School Type: Public	School Setting: Suburban
Level: K-12	School Design: Traditional
Content Presented By:
Teaching for Artistic Behavior Partnership

Results

1. As a result of establishing a choice-based art education program, John Crowe found that he as a teacher had the opportunity to talk with students as one artist to another.
2. The choice-based curriculum structure accommodated many more learning styles and varieties of self-pacing.
3. There was nearly total engagement of students and behavior management problems virtually disappeared.
4. There were no resistant students because the work was self-determined and everyone could find an interesting path.
5. Child development stereotypes started to break down. For example, some first graders became fascinated with anatomy and became experts at anatomical drawing, and sixth graders were able to scribble and experiment with various materials.
6. Students had the opportunity to specialize over time and to develop a style of working or an expertise in a particular topic.
7. It was valuable to see the blossoming of "non-school" content: personal obsessions, religious themes, death of relatives and pets.
8. The teacher's spirit was renewed by the excitement of facing new studio adventures every day. As Crowe says, "After 20 years of teaching, I couldn't wait to get to school because I couldn't predict what was going to happen -- no conventional lesson plan of mine predetermined it all."
9. Students were able to meet high standards. "I felt I could hold students more accountable to higher standards than ever before because they chose the work and the direction," says Crowe.

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