TAB Approach

Choice-Based Art Education

TAB is the philosophy that grounds this learner-directed model and choice-based art education is the methodology that drives the practice through the use of studio centers. Commonly seen in primary classrooms, centers offer students a focused learning experience. Most choice-based art programs offer separate studio centers by media, such as painting, clay, and printmaking. Centers function as mini-art studios, complete with instructional information, menus, resources, materials, and tools. Students move independently among centers, utilizing materials, tools, and resources as needed for their art making.

“Choice-based” is an umbrella concept for educational programs that offer students some degree of choice. Choice-based art educators may or may not follow TAB philosophy but all TAB teachers are also choice-based teachers.

Teaching for Artistic Behavior

Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB) is a philosophical approach to art education that places children at the center of artmaking choices. The foundation for this education model builds on three principles, known as the Three-Sentence TAB Curriculum:

• What do artists do?

• The student is the artist.

• The classroom is the students' studio.

The Three-Sentence TAB Curriculum guides every decision that TAB teachers make as they design learning environments, plan curricula, write individual lesson plans, consider students’ needs, and order supplies. Students in Teaching for Artistic Behavior programs experience artistic thinking and making through self-direction and teachers respond to their progress with a flexible curriculum that adapts to their emergent ideas. TAB teachers believe in the child as the artist and embrace the thinking and artwork that emerges both in and out of art class.