GRADUATE RESEARCH
In 2012, I earned an M.A. in Teaching for K-12 Visual Arts, from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Coming from an interdisciplinary academic background, my pedagogical focus was on facilitating critical thinking development through combining art-making and -interpretation with skills and content from other traditional academic disciplines. This sort of cross-disciplinary curriculum is often labeled ‘arts integration,’ a celebrated and maligned curricular strategy. I argue that the arts can be a natural point of connection for nearly any concepts, and that contextual crossover should be embraced as the norm. Thesis research and corresponding curriculum specifically looked at utilizing arts and social studies frameworks in tandem, using food as lens to explore the interconnectedness of self and system.
Food, like art, is a natural point of connection for multidisciplinary concepts. Learning to understand and question some of those connections should promote students’ capacities for critical thinking and transformative action.
