Historical Foundations of Art Education

Why study or ignore art ed history? What does this mean for schools?

Both of the Efland readings this week were very interesting. It's been a long time since I've delved into the history of art education and the philosophies behind them. Like all other history, movements and paradigm shifts make so much sense when you place them in the context of history. The simplification ofcatagorizing art education movements into two categories was interesting; Scientific Rationalism, based more or lesson on the same principle of the scientific process, and Romantic Expressionism which is based on classical education, emotions, and self expression. I think this may be a simplification because as time went on, there were ideological shifts, but it seemed that the shifts were trying to strike a balance between the two main opposing methodologies.

It is important to look back on the history of these movements because the art education, education in general, as well as art itself will always be changing, growing and evolving into something different. It is dangerous to stop evolving with the time because we would become obsolete. As I was reading these articles I kept trying to pinpoint where art education is now. Where is my district? Where is my school? Where am I in my day to day practice? I think we have evolved far from 1912 when schools began to model themselves after factories and valued efficiency most of all, but some days I do feel like we are headed that way a little with our insistence on standardized testing and common curriculum/assessments. I think about the balance between teaching elements and principles of design and letting students figure out what works and what doesn't on their own. I think about incorporating both observational drawing and posters for social reform into my 2-D art classes. I think there is room for it all in today's curriculum, and as I read these articles I thought about introducing the structure of the evolution of education into the structure of my drawing class in particular- moving through the history of education with lessons that the different movements supported and culminating in students deciding how to approach their art-making on their own.

I am also in the midst of piloting a STEAM program at my school. I predict this is going to be an interesting topic in this class, because there are a variety of opinions about integrating art into other subjects rather than having it stand alone as it's own discipline. Both sides of this issue are concerned that art education will not be taken seriously, or support will disappear. Are we repeating history? I understand why the movement in the 60's happened to create art as it's own discipline- it needed a boost to be taken seriously. I understand why in 1965 art education made the move to structure themselves like the physical science, again to be taken seriously. I always thought of myself as a romantic expressionist, a creative, inward looking emotional type. But after several years of teaching and seeing education evolve in that amount of time, I see the reasoning behind the scientific rationalism.

Where are we now politically? We are asked to track everything, standards based grading, common formative assessments, all very scientific and rational. STEM education and reading and literacy are being pushed so hard in schools, that there is definitely an element of "HEY, WHAT ABOUT ART?" that led me to push myself into the STEM group at my school and insist upon inserting the A. I don't want to be taken less seriously and my dream school would look something like High Tech High where everyone is working together, and where engineers have to be artists and vice versa. I believe in both art for art's sake, but I also believe that the arts are sometimes marginalized when programs are too focused on preparing students for art schools, or simply encouraging art as a hobby. I believe in art as a tool to learn to be a creative individual!

Phew. Soap box.