I will have to say that I have not taken many arts classes in my K-12 experience, and it is a shame. I suppose in California art teachers were integrated into the general education and therefore, were dropped in the level of importance, unless a teacher had a special spot in their heart for art. I do remember art in middle school, but this was in a private school overseas, and art was much more appreciated, as we went to museums and created many personal peices in various media--music, plays, skits, paper, clay, trash, etc.. We displayed our arts in shows and were allowed to showcase our skills, talents, and ideas. Returning to the U.S. for high school, art once again was placed on a backburner. There were art classes taught in my high school--formal art with Mr. Caspers or photo with Mr. Morris. There was no drama and band was more for playing at the football games than for any aesthetic purpose. I did not enroll in any of these courses. I was not required to or pressured to for college entrance. What does that say about the appreciation of the arts?
I can see many valuable places where art can motivate students to pariticpate in any subject area or just be an outlet to express thoughts. When I taught in Venezuela, Ms. Koch did a wonderful job asking the high school students to use the media of the unit to represent other classes being taken. One of my students decided to do a design of a molecule. This art peice was a great form to have the student delve deeper into the content of chemistry and understand the basic form of the molecule. His personal touches were emphasized in creativity and the final product was awesome. He displayed this for the school and it created a lot of talk amongst other teachers and how this type of art-subject discipline partnership could be used in future units--where the subject teacher would aks the art teacher to help on a unit rather vice versa.
As the articles we read this week emphasized--there needs to be more research to support arts in schools and in all disciplines--not just art itself. What goes into art, like what goes into other areas, can transfer for any one student and be a value to learning. Schools need to see how all types of art: classic or digital can be integrated into the whole curriculum. I am not sure if English experts will be pushing for this integration or if the Arts experts need to be the voice in all disciplines. You'd think there would be advocates on all sides--just when it comes to external assessments I think rational thinking is lost.
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I loved the case of the Venezuelan student, and I think it presents a very good case for the collaboration of the arts and other disciplines. The issue here is of course, the value of the arts, and as Dewey noted, the problem lies in the fact that words have a higher place than images in society, forgetting that "a picture tells a thousand words."
ReplyDeleteWhat's more compelling for me in arts education is the fact that disadvantaged students can potentially find a way into the system through informal environments like the Club House. That in itself is exciting and is compelling evidence of the role of media and traditional arts in education.
Yes, it seems like your a moderate in the debate of arts for arts sake vs. arts integration debate but siding with a more wholistic approach to arts integration. As an aside, I've also seen this type of approach as being a successful teacher development model. Thanks for sharing this beautiful vignette!
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