On a recent Wednesday morning in Natalee Dias’ art class at Anne T. Dunphy School in Williamsburg, one group of sixth-grade students worked together to build a military base out of cardboard, paint and glue, complete with fleets of ships and airplanes, a runway and a base building. It’s a project the students have been planning since last year.
At the other side of the classroom, Livia Fill painted a poster inspired by the school’s upcoming play, “Matilda the Musical Jr.” — she planned to give it to the director as a surprise. Down the table from her, another student was sculpting a clay bowl. And Griffin Davey was using markers to draw a favorite manga character, Demon Slayer.
“We still get a grade, but it’s not graded on assignments — it’s graded on how much we care about the art,” said Williamsburg student Charley Nye. “I really like that because it’s not as much pressure.”
In the classes Dias teaches at Anne T. Dunphy and Westhampton Elementary School, she implements a student-driven “Teaching for Artistic Behavior” philosophy. Rather than watching a demonstration and copying what the teacher makes — one that often led to frustration among students when their art didn’t look like hers, she noticed — the philosophy encourages students to pursue their own interests, learn at their own pace, and get the support they need to make art that speaks to their individuality. Dias shows skill-building techniques, like how to make a collage or work with clay, fabric or paint, but the students can make with it what they want.
Some students choose a new project each class. Others, like the group of boys working on the military base, work on the same project for several months.
During that Wednesday morning class in mid-March, Rhoan Chaplin, who said he has a model battleship at home, was busy cutting cardboard pieces for a patrol boat. When the pieces were cut, he painted them dark gray to match the rest of the boats, airplanes and buildings.
“It’s really fun,” Drew Fabin said of the class. He was one of four boys collaborating on the military base with Chaplin, along with Lucas Hess and Jameson O’Bara.
Next to Chaplin and Fabin, Hess was building an airplane. Hess has been the driving force behind the military base, Dias said.
“Up until last year, Lucas was always sort of stuck with what to create in the art studio,” Dias said. “Once he came up with the concept, others followed … Who knows, maybe they will be the next aircraft engineers or vehicle designers.”
When the class is over for the year and the students graduate sixth grade, the boys plan to split up the military base they built together and each take a few pieces home, they said.
Before moving to individual projects, students start each class together by looking at art that Dias puts on the board for inspiration, like pictures of collages or paintings by other artists, and discussing them. They’re also given a combination of two different words as a journal prompt each week, like “snake” and “star,” to get their “art brains working,” Nye said.
If the weather is bad or students feel like continuing work on a project, they’re also able to stay in during recess after class. And especially during cold or rainy days, several students at a time often choose to stay in and work on their art, Dias said.
“If we want a better future, we need to allow students to think differently and move beyond the confines of what has been done already,” Dias said. “Going beyond cookie-cutter art and moving toward the philosophy of ‘Teaching for Artistic Behavior’ provides students more choice and allows for differentiation within the learning environment.”
During the class, students seek Dias for the help they need executing their vision — whether smoothing a clay bowl or securing a cardboard wing — leaving her to manage a dozen different projects at once. In return, students tend to manage their own behavior, Dias said. By following their own creative impulses, they gain a sense of autonomy that has led to a noticeable drop in behavioral issues since she implemented TAB six years ago.
Dias, who lives in Cummington, has been teaching at Westhampton Elementary School for 15 years and at Anne T. Dunphy for 12 years. Before switching to teaching, she worked as a graphic designer.
Dias specified that Teaching for Artistic Behavior, or TAB, is a philosophy, not a curriculum. Dias still has to abide by state and national standards. But something didn’t feel right in the traditional way she learned to teach art that put her in the role of the artist, rather than emphasizing the students as artists. When she attended an online conference about the TAB method, she instantly knew she wanted to learn more and implement the philosophy in her own classrooms.
TAB was created by Massachusetts-based elementary school teachers Katherine Douglas and John Crowe, who collaborated on implementing student-directed arts learning in the 1970s. It was officially incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2008 and expanded its foundational structure in 2019, including a larger Board of Directors, mission statement and professional support network for educators, according to the organization’s website.
“I always felt that the students needed more choice,” Dias said. “As an artist myself, it is great to see students enjoying the artmaking process even more.”
