Conversations with Students, Teachers, Parents, and Administrators about Censorship and Free Expression inHigh School

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BY RACHEL HALLQUIST

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h their personal experiences for content for their artwork. Drawing from their own lives and imaginations often often ask them to becomedrawing students to utilize in provokes my high school more engaged and invested artmaking than they might otherwise be inan exclusively formal or technical approach to drawing.
In this expressive environment, difficult and occasionally distressing issues are sometimes present in my students' artwork. While most of my students' personal themes are not the sort of issues that would move me to rush to the school psychologist, such as abuse or suicide, topics do emerge that reveal possibly controversial concerns: racism, gender bias, sexual confusion, homophobia, religion, politics, drug exaltation, and sexual activity. Feeling uncomfortable, I spoke with other art teachers at my school and found that almost all of them have general content restrictions for artwork produced in class including restrictions on nudity, drugs, and violence. Nevertheless, I still felt uneasy; does establishing such boundaries mean students will stop thinking about sex, abusing drugs, being depressed about their achievement, feeling alienated, or any other physical and/or psychological challenges teenagers may face?

"Ifthe content of a student's artwork isquestioned by the community, will the administration support my goals as an educator? Could Ibe out of a job next year?" However, there are also legal matters that I considered as well. What about free speech? Do students not

have a right to express their ideas, even if

their ideas are unpopular or controversial?

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ART EDUCATION / MAY 2008

seek out adequate means of organizing new and often disparate thoughts" (p. 35). Moreover, artmaking as a means of expression and creative actitivity could have positive psychological effects on