Teaching Art and Culture Through Asian Studies

Teaching art in an elementary school students offers many challenges to provide lessons that are meaningful in a short, sixty-minute class once a week. Often times, students are pulled out of their once a week class to attend reading and math tutoring, dibels testing, and various other activities. Art teachers face many challenges as ESE students, LEP students, EH students, and Hearing Impaired students are mainstreamed into double size classes of 48 excited, inquiring minds. With this in mind, efforts are made to engage the students in worthy lessons that can be completed in one or possibly two class periods.

My experience has been that when the educator brings another culture into the art environment, the students are immediately captivated by dramatically different visuals and any number of artifacts that will bring them experientially closer to others around the world. The arts are a vehicle to teach that bridge learning across the continents, link religions through the use of iconology, provide enjoyment through cultural rituals with all their attributes including jewelry, musical instruments, masks, and clothing. The arts further enrich and expand quality of life through ceremonial activities that make rich use of artistic images. Asian Studies is a magnet for engaging students' minds to metacognitively get beyond the concept of "me and my family" towards a globally sensitive awareness of the world. The Olympics in China, the martial arts recognition, and children's love of Asian themed cartoons has encouraged our youth to be connected to Asia. Teaching the Arts of the Himalayan Region will infuse my current lessons with new and different art lessons, reaching out to a new curriculum that embraces the romance of climbing and treking in the Himalayan Mountains. With our keen interest in ecology, global warming, endangered animals, alternate medicinal healing with herbs, and reaching out to help others that are economically less forunate, the art lesson can be married to interdisciplinary core subjects. This layering of education provides a deeper understanding of the arts and their interconnectedness with the world. Educators supporting one another aids in our overarching goal to impact student learning and achievement.

Possible Lessons To Investigate With Elementary Students

Teaching Art Symbols in the US and The Himalayan Region Maps Along The Silk Road

Teaching Buddhism Through Art Symbols In Himalayan Sculptures and Thangkas

Teaching Symbolism Through the Use of Color in Tibetan Thangkas and Various Demons

Teaching Symbolism Through the Hand Gestures in Buddhist Sculptures and Paintings

Teaching Human Body Proportion Drawing Through the Nepalese, Tibetan and Bhutanese Sculptures

Teaching Symetrical and Asymetrical Balance Through Himalayan Thangkas and Cave Paintings

Teaching The Elements of Art and Principles of Design Through Mandala Images

Teaching Printmaking Through Indian Art Images

Teaching Cultural Awareness Through Indian Folk Arts

Teaching Cultural Awareness Through The Silk Road and the Silk Road Tribal Groups with Relation To Dress, Travel, Food and Market Experiences, Trading Animals, Agriculture, Music and the Arts, and the Role of Women and How They Are Viewed.