Introduction: The Value Dimension in Art Education Part 2

(MS 20) It is quite clear from the data that cultural influences appear early and have a strong effect on the overall style of children’s drawing… generalizations about particular stages of development from scribbling toward representation is not an automatic result result of maturation, or even of experience with drawing. Children are often content to play underline successful art in different cultures will have to be generative rules rather than absolute determinants of form (1983, p. 214)

# In this essay I have described the various strands of knowledge that are relevant to a viable and effective art education. I began by reviewing scientific knowledge about human development in general, and then moved to a consideration of findings about human development from an artistic perspective . I sought to integrate this body of information with emerging insight about effective educational practices in different domains of knowledge. This review documented the challenge faced by student who seek to synthesize various forms of knowledge, ranging from sensori-motor and intuitive forms of understanding, to craft skills that can evolve to an exquisite level of mastery, to the notational and formal bodies of knowledge that are usually emphasized in the school . I argued that, in the case of the arts, the development of these latter forms of knowledge should not occur at the expense of well – established educational regimens. In particular , it is important to honor those craft skills for which there is a long tradition of effective training, and which many feature – and foster – those ways of knowing that find their special genius – and their natural home – in the arts .

While my review of the literature does not lead directly to recipes for arts education, it does suggest certain promising approaches. In the work undertaken with my colleages over the past several years, and in many studies of “situated learning,” one encounters convincing evidence that students learn effectively when they are engaged by rich and meaningful projects; when their artistic learning is anchored in artistic production; when there is an easy commerce among the various forms of knowing , including intuitive, craft, symbolic, and notational forms; and when students have ample opportunity to reflect on their progress. Some of this reflection can be readily built into a system of informal classroom assessment, where it is most likely to be of use to the individual student. In addition, it appear possible to develop at least rough-and-ready assessment systems that can address issues of accountability for the wider community.

It is on the basis of our synthesis of knowledge about human development in the arts, and about the challenges of stimulating human learning, that we designed—and are continuing to redesign—an experiment approach to arts education. Beyond question, the approach in Arts PROPEL represents one of the multiple ways in which effective arts education can be developed. Far from wanting to question other efforts, framed in terms of differing theories, we welcome experiments in arts education from the most diverse quarters. There is little question that the whole field will learn from such efforts, much reason to think that superior art education is most likely to emerge as a result of accumulated knowledge about what works and what does not work under a variety of assumptions and in a variety of settings.

While researchers into human development and learning have acquired considerable knowledge in the past century, their studies have been conducted from a limited perspective. Thus we know far more about skills and knowledge of importance in the sciences than we do about comparable facets of the arts. And within the arts, far more is known about the natural development of artistic aesthetic forms of knowledge. It would be misleading to suggest that our findings dictate a certain educational approach. At most, they suggest that certain paths are more likely to be productive, while others are more likely to encounter pitfalls. Similarly our limited experience in educational experimentation hardly suffices to suggest which attempts at intervention are more likely to “take hold.”

Still, my recent experience in the realities of educational experimentation has convinced me that the even the most brilliant curricular innovations will fail to be effective in the absence of two additional factors. First of all, it is imperative to have a cadre of teachers who themselves “embody” the knowledge that they are expected to teach. Unless teachers are in sympathy with, and feel some ownership of, the curricula materials, any educational efforts are doomed—be they discipline-based, Arts PROPEL, progressive, or conservatives. Second, in the current educational climate, it is equally essential that there exist viable means of assessing what has been learned. Absent such measures, it is simply unrealistic to expect that communities will continue to support arts education, under whatever label it marches. Thus, if my study holds any implication for policy, it centers around the necessary trio of viable curricular materials, excellent teacher training, and suitable modes of assessment. This trio scarcely constitutes an original recipe, but it is one which bears repeating today.

At the same time that I encourage a wide range of educational experiments, I also want to stress how much can be learned by careful observation, documentation, and analysis of the practices that are already being implemented in settings around the world. In many ways, educational experimenters are at a disadvantage compared with other researches because we cannot carry out the kinds of controlled studies that we may envision in our dreams; but we have the great advantage that the world as a whole has already mounted countless educational experiments, many of which can still be observed, recorded, and analyzed today. Different value systems, practices, and institutions abound and are there for our examination and study. Indeed, while some of the aspects of Chinese arts education are not particularly to my liking, I have learned a great deal as a result of my own observations in Chinese art classrooms; and some of the very procedures that I recommend, and that are being tried out in our own experiments, grow directly out of the lessons that I learned in Chinese classrooms (Gardner, 1989a, 1989b).

Observations in remote and even exotic settings, like China, remind one of something that must never be lost sight of in education: the importance of one’s values systems. The Chinese esteem high degrees of proficiency in their traditional art forms, even as they fear experiments in contemporary Western forms, and so their entire system is rooted in this nexus of desires and anxieties. American “progressives” are searching for ways to enhance expression, originality, and cultivation of individuality; hence, they stress certain materials and practices in their classrooms. Contemporary neoconservatives lament the loss of basic skills and core cultural values in the young of today, and so they call for educational practices that are anchored in the classical literacies and that elevate certain conanical texts. The kinds of education fashioned by these different interest groups will invariably reflect their values and their goals, and there is no way in which a “value-neutral” science can mediate among them. What scientific discovery and educational experimentation can furnish is some sense of how best to achieve one’s stated goals, to demonstrate that success to others, to enumerate the costs involved in pursuit of a particular path, and, if one is fortunate, to minimize those costs. And it is just possible that a combination of the lessons learned from experiments at different points on the globe can suggest what set of the values might be appropriate not only for given society but for humanity as a whole.