The Tie That Binds: Reconstructing Ourselves in Institutional Contexts

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that before art educators can achieve emancipatory goals and practices for others very well, we must first address those institutional structures and organizational arrangements that constrain our own identities, imagination, and practice as art educators. To do this requires breaking our code of silence about what it means to “be/do good,” which often denies that contextual problems exist and are alienating and oppressive. One important way to give voice to our constraints is to address these publicly in local, supportive, professional communities that we build together and sustain. We need community to tell our stories so that we can generate creative, alternative ways to see and organize ourselves in our work and workplaces.