Membership
Join the largest creative community established exclusively for visual arts educators, university professors, researchers and scholars, teaching artists, administrators, and art museum educators.
Join NAEA Renew MembershipExcellent Teaching
We need to understand and promote excellent teaching because skilled art instructors change students' lives. Teaching students to be creative is a deliberate process, much like teaching students to be literate or to be able to do science. In their study of exemplary art classrooms, Aspen participant Lois Hetland and her colleague Ellen Winner found that teachers fostered a relationship with their students that was like that of a master craftsman with an apprentice engaging student thinking and helping them to understand the implications of their choices.
Excellent Teaching 
Constance Gee on What Constitutes Excellent Instruction
Olivia Gude on What Excellent Teaching Should Include
Jack Davis on the Future of Teaching and Learning
Mary Ann Stankiewicz on Working Closely with Practicing Teachers
Teaching Teachers
B. Stephen Carpenter, II with a Call for Change in Teaching Teachers
Linda Downs Assessing the Teaching of Teachers
Metaphors Describing Effective Educational Settings
Every Classroom a Studio Scott Shanklin Peterson
Every School a Canvas (Olivia Gude)
Every Community a Museum (Louis West)
Discussion Prompts: Excellent Teaching
How would you want an art teacher to teach your child or grandchild?
What does the expression "teaching the whole child" mean to you?
What does a teacher need to know and be able to do to achieve this goal?
At the Aspen Summit, Olivia Gude talked about how excited she was to see students building electronic portfolios chronicling their family's history. She offered this as one example of how art educators can both reach for the future while honoring the past.
How are you seeing educators in your community or network meeting both of these goals?
How much do you expect teaching and learning will change in the years ahead?
Discussion Prompts: Teaching Teachers
How are people improving the teacher preparation programs for art educators in your community?
How can the programs be improved more?
Discussion Prompts: Language
What language do you hear people using in your community or across the nation to speak about the great strengths of the arts and what we do to promote the arts?
Are there particular metaphors or turns of phrase that you find particularly powerful?
Discussion Prompts and Transcripts 
BECOME A LEADER
Host an Aspen-like discussion in your community. Get started by reading NAEA's Guide for Community Conversations in a Visual Age
PREPARE FOR TRANSFORMATION
Read NAEA's New White Paper on Learning in a Visual Age
HONOR TRADITION
Read NAEA's classic 1977 statement on "What We Believe and Why"