necessity of needing to engage students in learning to communicate and read visual information, I call it visual literacy and so do many others. I DO think that it can and should be taught by those that have a visual background. I DO think the place to teach it is in the art room...and I think it IS being taught in the art rooms where there are certified art specialists to teach and where students have meaningful amounts of time to be engaged in making and discussing art and all that is visual. Teaching graphics and design is certainly best taught by someone with that background. I think the struggle is with the current paradigm in our society that the only type of literacy that matters is the written word. I think you would be hard pressed to find a teacher of the arts that would not love to have it recognized by those in society at large that we need to engage students in ALL kinds of communication. I DO NOT feel that the better way to do it is to lump all forms of communication together into one class. There would not be many human beings qualified to teach every area well. The most effective way to accomplish this is to open the dilaogue among teachers of the arts, including writing and languages, music too (although not visual is communication in its own right) and helping students to see the connections in all areas of communication.