Art and Design Badges: My Reflections

I recently wrote about the Daisy, Brownie and Junior Art and Design Badges.   The main thing I've heard about them is that people are disappointed that they are taking the place of popular badges like Painting, Jeweler and Pottery.  I agree.  

While GSUSA seems to have no problem giving us three badges at each level on automotive manufacturing (something I am sure is of primary interest to most girls), along with three coding badges plus a coding journey, three math badges, three engineering badges and an engineering journey and three robotics badges, evidently adding a new art badge meant that old (and popular) ones needed to be retired.  

Where is GSUSA going with this?  It really seems to be more of the same--for whatever reason GSUSA does not seem interested in using its badge program to actually teach skills.  It seems much more interested in teaching concepts and ways of thinking.  Like most other things, this approach has plusses and minuses.  

I think it is safe to say that most of our girls will never become professional artists (or to use the term GSUSA is pushing, "makers"), nor will any great number of them participate in any particular art or craft as a hobby. However, I think if you look at adults in general, many have some sort of artistic or "making' hobby, whether that is sewing, knitting, home decorating, painting, woodworking, sculpture, photography, or drawing.  

In my opinion, the strength of this badge series is that if delivered as planned by GSUSA it could teach girls concepts they could use no matter what their preferred art/craft ends up being.  Further, it allows leaders to expose girls to a wide variety of different arts/crafts and does not limit them to "just" painting or drawing.  While I do not know the current state of art education in most schools today, I know that many of the words used are words I did not know/understand how they related to art until I took a college course in teaching art.  I also like the fact that it would be easy to do this badge with a multi-level troop.  

On the other hand, badges focused on particular types of art or crafts could allow leaders who know little or nothing about that art or craft to better teach it to the girls.  For example one of the possible projects listed for the Junior badge was crocheting an item with three different colors of yarn.  I don't know how to crochet.  Yes, I could look at a Youtube video or ask my friend who does crochet but I really don't know what I don't know, and, like most leaders, there is a limited amount of time I am willing to invest in meeting planning.  

Or, take sewing. I do know how to sew.  One of the most frequently discussed "why don't we have a badge for that" topic on Girl Scout leader Facebook groups is sewing.  One of the suggested Junior projects for this badge involved sewing, but the emphasis is on the design.  In fact there are no directions that would help anyone who did not know how to sew/make a pillow figure out how to do it.

I suspect the overwhelming majority of troops will earn these badges via drawing, painting or some other paper/school supply based artwork, just because those are the kinds of projects that can be completed in the allotted time.  It took me three whole meetings to teach my girls how to thread a needle, sew on a button, sew four pieces of fabric together to make a quilt square pillow top, stuff the pillow and sew it shut--and I had a helper who sewed regularly and brought her machine for the girls to use.  I have knit before and I am rather sure that it would take an entire meeting for me to teach my girls how to cast on enough stitches to make a pot holder, and then several meetings (assuming they would actually stay engaged) to actually knit one.  Maybe I lack imagination but I can't imagine any knitting project that girls who have  never  knit could do in an hour, much less one that allowed rank beginners to exercise any creativity or design.  

Like many other people, I think GSUSA should have kept the badges they retired, and added this series to the mix.  I would also like to see badges on particular arts or crafts that direct the girls on how to do the craft or experiment with materials.  For example, with painting, particularly with older girls, have them try different types of paints and different types of brushes.   For sewing, come up with some basic skills like threading a needle, sewing on buttons or Girl Scout patches, doing a couple of basic stitches and using a machine to sew a straight stitch.  

In fact, I would like to see more skill-based requirements for many of the badges in all areas. While I think the instant gratification of earning a badge over a meeting or two is appropriate for Daisies and Brownies, with Juniors and especially with older girls, I think the idea of a badge that basically says we had this theme for two meetings is silly.  A robotics badge that has middle school girls making a robot out of craft supplies, but which does not include any actual robots isn't likely to please girls that age who are interested in robotics.  I get that GSUSA is going for overall principals rather than specific skills but principals without skills don't get you anywhere.  

What do you think?  Would you rather see an art and design badge like this that teaches basic design principals that can be applied to any medium, or would you rather see badges devoted to learning to use particular mediums?  Would you like to see badges with specific deliverables or skills to be learned, or do you like the "do this activity" style requirements?