There's a Better Way

National Art Education Association

There's a Better WayAuthor(s): Jerry HancockSource: Art Education, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Apr., 1971), pp. 6-9Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3191620 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 23:01

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

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.86 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 23:01:02 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=naea

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3191620?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


/

Jerry Hancock

Education, seemingly, is at a crossroad. One segment of society is desirous of teaching learners how to live and enjoy life, while another is pushing learners into becoming a part of the working class while they are still at a developing age. This dichotomy has developed in part because formal education has not kept pace with the rapid progression of society. Education has been little concerned with the hearts and minds of learners. Formalized teaching has been done as a matter of convenience and not conscience. For too long we have been trying to get kids to do things for us (as teachers), to make us feel and look good. We have taught them what we have learned to teach them, not what is relevant and meaningful to each learner today.

As the direction of life becomes increasingly clouded; as man now reaches beyond the moon; as wars, dissension, riots, racial strife, money priorities, pollution, etc., mount at home, students are complaining that their present school system offers little that is relevant for life as they perceive it. This ever increasing problem has brought unrest and concern to an alarming level, causing a widespread feeling that is affecting the lives of people all across the land. Many leaders close their eyes and ears and hope it will go away; some

6

m - look to others tor help; tewer still struggle for the real solution.

In the midst of these growing concerns the question should be asked: "Are we as educators doing the things necessary for this questioning young generation that will lead us to a better way?" To meet student needs, educators must listen to those with whom they have the responsibility of teaching. Teachers must be flexible, inventive, and sensitive as never before to the qualities of learners. They must stop pounding the already bent nail. Competence in gathering information, communication, problem solving, and gaining self-mastery are all relevant goals. The way these are presently taught are irrelevant and cause student concern. In agreement with the goals of American democracy, the better way is an individualized and relevant curriculum. This will place the learner at the center of learning and allow him to touch life at as many points as possible.

Humanistic education is concerned with man's reaction to and relationship with himself, his society, his Deity, his moral and ethical principles, his natural environment, and his technology. It is concerned with improving and enriching life and what life may become. Humanistic educational objectives identify and expand a learner's capabilities, attitudes, and achievements within his potential to use, adapt to, and

change his natural, technological, and social environments. In any democratic society there are certain values and restrictions. This, however, does not justify the imposition of a standardized and unreal school curriculum that is felt to be meaningless by the majority of the students. It is time we get the cyclamates out of our educational system. We must get down to business. Education has been watered down and artificially sweetened for too long.

In contrast to what is presently happening, we must admit that there is a better way. Think about it. Which is better-to sit back and continue in the style of yesterday, or to work to change the style to fit the needs of youth today?

According to Charles Keller, former Williams College History Department chairman, student unrest stems from resentment over society's failure to answer their needs. Dr. Keller lists the following as student's five most basic desires: 1) Desire for time- time to reflect and to think about what they are doing; 2) Release from pressures of grades--busy work, etc; 3) Chance to pursue their own interests; 4) The feeling that what they are studying concerns them and their lives; and 5) Some demonstration of trust and confidence from adults.

The goal of education today is to produce capable, responsible, and happy individuals. The teacher's role



is to foster individualism and scale ot depth and quest according to self-worth by helping each student his maturity and self-responsibility. learn how to learn through a series Pretesting (diagnostic tests) is by of successful experiences. This is done definition a series of teacher- by facilitating involvement, by prescribed and directed activities, permitting inquiry, and by accepting exercises, and interviews that give an mistakes as a normal process in accurate measure of a learner's learning. Failure in solving one ability to think, solve problems, and problem will not necessarily cause make decisions. It is impossible to failure when confronting another. find two learners who learn at the Learning is enjoyable, and searching same speed or on the same level. is exciting. There is often no "right Since learning is a continuous answer". Individualism and self-worth process, pretesting is the only means assume new significance as students of getting acquainted and evaluating discover that learning does not a learner initially. Pretesting can occur with the same intensity or ease measure a learner's accumulation of in any two people. Subject matter is knowledge, technical development, derived from the particular problems emotional stability, inventiveness, and strengths of individual students, interests, direction, responsiveness, and not from a previously planned and readiness. lesson. Not only does pretesting enable a

teacher to discover the many Individualized Curriculum via attributes of each student but it also Pretesting gives a learner a chance to discover

Individualized curriculum is, the teacher. This is important. perhaps, the most basic key in Education is a two-way street tapping the educational potential of demanding trust, respect, concern, learners. Individualized programing and care from all its travelers if is not providing different areas and meaningful goals are to be defined media that a learner may.choose to and a destination arrived at. work in; this is nothing more than Pretesting enables a student to offering alternatives. Structured understand where he is and how to individualized curriculum must come get where he wants to go. It is a about through diagnostic tests that vehicle that can enable a higher uncover areas of interest a learner percentage of students to become may work in successfully and involved in the process of learning. meaningfully. Through diagnostic Learners are able to make choices tests, a learner can be placed on a and solve problems that have vertical scale of difficulty according meaning to them. Pretesting helps to to his quality and on a horizontal break down abnormal restricting

forces, causing a more natural and realistic setting where interaction can exist as a natural process of learning and enabling learners to gain confidence, security, acceptance, and respect. Pretesting provides the teacher and slow student more time to work together and allows the advanced student greater freedom.

Unfortunately, the teacher too often sets himself up as the dictator. What he says is fact and law. Assignments are given in relation to the teacher's background; deadlines are imposed; and evaluations are based on how close the student learns to think and perform as the teacher. The teacher assigns or makes the decisions a student should make-a procedure which is extremely rigid and one-sided. It permits limited individualism because students must fit within the teacher's framework; the teachers have set up the rules and defined the law. They have regimented the curriculum and subject content until it fits no need but their own. No one should be forced to learn a special skill if he doesn't have the interest or ability. Too often teachers teach their specialty as if it applied to everyone. A person's strength is developed from his particular interests and needs. Does he have the right to impose them on others? Working within the student's needs and up-dating the relevancy of the school curriculum carries a much stronger argument.

Learning does not occur until

7



behavior has been affected. To change behavior, subject content must be applicable to the student, but more specifically, internalized through real experiences. Often, the resoonsibility to oneself, and the will to learn, must be taught and internalized before subiect content can be taught. This is the key that is capable of unlocking the door to personal freedom, acceptance, performance, and recognition.

Because learning is an individual matter and occurs, for the most part, unnoticed, it is important that the teacher be involved with the learner during the student's learning experiences instead of after it is all over. Too many teachers throw out material as a farmer sows grain, caring little where it falls and having no way of realizing when and if it has germinated until it sprouts above the ground. With this general seeding approach to learning and with this lack of care, it is little wonder our successes are scattered, our programs are weak, and our evaluations questionable. Learning to care moves one from being self-centered to becoming sensitive to the needs of students and open to the joys and satisfactions of others. Emerson said, "The greatest service any man can give another is to help him help himself". Helping a student discover himself can be one of life's most rewarding experiences.

If the goals of education are to make people alike, to prevent them from being involved, self-directed

learners, then the goals of most schools are neither good nor bad. They are merely apt. In this situation, teachers are oblivious to the very issues and needs that could be the vehicles for helping students eventually overcome unrest and dissatisfaction. Educators, then, must be honestly concerned with the hearts and minds of learners in contrast to classes and subject matter. The students must of necessity work within their own capabilities and should be rewarded accordingly. It is a mistake to expect an equal performance from any two individuals of different backgrounds and abilities. If comparisons are made, one has to fail in relation to the other. Interdisciplinary Learning

Art education is not an entity separate from other educational programs; it must be integrated with and related to all areas of the school. No longer can art be confined to a room behind closed doors. The art teacher is charged with the responsibility of guiding the aesthetic development and creative needs of every student in his school. The school must become the canvas and the learners the painters. The home, the school, and the community are now just corners of a large classroom. Not all students of education are interested in becoming artists, but all learners can learn and appreciate one truth, as a young student put it, "Life is art and art is everything".

In support of this statement and in

line with interrelating art with all subjects of the school curriculum, consider these statements from a Georgia Southern Yearbook as a possible definition for art education in the school curriculum.:

The art of awareness is the art of learning how to awaken to the eternal miracle of life with its endless possibilities. It is searching for beauty everywhere-in a flower, a machine, a sonnet and a symphony.

It is identifying yourself with the hopes, dreams, fears and longings of others.

It is learning to interpret their thoughts, feelings and moods.

It is developing the deep sensitivity through which we may suffer and know tragedy, but through which we also experience the grandeur of life.

It is striving to stretch the range of the eye and ear.

It is taking time to look and listen and comprehend.

Today, man is incredibly precise in his ability to put man on the moon, but his fellowman is all too often terribly imprecise and feelingless in his relationship with others. Because technology has outraced man's social abilities, it is now imperative that the "human element" be put back into education. Art education has the unique ability of being a catalyst to help a learner discover himself, his world, and his relationship to it. Art becomes more than drawing or painting a picture; it becomes a way of life. It breaks through the boundaries of subject-

8



content areas and provides a fresh eye with which to view the world. It permits a change of pace and release from a hurried and tense society. Art is a vehicle that facilitates the realization of individualism, the developing of self, and the improvement of the quality of living. Everything takes on new significance. No person, no pattern is unimportant; no word, no thought is inconsequential. Art bridges the gap between the humanities, the sciences and math, the home arts, and the total educational curriculum. Objectives

Rather than the goals of art education dealing specifically with production and appreciation, a more appropriate goal would be to help each individual survive, achieve satisfaction, and function optimumly in this rapidly changing world. The pursuit of art is an important need not only for the student who is dedicated to a lifelong commitment, but also for each and every learner today. Art education must go beyond the immediacy of daily projects to become a way of life. Some objectives to consider are the following:

A. To individualize instruction and institute curriculum changes designed to make art experiences real and meaningful:

1. Pretest the learner through a series of teacher-directed exercises that measure dexterity, perception, knowledge, etc., to give him confidence toward competence.

2. Permit inquiry into the real aspects of living-not the fictionalized, unreal versions of textbook learning. (To permit students on-the-job experience when appropriate, and the opportunity to converse with people from various segments of society, and to work with teachers in designing their curriculum.)

3. Encourage depth study in various art media (painting, drawing, printing, sculpture, ceramics, photography, music, writing, commercial lettering, illustration, and combinations of these and others according to individual needs.)

4. Develop remedial and advanced programs that are in agreement with the learner's readiness.

B. To create a learning environment by breaking down the physical and attitudinal walls of traditionalism:

1. Create a studio environment that reflects the nature of art and that is esthetically pleasing.

2. Create a studio environment that permits freedom and mistakes to take place, and that does not judge, degrade, or jeopardize a learner when he tries.

3. Permit experimentation and invention in problem solving.

4. Decompartmentalize art and show its interrelatedness to all learning areas of the school.

5. Work with instructional teams of various disciplines to stimulate, and add depth and breadth to the art of living.

6. Provide every student of the school the opportunity to produce, discuss, and/or appreciate art through open-studios and exhibits within the school.

7. Evaluate the learner in the process of learning-not the end product.

8. Create a non-graded program in which both art and non-art students can interact, stimulate, and learn from one another.

9. Cause inquisitiveness for the discovery of new truths and for the examining of existing truths.

10. Eliminate all abnormal and unnecessary restricting forces (regarding coercion, rote-learning, tardiness, etc.) that dehumanize and deflate motivation.

11. Allow a student to work at his own speed within a personalized structure toward reachable goals.

12. Search for and find something of value in every learner. Conclusion

An art education program that is relevant to the needs and values of today will provide the learner with the freedom to become a whole person who will be a credit and asset to society and himself. Finally, if our goal is to expect nothing more than the mere parroting of facts and copying of techniques, then our system is neither good nor bad; but if it is to prepare students for life, then THERE IS A BETTER WAY.

Jerry Hancock is art instructor, Roy High School, Roy, Utah.

9



Documents

There's a Better Way