An Interview on Design Sponge

An interview with Peter Hocking, Arts Mentoring Fellow on Design Sponge.

Here is an excerpt:

How is art at NUA different from art that these students receive in school?

PH: New Urban Arts operates more like a professional studio – enabling learners and practitioners to follow an idea, impulse or line of inquiry in a way that enables discovery and unanticipated learning. Most art curriculums are focused on teaching a curriculum of skills – regardless of context or the particular needs and interests of learners. While school-based arts education programs have tremendous value for students wishing to pursue post-secondary education in the arts, they can emphasize technique over creative process. Community Arts programs, especially for students who are also receiving school-based arts education, allow learners to elaborate on the content that matters to them and to begin the process of connecting their creative skills with other areas in their life – for example, applying creative problem solving to questions that may not immediately call for creativity.