Aesthetic Education the State of the Art

National Art Education Association

Aesthetic Education: The State of the ArtAuthor(s): Martin EngelReviewed work(s):Source: Art Education, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Mar., 1975), pp. 15-20Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3192056 .Accessed: 06/09/2012 20:11

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ArtEducation.

http://www.jstor.org

Martin Engel

(With appreciation to Junius Eddy of the

Rockefeller Foundation who pulled much of this information together.)

Without ceasing to be aesthetic, the aesthetic experience must be shown to be a vector in the cognitive, moral and social aspects of life. Only then can a case be made for the spending of money and time to develop the aesthetic competence of large numbers of our people via the public school system. (JAE, 1966)

Harry Broudy

Background There is a quiet revolution going on

in education that is not making the headlines. Articles are being written in ever increasing quantities and quality; organizations are conducting con- ferences, workshops, and seminars; speeches are being given describing the needs and demanding greater efforts; experiments are being conducted and results brought into

15

I -J, ~ i t;i +L~~~~~~~~~~~,

LEu.

LEm

=??

40

ti -W

ti (i

Ahk-

14**

schools. Modest funding from private, local, and federal sources is supporting this growing interest. We refer to the revolution which is expanding the artistic and aesthetic character and content of basic education.

Until recently, most Americans ex- perienced art in their education as a trivial and isolated activity. For exam- ple, the art teacher came once a week to each class and devoted an inor- dinate amount of time to clean-up. Music education was personified by the lady with the pitchpipe, or transmitted by the trombone in the marching band. Drama has been little more than the annual school play. While those days of artistic drought are not yet gone forever, there is a massive movement afoot to encourage their departure, to integrate the arts as a total academic experience from elementary to senior high school.

In 1973, the President called attention to the importance of the arts:

But renewed faith in ourselves also arises from a deeper understanding of who we are, where we have come from, and where we are going-an understanding to which the arts and humanities can make a great con- tribution. Intellectually, the schools have

regarded the arts as entertaining rather than as fundamental to human understanding. We are now witness to basic changes in this attitude. The arts enjoyed a brief flowering in the schools during the 1930's, when progressive education emphasized individual, creative, and expressive behavior. World War II and the Sputnik era restored the narrow view of the academic disciplines. The recent ad- vocacy of an enhanced "quality of life" for every American alluded only to economic and material quality, not aesthetic quality. During the 1960's, however, the arts again began to catch the attention of the education community, in conjunction with developmental psychology and humanization of education generally; that is, with social and personal as well as aesthetic growth. In other words, education re-focused its sights upon the development of the whole person, not only his academic skills.

August Heckscher has been one of the leaders of this aesthetic revolution. During the early 1960's, he stated his belief that the United States was

entering a period when in terms of the genius and ability of individual artists in all fields, and when in terms of the excitement and enthusiasm of the great public, we are witnessing a kind of renaissance such as we have not had before and which in the decades to come may wellplace us in the very forefront of the civilized world .... You cannot travel about in this country today without finding in every city there are plans afoot to

16 Art Education, March 1975

do something new with the life of that place: to build a cultural center, to create an opera group, to make of that city a center for culture and the arts .. .

It is this renaissance which, in the characteristic time lag of the cultural shift within the schools, is only now beginning to permeate the education community.

The Teaching of the Arts in the Schools Until the last decade, the creative

and artistic efforts of most children were encouraged and rewarded until they reached a certain age, early in their schooling, when it was time to "get serious." The adult world then began demanding preparation for job and work, and an end to play and fun. Home and school, which had encouraged art and other creative production, reversed their field. The importance of the body was replaced with the importance of the "mind" or head. Henceforth, perhaps sometime around the first or second grade, artistic and idiosyncratic expression came to be regarded as detrimental to the development of behaviors appropriate to adult life. From that time on, in the educational life of every youngster, the curriculum relegated the arts to a peripheral role.

Nevertheless, it should come as no surprise that the arts have been a part of every school curriculum to some degree for quite a long time. Nearly every teachers' college has art and music education as a specialty- offering to its trainees. Most public schools have, if their budget allows it, at least a part-time art and music specialist on the staff. Representing the art and music teachers respective- ly, the National Art Education Associa- tion and the Music Educators National Conference enjoy a membership of nearly 100,000 members. The theatre education teachers are represented by several organizations, among them the American Educational Theatre Association.

In other words, the arts are being taught in the schools, and the profes- sion has been organized forsometime. About 98% of all junior high schools and 90% of all senior high schools offer some activity in the field of music, such as a weekly class period, participation in the orchestra, or instrument instruction. However, only 14% of all junior and senior high schools require any music for graduation, and only 6% to 9% require some visual art experience for graduation. Thus, while the arts, in one form or another, have indeed been offered as educational experiences in the schools, that experience until now has simply not been taken seriously. More importantly, this indicates that while the visual arts and music are available, only enough is available for a small percent of the student popula-

tion. When the kids demand more art, it will not be available. And student demand will reflect, if not exceed, the changing demands of society. The arts have been the sole "affective" component of the curriculum, and the affective domain has rarely been agreed upon as an important responsibility of the schools. But times are changing. The direction of their change is the topic of this document.

Education in the Arts and Aesthetic Education

A basic terminology includes a number of frequently used and confused terms and phrases which might be summarized in the following way: 1. Art; the Arts: Includes the visual arts,

such as two-dimensional art (painting, graphics, etc.) and three- dimensional art (sculpture, ceramics, etc.); architecture; music, which includes performance, com- position, and theory, and musicology; dance; literature, i.e. creative literature, such as fiction or poetry; drama and theatre; and film, still and motion.

2. Art Education: Has traditionally referred to courses and educational programs only in the visual arts, as distinct from Music Education. Emphasis has been upon "artsy- craftsy" manipulation of materials; that is, the technology of production, or "how-to," rather than upon aesthetic or qualitative perception and judgment of works of art.

3. Arts Education, or Education in the Arts: Terms of recent vintage gain- ing currency among curriculum developers and theorists. Attempts to integrate the several art media and espouses interdisciplinary classroom content. Therefore has met with resistance from the specialist-teachers in the various media. Much stronger theoretical/conceptual basis for curricula than in the more widespread art education programs, though still centered upon traditional art media, rather than upon aesthetic perception which ranges far beyond the arts.

4. Aesthetic Education: A generic term intended to incorporate all of the arts as the most concentrated form of aesthetic expression and perception within a single philosophical system. Stress is upon the teaching of the arts from an experiential basis rather than a production oriented method.

Harry Broudy is one of the prime movers in the relatively new discipline of aesthetic education. He defines this discipline as well as suggesting several avenues of approach:

Experiences with images that have value import we shall call aesthetic experiences.... aesthetic education ought to concentrate on helping

the pupil to perceive works of art, the environment, nature, clothing, etc. in the way that artists in the respective media tend to perceive them .... In opting for perception as the proper focus for aesthetic education, I am rejecting-with certain qualifica- tions-two others: one is the performance approach and the other is the traditional course in appreciation of music, art, literature, etc. (Enlight- ened Cherishing, pages 28,60) One of the most pervasive problems,

apparent in this short list of terms, is the isolation of the arts, one from the other, as well as the arts from other disciplines. Also, the various represen- tatives of the different arts are vying for territorial dominance in the battle of methodologies as well as content, all within the educational setting. The visual arts professionals have, until very recently, ignored the music educators, and vice-versa, or have fought them over crumbs of the school budget. The teachers of performance and craftsmanship, who have insisted upon the primacy of production as the path to learning, have regarded with contempt the theoreticians and teachers who stress perceptual experience. The emergence of the concepts of arts education and aesthetic education indicates that the several arts are coming together, both concep- tually and operationally, within coor- dinated educational programs and that a balance is being struck among performance, appreciation, and knowledge.

The Federal Role One of the earliest efforts to research

and develop the teaching of the arts in the schools emerged in 1965 with the establishment of the Arts and Humanities Program within the U.S. Office of Education's Bureau of Research. The government thereby made an introductory commitment to the importance of the arts in the schools. The Arts and Humanities Program supported over 200 projects, spending about $10.6 million over a period of six years. The influence of this program was far more widespread than the amount of money would suggest. Support for research and development in the arts provided a legitimacy for art educators previously available only to the sciences and science education.

The second most influential role that the federal government played in im- plementing a renewed interest in art education was Titles I and III of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Funds were channelled directly to the local school systems for special programs for disadvantaged students. It has been determined that nearly $150 million were invested in art, music, and other cultural activities in the first three years

alone. However, rather than systematic educational efforts, these programs consisted of isolated exposure to performances and one-time out-of-school "cultural" trips. The 1970 evaluation of Title I indicated that such random exposure had little lasting educational value, and subsequently all arts activities were sharply reduced, thereby eliminating even the few effective ones.

When Title III funded the arts on a much more modest scale than Title I, its impact was more significant. Under this Title, a total of several thousand projects have been funded, ranging broadly across the educational spec- trum. Between 1966 and 1970, nearly 400 of these projects, at a cost of nearly $80 million were concerned directly or indirectly with the arts. Because Title III called for significant community participation and forced linkages between the schools and the resources of the community, this brought school children out into the cultural life of the community and at the same time brought the performing arts into the schools on a regular basis.

Junius Eddy of the Rockefeller Foun- dation, and one of the leading observers of the federal role in the arts, said:

. . . the projects which were most apt to achieve some kind of permanent educational pay-off were those in which the emphasis was on the development of processes, procedures, activities and materials-which would continue to facilitate teaching and learning after the project as such had ended. Because they seem to have been aimed more at changing the ways in which the arts were regarded and taught in the regular school program rather than bringing in an occasional artistic dividend to delight and 'enrich' a few children, these kinds of projects represent, in my view, a wise and more effective use of Title III monies... (The Arts and General Education:. Rockefeller Foundation Paper; January, 1974)

The Two Endowments By 1970, federal support for the arts

in the schools diminished. Other priorities displaced the arts within the constraints of shrinking budgets and rising costs. This brief summary of the federal role is by no means complete, however. Some government watchers believe that the U.S. Office of Educa- tion Arts and Humanities Program was established only as an interim program, anticipating the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1965. The Arts and Humanities Program was placed within the Bureau of Research because that was the only unit in the U.S. Office of Education that cut across all school

grades. Also, the Bureau of Research was the only place where the authority to spend discretionary funds was available (under Title IV, Cooperative Research Act).

As the two Endowments began to stand on their own feet, funding for the Arts and Humanities Program in U.S.O.E. diminished and finally, in 1970, disappeared. The point of this is that the two National Endowments, free of any educational research and development obligations, excluded any systematic commitment to art education in the schools. The Endow- ment for the Humanities stresses post- secondary curricula in its education division, while the Endowment for the Arts targets its resources on the performing arts, art practice outside of the schools, and support for artists who "visit" and work in the schools for limited periods of time.

With certain exceptions, the federal commitment to art education has fallen between two chairs. The Office of Education came to assume that the arts were now the business of the En- dowments, while the Endowments were reluctant to infringe upon the educational territory which properly belonged to the Office of Education.

In 1969, $100 thousand was transferred from the budget of the U.S.O.E. Bureau of Research to the National Endowment for the Arts, with a I ike amount to the Endowment for the Humanities. In 1970, that was increased to $900 thousand per endowment. The purpose was to have those funds more effectively invested in school-based arts and humanities activities. In 1972, the transferred amount was increased to over $1 million peren- dovwment. The Arts Endowment put the funds into a program called "Artists in Schools." This massive program sup- ports, through the administration of the states arts councils, the employment of practicing professionals in all the arts, to spend from a few weeks to an entire school year as artists-in-residence in a school. In 1973, this program was supported at a $2.5 million level, placing hundreds of painters, poets, sculptors, actors, dancers, architects, musicians, and photographers in the nation's schools. Unfortunately, neither isthere available a systematic rationale or pedagogical design for such a massive educational experiment, nor is there any kind of rigorous evaluation other than the collecting of enthusiastic testimonials.

Most recently (1974) the Emergency School Aid Act of the Office of Educa- tion has awarded $1 million to arts activities in a number of states to be applied to education, but the emphasis seems to be upon various forms of arts performances rather than a rigorous and sustained program of aesthetic education. The Title I lesson may not yet have been learned.

17

The National Institute of Education Role

Upon its creation in 1972, the National Institute of Education in- herited the curriculum development programs of the Labs and Centers from the Bureau of Research of the Office of Education. Among these was the Aesthetic Education Program being developed at CEMREL, a regional educational laboratory in St. Louis.

Launched in the spirit of the massive curriculum development projects in the sciences during the 1960's, this new curriculum in aesthetics education is intended for kindergarten through seventh grades, general classroom rather than the once-a-week art specialist activity, and it stresses aesthetic perception in all facets of human experience, especially the arts, rather than only manual dexterity, or crafts-skills, or historical knowledge in any one medium. Committed to the learning-by-doing pedagogy, the developers have borrowed from the educational philosophy of Piaget, the aesthetic education theories of Lowenfeld and Herbert Read, and the ideas of Broudy, Barkan, and others.

Below is a list and description of the various components of that program: 1. Aesthetics in the Physical World:

For kindergarten and the first grade, these packages serve as an introduction to the fundamental elements of perception, such as light, sound, and motion. The developers describe their materials in this series as: "Light, sound, motion, and space are fundamentals that underlie aesthetic phenomena, and each of these is explored in a separate package. Activities in the package encourage students to become involved in such things as creating their own spaces or ex- amining the function of light and vi- sion by experiencing them in playground games. Packages in this group provide an introduction to and a unification of the aesthetic dimension of the arts and the environment."

2. Aesthetics and Art Elements: "Ac- tivities in this group of packagesen- courage students to recognize elements of aesthetic phenomena both in the examples presented and in their daily world. Texture in music, shape in the visual arts, movement in the environment- students using this group of packages learn to identify elements such as these, recognize them as a part of the arts, and relate them to the structure of a work of art."

3. Aesthetics and the Creative Process: "Emphasis in this group of packages is placed on having students take elements of the arts and the environment and creatively transform them into a whole work. All people who create art, no matter

18 Art Education, March 1975

what the arts discipline, go through a similar process of originating an idea and organizing elements into an end productto communicate that idea. Creating a characterization, constructing a dramatic plot, relating sounds and movements, creating word pictures-these are among the activities in which the students make their own structure for the creative process."

4. Aesthetics and the Artist: "Who are the people that make works of art? Why do they do it? Where do they get their ideas? These are the questions explored in this group of packages. Students see how the artist takes an idea, works with arts elements, and organizes them into objects and performances. The student also creates his own art works doing activities which are analogous to the process the artist uses."

5. Aesthetics and the Culture: "These materials have the students explore the relationships between aesthetics and culture. Each package provides a unique point of view which will increase the student's understanding of the aesthetic elements utilized by various cultures. Through a series of activities, students will be encouraged to form ideas on the human creative expressions; on how those expressions are generated by individuals and groups and shaped by their interac- tion with the culture; and on how aesthetic values and forms are similar or different in various cultures for a variety of reasons."

6. Aesthetics and the Environment: "Aesthetics play a major role in the affective quality of our environment. To come to this understanding students see the effects of technology on the surroundings; examine personal and public spaces of today; imagine future en- vironments; and consider the in- terrelatedness of functional and aesthetic concerns."

In addition to these curriculum packages, CEMREL is developing both curricula for pre- and in-service teacher training, as well as a series of sites- teacher centers, or learning centers which serve as foci for aesthetic education training for teachers, information and instructional resources that are themselves examples of an aesthetic environment. The intent is to create not only content packages, but to assure their effective utilization within the general classroom setting.

Also within the domain of elementary school curriculum development, the Southwest Regional Education Laboratory is developing two major curriculum packages, in artand music: 1. The Art Program (SWRL): The

SWRL Art Program is designed to

provide an alternative to the teaching practices common in many elementary classrooms (K through six). The program's curriculum is intended to develop the basic proficiencies of a well-informed layman rather than to enhance the capabilities of a talented minority. The curriculum provides for the acquisition of the basic techniques of the artist, the fundamental skills of the critic, and the elementary knowledge of the art historian.

2. The Music Program (SWRL): The program enables pupils to develop their musical skills and appreciation in a variety of learning situations. Teachers with little or no music experience are able to conduct all program activities.

NIE is also continuing support for a basic research program that was launched originally with funds from the Arts and Humanities Program in 1970. Project Zero, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, focuses upon a rigorous and systematic effort to ascer- tain the nature of the creative art process during the actual making of a work of art, either poem or picture. The effort seeks to yield a knowledge base from which a pedagogical theory can be constructed, predicated upon the premise that creative skills can be taught and can be learned. As the project director, David Perkins describes their activities: " . . .the Project has sought to clarify the skills and abilities, the perceptual and cognitive processes underlying the comprehension and production of art."

David Perkins addresses the problem of education in the arts by dis- tinguishing two modes of instructional "delivery":

On the one hand, the teacher-artist could act as an exemplar and a critic; learning would depend on the student's imitation, and indeed on constructive rebellion. On the other hand, education could be based on an analysis of the processes and component skills underlying effective production of art.' Perkins suggests that the two modes

can be complementary. Education in the arts has been and is still in the grips of the modelling method of instruction, dominated by production types of activities. This is the case in the visual arts (every school's walls are papered with collages, crayon drawings, and what are called, euphemistically, "construc- tions") and in music, with its emphasis upon instrumental performance. What Perkins seeks to bring more emphatically into the classroom is the result of close study of the process of creativity so that instruction can be more purposeful, with a much more clear sense of desirable outcomes than now are available.

NIE has committed itself to support a relatively comprehensive program in

arts and aesthetic education. Basic research is being supported at Indiana University ($10,000) and Harvard Uni- versity ($200,000). Curriculum development is being conducted with NIE support at two regional laborator- ies (SWRL and CEMREL) for well over one million dollars per year. CEMREL is conducting massive pre-service and in-service training programs in aesthetic education for teachers. Many of CEMREL's packages are being published and distributed by Viking Press. The Career Education Division of NIE has supported research and curriculum development in the arts as one of a number of careers through a consortium of Ohio State University and local school systems (over $500,- 000).

Why the Arts are Still Not the "Real" Business of the Schools

Junius Eddy, in his Rockefeller Report, cites three reasons for the lack of impact of the arts upon education: 1. Insufficient teacher preparation at

the pre-service stage. 2. Insufficient familiarization of school

administrators with the breadth and range of aesthetic education, and what it could contribute to the success of the general education curriculum.

3. Insufficient support of the vast variety of arts organizations outside of the schools which, with direction, could provide the necessary framework for both direct educational activities in the schools as well as the support from the larger community necessary for the success of any educational program in the schools. Strengthening these three factors, contends Eddy,would contribute significantly to the growth and effectiveness of art education and aesthetic education in the schools.

There are, however, more fundamental reasons for the peripheral place of the arts in the schools. In Crisis in the Classroom, Charles Silberman argues that: "It is not possible to spend any prolonged period visiting public school classrooms without being appalled by the mutilation visible everywhere- mutilation of spontaneity, of joy in learning, of pleasure in creating, of sense of self . . ." These are qualities essential to and inherent in the aesthetic education experience when well taught. Silberman goes on to point out, with irony, that the schools do, in fact, conduct a massive aesthetic education program for all students. The schools, "... teach them that interest in the arts is effeminate or effete, that study of the arts is a frill, and that music, art, beauty and sensitivity bear no relation to any other aspect of the curricula or of life."

In short, the problem is two-fold; that

is, intrinsic as well as extrinsic. Extrin- sically, the arts and aesthetic experience are devalued in a culture that is vitalized by materialistic-economic, technocratic, and bureaucratic values. Intrinsically, art education lacks a comprehensive knowledge and theory base, a generally acceptable pedagogy, and suffers from vague, confused, and unclear goals.

The Argument for Aesthetic and Arts Education

John Dewey explained the need for the arts, and therefore the need for education in the arts, when he said:

If all meanings could be adequately expressed by words, the arts of painting and music would not exist. There are values and meanings that can be expressed only by immediate- ly visible and audible qualities, and to ask what they mean in the sense of something that can be put into words is to deny their distinctive existence. On the level of content, then, the

dominant curriculum of the schools, specializing as it does in certain cognitive skills such as print decoding, number manipulation, and mnemonic skills, neglects othersubstantive areas, assuming them to be either available elsewhere, or to be trivial and irrelevant to the needs of adult society. Content areas lumped together under the rubric of "affective" or value education are grossly neglected. The social/interper- sonal as well as the introspective, the moral/ethical and the aesthetic-all value-laden-enjoy attention only in the speeches of school super- intendents. When they do exist in the school curriculum, they are regarded as daring, innovative, and ex- perimental, the first to feel the knife during budget cuts.

The late psychologist Abraham Maslow gave much attention to the arts in education. He stated, at a conference on the arts in education:

Education is learning to grow, learning what to grow toward, learning what is good and bad, learning what to choose and what not to choose. In this...intrinsic education, I think that the arts are so close to our biological and physiological core ... that we must cease to think of them as a luxury. They must become basic experiences in education. In- trinsic education may have art education, music education, and dance education at its core. Such experience could very well serve as the model, the means by which we could rescue the rest of the school curriculum from the value-free, value-neutral meaninglessness into which it has fallen. The developmental theorists have

contended for some years that the natural rate of development and limits of mental and emotional growth can be facilitated and raised by educational

intervention. Thus, Dewey spoke of character development, Piaget of cognitive development, and Kohlberg of moral development. Another component of human growth is, of course, aesthetic development. While we may relegate the aesthetic valuations in our lives to a peripheral role, we do in fact constantly make aesthetic judgments, just as we constantly make moral judgments. These judgments, just like our cognitive judgments, may be deficient due to lack of appropriate stimulation. Stated as an analogy, teaching only selected cognitive skills in the schools is like exercising only one arm, but not the other, or the rest of the body. The argument that one arm is better than none is logically fallacious.

The Need for Research and Development

The number of problems besetting those wishing to implement effective aesthetic education experiences in the public schools is nearly limitless. From basic research, theory, and knowledge building on the one hand, to implemen- tation and evaluation of on-going activities on the other hand, every step is a pioneering one. There does not yet exist a theory of learning and development in the aesthetic domain parallel- ing Piaget's intellectual development theories.

We do not understand creativity ex- cept insofar as we equate it with problem-solving. We do not have a viable theory of instruction in arts and aesthetics education. We know very little about evaluation and measurement in the affective area generally, and in the arts, specifically. The CEMREL curriculum development project is plowing new fields. Curriculum in the arts is in a primeval stage. Not only is there a very "thin" rationale available in the literature for aesthetic education, but even the arts individually lack of instruction, teacher training, and fitting into the schools' agenda. A major por- tion of the funding from government and foundation goes to support either an individual performer or a professional group. From either the individual or the group, education is assumed to take place when they enter the school and involve the students in some fashion. So far, there is little information about the nature of the effectiveness of this practice.

There is no clear conception about the relative value and appropriate emphasis upon individual craftsmanship/performance in the arts; knowledge acquisition, such as in an art history, aesthetics, or musicology course; appreciation/criticism and judgment development; or, as is the case with the CEMREL aesthetic education curriculum, an attempt to blend all three. Nor is there sufficient comprehension about the integration of the arts and instruction thereof, as

19

distinct from the concentrated effort in a single medium, such as the visual arts.

We do not know the most efficient way to allocate and utilize the regular classroom teacher in the elementary school to teach aesthetic education. We do not know what the best aesthetic education teachers do to improve the aesthetic perception and creative competencies of their students. We do not know how to train teachers to be effective practitioners in these best practices demonstrated by the most effective teachers.

E. Paul Torrance is one of the leading educational scholars whose work on creativity (the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, 1966) has, in the past five or six years, led him to study the characteristics of gifted children outside of middle-class, dominant culture populations; that is, among disadvantaged, minority, and ethnically different children. His search led him to believe that our definition of the talented and gifted was far too narrow. His thesis was," ... that we should no longer insist on identifying and cultivating only those kinds of talent that the dominant affluent culture values. I urged that we also look for and cultivate the kinds of talent that are valued in the various disadvantaged subcultures of our country." (Teacher Record, May, 1974) He goes on to say that,

... I have concentrated ... on the identification, recognition, and rein- forcement of what I have called the creative positives of disadvantaged children. I have demonstrated repeatedly that these creative positives can be observed without the use of tests by engaging children in challenging activities in science, creative writing, visual arts, music, dance and creative movement, dramatics, psychology, and the like. Furthermore, these positives can be observed as frequently or more frequently among disadvantaged children as among morp affluent ones. He states that the gifted and talented

among those not from the dominant, white, middle-class culture are, ". .. more likely to become outstand- ing in art, literature, drama, music, dance, athletics and the like, rather than in law, science, medicine, and engineering." On the basis of his research, Torrance concludes that certain characteristics for successful educational intervention with the disadvantaged and culturally diverse are essential and that these include: "... the use of the arts in supplying motivation and as a medium for developing important skills, concepts, and subject matter competencies." (T.C. Record, May 1974, p. 471 ff.)

Torrance's work seems to confirm the work of Alfredo Castaneda of Stan- 20 Art Education. March 1975

ford who has demonstrated that the culturally diverse, that is, those not from the dominant, white, middle-class culture, perceive and construct their reality in rather different ways. He con- trasts a "field-independent" mode of perception with a "field-dependent" mode. I suppose that this is not unlike an anthropological Gestalt model of "figure-ground." He contends that the ethnically different, such as Mexican- Americans or inner city Blacks, perceive their world in non-discrete, non-linear, non-abstractive ways. Rather, their personal paradigm is in- tegral pictographic, dramatic, humane, personalized, context-dependent, and highly charged with emotion and fan- tasy. In other words, they emphasize the right hemisphere of the brain rather than the left, and therefore artistic/in- tuitive modes of conceiving the world are more familiar and useful than Western scientific/rationalistic.

While it is possible to overstate this dichotomy, nonetheless both Torrance and Castaneda make telling arguments for a far more extensive research and development program through the vehicle of the arts and aesthetic perception in an educational context.

We can reiterate the need for research and development by citing the following major categories as they might apply to education in the arts and aesthetic education: 1. Learning processes: How does the

individual learn aesthetic perception? How does one learn to create, to intuit, and to imagine? How does one measure such learning?

2. Content and Curriculum: What is the most appropriate content for education in the arts and for aesthetic education? How does one distinguish among various student groups, considering age, socio- economic, and ethnic/cultural variables?

How much content should be aimed at the "head" and how much at the "hands"? Should all the arts constitute the curriculum including manipulative skills in all the arts, or can the student be expected to generalize from the intimate work- ing experience in only one medium? Should interdisciplinary ap- proaches with the concomitant risk of superficiality replace the individual art disciplines, with their parochial limitations? Should aesthetic education be equal to, in emphasis and importance, mathematical/logical thinking and verbal-arts training? Should arts and aesthetics content be pre- packaged, as are other curricula in

3. Teacher training: Is good taste, a sense of beauty, sensitivity, and connoisseurship learnable, or is it an inborn trait? If it is learnable, is it teachable? If teachable, can teachers be taught to teach it? If it is learnable, and teachable, and if teachers can be taught to teach it, then how does one motivate and prepare teachers to teach such sub- jective and expressive disciplines? What is effective teaching of creativity and aesthetic perception? Does one have to have it to teach it?

Finally, and most practically, how does aesthetic education penetrate the school? How will it be financed in the face of declining school populations, increased vocationalism, and shrinking budgets? What is the administrator's role? It is not that research must be expected to generate definitive answers to these questions. Rather, the debates, dis- agreements, and premises for educational practice ought simply to be much better informed than they are now. The language of theory in the arts and aesthetic education ought to become more precise, clear, and meaningful. In order to pursue such research and development, it is necessary to create information networks to create locales and pools of intense commitment and effort, and to seek out schools and school systems where the "ground is already fertile."

The final word belongs, appropriate- ly, to the President: Need and opportunity combine... to present the federal government with an obligation to help broaden the base of our cultural legacy-not to make it fit some common denominator of official sanction, but rather to make its diversity and in- sight more readily accessible to millions of people everywhere .. .

Martin Engel is with the Office of Research, National Institute of Educa- tion, Washington, D.C.

REFERENCE 'David Perkins, "Probing Artistic

Success," Journal of Aesthetic Educa- tion, July 1974, Vol. 8, No. 4, p. 54.

the sciences, reading, and mathematics, or is that a contradic- tion in terms? How do we measure the effectiveness of curriculum in aesthetic education apart from its delivery?

Article Contentsp.15p.16p.17p.18p.19p.20

Issue Table of ContentsArt Education, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Mar., 1975), pp. 1-40Front Matter [pp.1-9]A Case for Art Education [pp.2-7]Statistical Antics [pp.10-14]Aesthetic Education: The State of the Art [pp.15-20]Women as Art Students, Teachers, and Artists [pp.21-26]Returning the Art to Art Education [pp.28-33]Political Action for Art Education [pp.34-35]Book Reviewsuntitled [pp.36-37]untitled [p.38]

Back Matter [pp.27-40]

Documents

Aesthetic Education the State of the Art