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Title: The Professional Field: Theorizing Visual Culture in Education (Chapter One)
Author: Kerry Freedman
Source/Date: (2003). Teaching visual culture: Curriculum, aesthetics and the social life of art. New York,
NY Teachers College Press.
Main Idea/Purpose:
Visual culture has been an important concept inside art education, throughout the times visual
culture has provided students a way to connect to art that is around them in their everyday lives. Bringing
visual culture inside the classroom allows student to experience with medium that most consider
nontraditional due to its use of technology. Visual culture allows students the freedom they need in order
to grow and understand art better, by involving what interest the students the most within art, students will
be more engaged in the assignment and create better work based on their interest.
Short Overview:
In Chapter 1 of Freedman’s (2003) Teaching Visual Culture, Freedman discusses visual culture
and how it can affect the way others make and view art. She notes, “A classroom in which visual culture is
made, and discussed is part of an interpretive learning community.” ( p.5) Allowing visual culture inside of
the classroom allows a space where different perspectives can be viewed and expressed. Freedman also
argues that fine art is not the only art form that should be learned inside of art education, but rather introduce
students to the many ways artist use both traditional and nontraditional mediums. Incorporating not just
fine arts inside art education create a classroom that promotes risk taking and the idea that one type of art
is better than another.
Throughout this first chapter, Freedman emphasizes specific art movements such as the age of
enlightenment, that are used even in today’s views of art. Having also emphasized other art movement such
as post modernism, Freedman continues on with saying while teaching students on postmodern works it
cannot depended on opposition but rather being oppositional on works, meaning that to different opinions
and multidimensional visual culture is needed (p.13)
Freedman also implies that the traditional academic approach raises several problems inside the
world of art education (p.17). She believes that fine arts were adapted to K-12 curriculum. This type of
adaption can lead to lessons being easily taught and assessed very easy as well. She believes there must be
a change in how we create our curriculums and ways to create meaningful and expressional art.

Critical Response: Reflections and/or relevance to personal art educational experiences/or teaching
experience
When I had worked over the summer as teacher for an art program in Little Village, Chicago, my
partner and I decided to use a part of their visual culture inside our curriculum, which in Little Village was
based murals and graffiti signs that surround the community. The older students we taught were so excited
when talking about murals and how to create appropriate symbols in graffiti art. Dr. Freedman says that in
corrupting visual culture this creates an environment of engaged students, my students were so excited to
talk about art that they see all around their neighborhood and even inside their own cultural. Even though
the school that I had worked in was predominately Latino, I believe the students I taught did not know much
about their cultural inside the world of art. This is why visual culture is so important in the lives of students,
teaching these students of their own culture relating to art movements in history and famous artists that
came from their own culture made the students more engaged in conversions, attentive throughout the
lesson and overall made them feel noticed as a community of people.

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Title: Finding Meaning in Aesthetics: The Interdependence of Form, Feeling and Knowing (Chapter Two)
Author: Kerry Freedman
Source/Date: (2003). Teaching visual culture: Curriculum, aesthetics and the social life of art. New York,
NY Teachers College Press.
Main Idea/Purpose:
Aesthetics is a huge role when assessing art, when critiquing art aesthetics is used to determine an
overall feeling towards a specific piece of art. Throughout assessment and aesthetics, educators of art are
able to see personality inside student’s overall piece. Aesthetics can be used to create visually beautiful
works of art that are merely for the looks inside of the work, but it also promotes expression through
meaning and thought.
Short Overview:
Freedman (2003) notes, “Education can provide a way of enriching student’s lives by helping them
to critique and advance the ideas connected to visual culture and its meanings.” (p. 23) Freedman uses this
quotes to emphasis the importance of connecting art to students inside their culture. Culture that a teacher
brings forth inside the classroom, whether be similar to their students or not brings a different perspectives
and view to their students that may or may not have had heard before.
Aesthetic theory was developed at the time of Enlightment, this is based on how art is supposed to
look like (depending on specific art movement). When judging on aesthetic theory, art educators must be
able to view art as not just something pretty to look at, but rather what is the meaning behind this work of
art? What does the artist express throughout the overall work? Does it bring out a specific emotion and or
reaction to something? This is what an art educator should ask themselves when assessing student’s artwork
based on aesthetic.
Imagination plays a big part in art education, as an art educator creativity within yourself and also
with your students is important for your overall classroom environment. Freedman states that “Imagination
reveals our uniqueness and ties each us to other human beings” ( p. 32) Visual culture also influences our
imagination on how to view ourselves and our environment around us.

Critical Response: Reflections and/or relevance to personal art educational experiences/or teaching
experience
 Since I am currently taking a course on assessing art in art education. I can see that aesthetics can
be used to determine a mood that an artist wants to portray inside their work and their overall style of art
making, when assessing student’s work aesthetics plays a role in determining if the student had used
elements and principles inside the work. When assessing art, the use of both imagination and aesthetics can
be considered as risk taking, which is encouraged inside art education to use for self-expression and self-
discovery. I believe that Dr. Freedman did an excellent job explaining concepts that are important for art
educators to be able to create an affective space to allow students the ability to work inside their own
classroom

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Title: The Social Life of Art: The Importance of Connecting the Past with the Present
(Chapter Three)
Author: Kerry Freedman
Source/Date: Freedman, K. (2003). Teaching visual culture: Curriculum, aesthetics, and the
social life of art. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Main Idea/Purpose:
Disciples in art history are viewed now as not just Western/ Euro-American art and their
movements, but other perspectives of life and culture that represents living history through other’s
stories and traditions they have integrated with art. Through the use of both art and history viewers
are now able to explore different perspectives of beauty and aesthetic from other places around the
world.
Short Overview:
In Chapter three, Freedman (2003) discusses the important role of integrating art history
into teacher’s curriculums, however not just incorporating modern Western art but rather having
history lessons that students are able to connect through based on their personal interest, visual
culture, religion and ethnic culture. This engages students and makes them feel seen by their
teacher. Freedman states that “The great power of the visual arts is their ability to have various
and profound effects on our lives, but that power can also make them manipulative, colonizing,
and disenfranchising.” (p 53) Having history to research and to discover does not always mean
that this history was right and should be accepted as our history to be proud from. Learning about
colonization, slavery, injustice to women and people of color should show that history is not
always right and show be challenged through art and critical thinking.
Freedman states that “However, history is not the past; it is the reconstruction of the past.
Because the past is made up of people and events to which we no longer have direct access, history
involves interpretation of remnants of those events and the objects created by those people.” (p 44)
Through art we have discovered ways of life that may or may not be uncommon to us now and
through these discoveries, as art educators we are able to bring these ways of indigenous life to the
front stage of history that was not shown before in past Western history.

Critical Response:
When I had taught over the summer in Chicago, I did not just talk about Western artists
such as Vincent Van Gogh inside my classroom, even though students were interested in his work
and biography. I had researched artists that related to their neighborhood and culture, since this
school was in Little Village, a predominantly Latino community. I had researched artists that
related to the overall theme of the program which discussed murals and graffiti inside the
community and that related to them based on their Latino origin. I had brought up artists such as
Diego Rivera, a Mexican muralist whom students had not learned about him prior to my teaching,
we discussed similarities of murals from today’s time to issues regarding Latino history in the past.
The students inside this program were engaged by this artist that looked and related to them,
Freedman speaks on the importance on showcasing artists that relate to students and their personal
interest and cultures. This was important to these students because for them, this was one of the
first artist that they had learned about in school that related to them and their culture. When I had
mentioned where Diego Rivera lived for many years inside Mexico City, many students
commented “My dad lived there too!” or “My grandpa lived there.” Even I as a Mexican American
second gen. related to these topics of culture and traditions that I had taught to these students inside
Little Village. By introducing an artist that related to the student’s culture and personal interest the
whole classroom became a community that was interested in learning about the topic at hand.
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Title: Art and Cognition: Knowing Visual Culture (Chapter Four)
Author: Kerry Freedman
Source/Date: Freedman, K. (2003). Teaching visual culture: Curriculum, aesthetics, and the social life of
art. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Main Idea/Purpose:
The relationship between art and cognitive expression go hand to hand. Students are able to fully
express themselves through art making and the concepts behind their own works of art; learning takes place
based on cognitive connections. Processing memories and emotions through art is a way to produce learning
inside the classroom.
Short Overview:
Freedman notes that “The relationship between form, feeling, and knowing is an important part of
cognitive processing. In regards to visual culture, this relationship involves the processing of contents as
part of the processing of images and objects.” (p 65) Freedman (2003) relates emotion with the cognitive
processing inside the forms of art education, she states that based on students’ visual culture, content is
being produced that helps process information through emotions, memory and forms of learning.
Freedman also states that “However, learning takes place based on cognitive connections, including
those that relate to emotion, and more connections mean greater learning.” (p 66) Children respond
differently to reactions based on their emotional cognitive development inside their visual culture, having
to respond to images seen in their visual culture creates an overall learning experience for the child.
Freedman (2003) begins to analysis human growth within specific ages to examine their artistic
development and abilities, she discovers the age by stage model, that structures children’s artistic ability in
an age based category.
Critical Response:
Though my own experience in art making, I have learned that using emotion to create my overall
theme and big idea in my work has been affective in enhancing my skills as an artist and also allowed me
to let go of suppressed memories, events and overall emotions that had stayed with me for many years.
Creating art from memories and emotions that are personal to me gave me a sense of pride and honor seeing
the finished product on display, by creating work that was personal and interesting to me it had fueled me
with passion and overall determination to succeeded. Freedman discusses that through expression greater
learning occurs in art making, I believe this to be true based on my own experience creating art that was
meaningful for gave a sense of passion for what I was making and gave me the ability to accept criticism
to critically think about what message I wanted to showcase to my viewers. For example, my series “To
My Recovery” has been a true emotional journey for to process, while creating this series I had learned
more empathy towards myself and became more accepting towards criticism because I had wanted viewers
to gain information on the subject I was approaching throughout my overall message.
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Title: Interpreting Visual Culture: Constructing Concepts for Curriculum (Chapter Five)
Author: Kerry Freedman
Source/Date: Freedman, K. (2003). Teaching visual culture: curriculum, aesthetics and the social life of
art. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Main Idea/Purpose (2-3 sentences):

Interpretation is used as a way to infuse critical thinking into a students’ learning environment.
(Freedman, 2003) Using interpretation when evaluating art will allow students to perform critical reflection,
while self-consciously underlying assumptions that are based off the work they are view and interpreting.
Short Overview (Including at least 2-3 important quotes):
When it comes to curriculum, Freedman (2003) states that having context in both production and
viewing, such as culture, community and schools create an underlying assumption that is created through
visual culture (p. 88). Having context inside curriculum allows students to portray and create they see on a
day to day basis, which this allows them to express their emotions, opinions, and beliefs inside and outside
classroom. Freedman notes that “In order to understand visual culture and maintain the integrity of the artist
and the culture in which it was created, the context of production must be taken into account.” (p.88),
students are at a time in their life where representation heavily influences their judgement, by teaching
students on their own visual culture allows student to be heard from their teacher and feel noticed and heard.
A key of importance when teaching visual culture to understand the term, suggestion. Which refers
to power of visual culture that leads to emotional, cognitive responses and knowledge that can be
constructed through student’s work inside and outside the classroom. Another importance in teaching visual
culture is to understand the importance of interpretation, through this student are able to critically reflect
art while also being are to develop it through their own knowledge. Freedman states that “an interpretive
skill can help students to critically reflect is the ability to become conscious of associations and connections
they develop that go into building their knowledge and judgements.” (p.93), through interpreting art
students are able to see different perspectives then their own and be able to critical think of what is being
shown to them.

Critical Response: Reflections and/or relevance to personal art educational experiences/or teaching
experience
Freedman brings up important points in this chapter regarding cultural knowledge when teaching
visual culture inside the classroom. Having a set knowledge about specific aspects of global visual culture
allows individual responses to subjects that matter the most to students. This is important to students
because having a teacher that has knowledge of specific cultures inside visual culture allows students to
feel safe in their learning environment. They feel that they are heard by their teacher and that their student
is interested in what their students have to say. Allowing not just the fine arts into the classroom, but also
TV shows, advertisements, video games, and social medias shows students that they can experience art
everywhere, not just in a museum or gallery setting. This is important because students may not have the
ability to go to art museums and gallery shows, so allowing visual culture inside the classroom brings forth
student’s interest and cultures and how it is related to art and art making.

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Title: Interpreting Visual Culture: Curriculum as Process. Visual Culture and Democratic Education
(Chapter Six)
Author: Kerry Freedman
Source/Date: Freedman, K. (2003). Teaching visual culture: curriculum, aesthetics and the social life of
art. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Main Idea/Purpose:
Curriculum should be constructed by teachers to enhance visual culture for their students, having
connections to the outside world to include inside the classroom will allow students the ability to take risk
inside their own art. All curriculums should also emphasize the art making process rather than focusing on
the final product of work. There are five conditions of the curriculum process that enhances teacher’s
understanding of visual culture, educators need to understand these processes in order to enhance student
learning inside their classroom.

Short Overview:
In this chapter, Freedman (2003) discusses curriculum as a process of work of plans for students to
be able to grow inside the classroom. From a postmodern perspective, curriculum is the acknowledgement
of democratic principles that has ideals that are difficult to achieve when practiced (p.108) Recently in
changing curriculum, visual culture is bringing a voice to individuals in their personal interests of creating
art. Curriculum is now revolving around student learning with their own personal interested involved, rather
than the ability to copy what they see in a museum. The learning experience for students is now what
teachers inside the new curriculum are trying to achieve inside their classroom.
Representing visual culture inside the curriculum is extremely important when teaching a
classroom of students. Allowing students to connect to their personal lives and interests will encourage
them to expand from the mold of thinking that art is only seen in museums and galleries, but rather viewing
art as a way of connecting to the world all around them. “Curriculum shapes what students know and they
come to know. This involves juxtapositions of language practices, cultural norms and ideals, student
experience, and other social conditions that can influence the ways in which students restructure
knowledge” (p.122) K. Freedman explains this section very well in that curriculum allows students the
knowledge they need in the subject they are in, through their experiences curriculum can influence student
growth. She also explains the five conditions of curriculum which speaks on curriculum being:
representationally, multicultural, a creative process of production, narrating one’s perspective, and can be
transparent at times. Freedman states that “through curriculum inquiry, student’s construction of knowledge
can be enhanced as they work with teachers to take part of these processes.” (p.111) Students will have the
ability to experiment with media and enhance their learning based on the curriculum that their teacher has
created for them.
Critical Response:
Freedman (2003) explains postmodern curriculum and how it grew into the curriculum that is
taught to students, this is useful information in having learned how curriculum used to be made and how it
changed in today’s time. In my experience in school, in my middle school we did not have a proper art
program, the teacher was conducting art for the class was not an art teacher, but rather the sixth grade math
teacher. For an hour, students would color in color book pages and small crafts were designed for the school
for Christmas and or Thanksgiving. In my middle school, the teachers did not have a curriculum set for
what they had wanted us to learn based on our art making, they did not expect anything from us and it was
a period that did not require much thinking. This is not what I want for my students, having this knowledge
of curriculum helps me as an art educator adapt my curriculum to better fit the needs of my students and
the environment they live in. This is important to me because as art educator apart of my job would be to
connect art to my students' lives and I believe that this chapter has given me the knowledge to do so.
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Title: Art.edu: Technological Images, Artifacts, and Communications (Chapter 7)

Author: Kerry Freedman
Source/Date: Freedman, K. (2003). Teaching visual culture: Curriculum, aesthetics and the social life of
art. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Main Idea/Purpose:
Inside visual culture, technology plays a big role in students’ everyday lives. Throughout these
three decades we have seen technology grow and be used to communicate and express creativity throughout
nations worldwide. Through the use of technology, students have accessed a new world of media that can
be used to create virtual worlds, graphics and display student’s identities through digital art making.

Short Overview:
In this chapter, Freedman (2003) explains visual technology and how it attracts viewers visually
and seductively. Through technology, viewers can see worlds of aestheticism and effects of imagery. Inside
technological imagery there are blurred boundaries between realism and the fictional world that acts in
between each other. This means that inside technology there are multiple versions of reality that make up
parts of the internet, inside the internet, students are able to escape parts of their own world to feel welcomed
in another version of reality through technology. Freedman observes that “the process us a highly interactive
relationship between imagery and audience in which cultural and personal meanings are created.” (p. 135)
By technological imagery of referencing and cross referencing, students are able to view and understand
art inside and outside of visual culture (p. 129) As art educators we must include issues and related topics
that surrounds visual technologies.
Imagery inside video and computer games have become increasingly sophisticated, once viewed
viewers will see visual effects and problem solving aspects that become almost addictive to some players.
Freedman explains that “when viewing art, playing a computer game, or watching a film, we engage with
the creators as we seek to understand their creation while we create our own images and stories at their
suggestion.” (p. 132) Allowing students to seek art in ways outside of a gallery or museum, students are
able to produce creativity

Critical Response: Reflections and/or relevance to personal art educational experiences/or teaching
experience
As technology becomes more advanced inside visual culture, technological imagery has never been
as important to teach to students as of today. Even though Freedman’s Teaching Visual Culture was
published in 2003, she still understands that technology is not going anywhere and as an art educator is is
important to discuss all types of medium to create art, this includes technology. In technology now, I have
been extremely interested in video games inside visual culture. Having worked in a school program before
I have seen first-hand how much video gaming is a part of a student’s visual culture; if they are not
specially playing video games they know someone who is playing. Allowing students, the opportunity to
discuss their favorite video games and how this can be considered art can help students diminish the
mindset that art is only in museums. There is so many types of visual effects that take place inside a video
game that not addressing its beauty is dishonoring its category inside of art itself. As a future art educator
it is important for me to understand that technology is a part of visual culture, technology is only going to
progress more inside our generation and if I am not allowing my students the opportunity to use digital
media inside the classroom then I am doing no justice to them; the more I understand technology as a way
of artmaking the better my classroom thrive as a whole.
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Title: Contributing to Visual Culture: Students Artistic Production and Assessment (Chapter Eight)
Author: Kerry Freedman
Source/Date: Freedman, K. (2003). Teaching visual culture: Curriculum, aesthetics and the social life of
art. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Main Idea/Purpose:
Allowing student’s own individual artistic production creates an environment that produces
empowerment of students’ own ideas and concepts, which constructs aspects of one’s own identity that
allows insights to teachers and parents. Assessment in art allows students to view their art as neither
subjective or objective but rather the experience of making art. When assessing art focusing on different
opinions creates a way for students to see multiple points of views that they may have not received outside
of the art classroom.

Short Overview (Including at least 2-3 important quotes):

In chapter eight, Freedman (2003) discusses the importance of individual artistic production in the
teaching of visual culture. Through student’s artistic production, imagery and objects they encounter daily
influence their art making inside the classroom. Student create visual art not to seek formal and technical
art skills, but rather to feel understood. Freedman states that “Through their art, students can express
concerns…interpret imagery, and make judgments. If education is working, students can make art that
comments on social injustice, community change… which they are often in the process of forming
opinions.” (p.148)] Visual culture allows students to express interests in concepts outside of the classroom,
it is our job as art educators to allow visual culture inside the classroom to enhance student learning and
students’ ability to interpret imagery.
Assessment inside the classroom is used to support student’s understanding of concepts and ideas
and enhances student learning throughout the lesson being taught. Strategies inside assessment can inform
students on the ability to think critically through the use of critique and assessment. Because students are
becoming more advanced through visual culture, allowing students the platform to speak on their work to
their peers gives them sense of accomplishment and pride. “Focusing on differences of opinion in the
professional community can help students to see that multiple ways of looking at art can be justified and
that we need not always look for consensus of opinion.” (p. 153). This statement I believe is important
when remembering why we use critique as a way of assessment, having students talk about their work can
allow the art teacher to assess if they had understood the concepts being taught, which comes back to the
objectives of lesson. While students are speaking on their work they are expected to articulate art knowledge
vocabulary and term to the rest of class, peers are also expected to respond with articulation of art
vocabulary and concepts as well.
 Critical Response:
Freedman (2003) explains how important it is for students to independently work on projects that
are important their own interests and ideas. Through visual culture students are able to create narratives that
reflect on their own common interest and with the help of the art teacher who guides the students to enhance
their learning of the topic to overall create a piece that demands notice. When assessing art in other schools,
I had recently visited an IB school that promotes process through student’s portfolios. Through the use of
portfolios inside the classroom students are free to experiment with media, explore risk taking in art making,
develop research for their concepts and practice sketching out their work before apply onto its permeant
surface. When visiting this IB school I seen the growth of student’s growth inside the artwork through their
portfolio. As an art teacher I will use student’s portfolio to assess their growth and understanding of the
concepts that were either being taught or was researched independently from the student’s own ideas.