@masterraalkivictorieux Master Ra’al Ki Victorieux
Art education, deeply rooted in history, shapes creativity and inclusion, promoting peace through self-awareness and cultural understanding. 🎨✨ #ArtEducation #Creativity #Inclusion #CulturalUnderstanding https://wp.me/p3JLEZ-8Nn
“The way visual arts are taught today has been conditioned by the beliefs and values related to art of those who promoted its teaching in the past.” Arthur D. Efland
The elaboration of the history of education is a complex task; to carry out the following summary—contextualized in the United States—I mainly reference Efland. In addition to his work as an art teacher, he defined the guidelines for the art education program for elementary and secondary education in Ohio, for which he received the National Art Education Association award in 1982 and regularly publishes on art education studies. (Arthur D. Efland. A History of Art Education. Intellectual and Social Trends in the Teaching of the Visual Arts.)
The study of art in North America began formally at the end of the 19th century, with the subject “The art of daily life,” which included an aesthetic attention aimed at beautifying schools, homes, and communities. The idea was to transmit culture to children to transform their parents. The progressive pedagogy of the 19th century was considered suitable for the privileged classes, but not for the poor. This movement ended in the late 1920s as new ideas gained popularity. John Dewey was an influential educator in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the 1930s, the Progressive education movement emerged, which emphasized “physical, mental, and emotional health / preparation for the future / the importance of personal satisfaction and achievements / an emphasis on active and creative achievements.” However, this stance received significant criticism from the right for associating it with communists. Arthur Bestor criticized this perspective in 1952, arguing that education should be transmitted through systematic methods. However, there were no defenders of the authoritarian classes of the 1890s, although there were supporters of the idea of basing educational reform on disciplines.
The Great Depression extended through the decade leading up to World War II. It generally began around 1929 and ended in the late 1930s or early 1940s. Social concerns took precedence in art education. Art was seen as a means to reinforce community and improve people’s lives through the application of design to urban planning, interiors, and clothing.
During the war, art education became part of the war effort and was seen as a means to preserve and defend democracy and Western civilization. World War II was a watershed moment; the world before the war disappeared forever. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as superpowers, with New York becoming the center of contemporary art. Due to the tragedies of war—including the atomic bomb—the belief in a better future and humanity evolving to higher levels of civilization ended.
Through art education, students develop enhanced skills for understanding the meaning-making of others. Through quality art education, youth develop the capacity to attend to nuances of meaning. Most significantly, engagement with the arts teaches youth to perceive complexity as pleasure and possibility, not as irritating uncertainty. Heightened self-awareness is extended to heightened awareness of others . . . The vividness of art experiences blurs the boundaries between self-experience and the experiences of another. Through artworks, students absorb the perceptions of others—situated in other times and places, embodied in other races, genders, ages, classes, and abilities. Through art, the self becomes vitally interested in other selves, sensing the possibilities and problems of those selves within oneself. A democracy cannot long function as the tyranny of uncaring majorities over various minorities of interest, nor can it long function when powerful minorities disregard the interests and needs of the majority. Democracy requires that difference be perceived not as an assault on selfhood, but as an invitation to be a fuller, more open self who incorporates the sensations and experiences of others into one’s own perceptions of the world and into one’s contributions to collective decision making. Oliva Gude, the 2009 recipient of the prestigious National Art Education Association’s Lowenfeld Lecture Scholarship.
Herbert Read (England), and Viktor Lowenfeld (Austria) stood out during and after World War II for their visionary attitude, in which the arts play an important role in the development of peace, inclusion, and individual and social harmony. “The goal of art education is not art itself, or the aesthetic result, or the aesthetic experience, but rather that the child grows in a more creative and sensitive way and applies their experience with the arts to all circumstances of life where this is applicable.” Lowenfeld.
“Artistic research is not devoid of articulation, although it proceeds in an analogical and metaphorical manner and does not rely on the formal structure of knowledge nor contribute to it.” Barkan.
We will observe that the approaches and therefore the institutionalization of art education have constantly changed during the second half of the 20th century.
I came to win, to fight, to conquer, to thrive
I came to win, to survive, to prosper, to rise
To fly
Micki Minaj – Fly – Pink Friday
Regardless of the work of educators, artists, and theorists surrounding art education, what gets institutionalized in the curriculum depends more on state decisions. Education, in this sense, is a form of social control, and although control is necessary for some human objectives, its exercise is invariably conservative. Educational currents vary in response to the dominant social climate, social circumstances, power groups, and the strength of the government. In North America, this goes through organizations such as the Political Council on Social Theory in Art Education, and the National Art Education Association, NAEA, founded in 1947.
I understand the interest of those who have tried to frame art education in molds more appropriate to scientific knowledge, be it discipline-based education or results-oriented. However, even when all areas of culture are related (science, technology, art), it is clear that the arts demand a more creative and flexible—inclusive, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, humanistic, social—scenario; one that includes the singularities of idiosyncratic cultural diversity. I believe it is important to trust that the intellectual freedom of the student can produce valuable social results.
I am sure we must value and treasure the awareness we gain as humanity after tragic moments in history, such as wars. That is to say, that the arts and culture remain a resource committed to life, peace, individual and social harmony, international cultural understanding, and universal love. Art is a wonderful territory to foster the education of independent, free, creative, and conscious individuals.
I recognize the work of educators like Lowenfeld, Herbert Read, Trever Thomas, and Edwin Ziegfeld, who promoted a movement of peace in art in the post-war era. Likewise, it is positive that these topics are debated in a search for cultural international development and consensus in spaces like UNESCO.
“The overall goal is the development of a willingness to appreciate excellence in art: the capacity that works possess to intensify and expand human experience and the qualities of art from which such capacity derives.”
Smith, 1987.
I broadly agree with the proposals—made in the ’70s—of the reconceptualists group: -Philip Phenix, Maxine Greene, James Macdonald, Herbert Kliebard, Ross Mooney, Paul Klohr-: They maintain holistic or organic conceptions of individuals and their relationship with nature. They see individuals as agents participating in the construction of knowledge. They value, and rely greatly on personal knowledge. They cite a wide range of sources from the field of the humanities. They value personal freedom and higher levels of consciousness, as well as diversity and pluralism.
I find the Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE) very interesting, as I think it is important to combine theoretical mastery (history, criticism, aesthetics) parallel to the craft (technique/workshop) required for the arts.
“It is important for children—including the marginalized—to know the great works and artists that are part of our common culture. The great works of art constitute an incomparable record of the past, the evolution of our society, and are a notable vehicle for the transmission of our most cherished values from generation to generation; art is a challenge to the intellect and can inspire in us merit and even greatness. Art is one of civilization’s greatest products.” William Bennett, at one of the Getty conferences in Los Angeles, 1987.
Art education promotes values that allow students to practice inclusion and democracy in their immediate environment, as well as fostering enthusiasm for discovering themselves and others in their diversity.
Continue your reading
- Clark’ love for Education
- International Day of Conscience
- Kuo Pao Kun, artivist playwright
- Deportation of immigrants
- Empowered Women Empower Women
- Public Image and Digital Documentation
- Social Justice
- UNESCO Digital Library
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