Our school district hosts an annual exhibit at the local mall. Each art teacher can student select artwork to be displayed on panels in the mall.
I'm not sure if this really IS what the prompt for the blog challenge is asking for, but I feel like it is a great idea for other art teachers. A mall is a great venue for student work, as it gets a whole lot more foot traffic than a gallery. Sometimes I select collaborative projects or smaller items so that many of my students get their work shown in public. Last year, we had just finished these awesome large-scale neon paintings so I chose a bunch of those for the mall show.
I know there are lots of other ways to involve the community in our learning...(and we do other 'public' shows including a show at a local university, and artwork at the State Capitol for Youth Art Month) but TIME is my main issue. Sure, I could set up at the monthly art walk, host after-school art events and invite parents....but all of it is volunteering on my part...and while I DO value the 'volunteer experience'.....sometimes I just have to say no, not right now, but maybe someday.
For now, I will post about student success on my blog, twitter and FB page and maybe someday I will have a little more time to incorporate the community into the classroom. And if I do get a hankering to include the community a little more HERE is a great post with 50 ideas. ;0)