National Art Education Association
Reflections on Learning to Look and Looking at LearningAuthor(s): Mary Ann StankiewiczSource: Art Education, Vol. 49, No. 1, Learning to Look/Looking at Learning (Jan., 1996), pp.4-5Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193575 .
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A S
REFLECTIONS ON
AND
he first half of the theme for this issue rowed from Joshua C. Taylor's Leamin I was a junior in high school and had b Saturday classes at the School of the ?
Art in Boston when I bought my first copy of this t school art courses, studio-based like most secone the early 1960s, helped me feel at ease in the drav making studios of the Museum School, but I was in the museum's galleries. Taylor's slim book seel to understanding what it was I saw when I looked Although I have forgotten the specific studio exer( Museum School, I can still visualize Sargent's 18E of the Daughters of Edward Darley Boit and Monet's ,
haystacks and the facade Cathedral. I can r
dering whl artteac
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has been bor- more time help in g us learn the ways to look at art described by
has been bor- more time helping us learn the ways to look at art described by g toLook(1981). Taylor. 'een attending Students learn in different ways and through varied means. I Museum of Fine visualize words in order to spell them; my ten-year-old daughter )ook. My high seems to be an aural learner who tape records herself to practice dary art courses in spelling. I have long valued reading and writing as means to learn- ving and print- ing, a characteristic that may be useful in my new position as Editor less comfortable of this journal. Just as learning styles and resources for fostering med to offer a key learning take many forms, so does art education. In the three at works of art. decades since I graduated from high school, art education has cises we did at the grown and changed. Art educators today balance art-making expe- 32 group portrait riences with opportunities for responding to works made by others, series of for learning how to examine works of art in historical, cultural, criti- 3 of Rouen cal, and aesthetic contexts. 'emember won- Readers may notice themes from issues prepared by the previ- y my high school ous editor, Ron MacGregor, integrated in these articles. This conti- cher did not spend nuity is partly a result of the overlap between outgoing and
incoming editors, and partly due to the oversight of dedicated reviewers. However, I like to think that it also indicates continuing
:;: ̂ professional reflection and dialogue on the many forms of late ',:. twentieth century art education. Critical reflection, artful conversa-
~ tions, context, content and method in art teaching, cultural diversi- ty, international art education, assessment, and technology have been and are likely to continue to be vital issues for our field. Ron's openness to varied points of view has created a journal that reflects the dynamic and multifaceted nature of art education today. Ron has been very supportive during the transition between his editor- ship and mine. I thank him for that support and assure you that I will work to maintain the journal's responsiveness to the variety of
. ̂ . ' issues that concern art educators.
-:4| t Learning to look at art concerns both museum and school art educators.The first two articles in this issueer werritten by muse- um educators, but will be useful to art educators working in other
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Learning contexts. Pat Villeneuve describes her discovery of a problematic situation, lack of guidance for developing museum activity sheets, and shares her reflective analysis of existing examples. Her guide- lines for preparing youth activity sheets may be used by museum or classroom art educators who want to help their students learn to look at works of art. Silja-Riitta Durant describes how one British museum presents its collections of seventeenth and eighteenth century art to late twentieth century students from ethnically mixed and economically deprived areas of London. Like Villeneuve, Durant suggests general lessons for all art educators from her reflective analysis of a specific situation. Although the Instructional Resources are not usually coordinated with the theme of an issue, this month the resources, by Barbara Falletta, focus on images of women by nineteenth-century American sculptors and continue the theme of learning to look at art.
The second half of the theme, Looking at Learning, is implied in the articles by Villeneuve and Durant, but specifically addressed by the last three articles in this issue. Judith Simpson introduces con- structivism, a theoretical approach to learning that focuses on how the learner makes meaning, solves problems, and builds experi- ences into a world view. Jean Ellen Jones and Melanie Davenport also focus on the learner's role in managing learning, comparing self-regulation in Japanese art education with portfolio assessment in American education and art education. Both articles find reso- nances between contemporary trends and the work of John Dewey whose influence on American art education has long been recog- nized. InThe SchoolandSociety, Dewey wrote: "A person who has gained the power of reflective attention, the power to hold prob- lems, questions before the mind, is... educated" (1915, p. 149). Reflection is necessary to constructing knowledge in any context.
The third article to look at learning also examines portfolio assessment, but from a more critical perspective. Michael Emme argues that two-dimensional portfolios with linear organization are
*ooe o lo l o??
based on models of perception and cognn grounded in the belief
based on models of perception and gnition grounded in the belief that knowledge is simply the transmission of facts. As our world changes from one in which photography was a dominant metaphor for vision to a postmodern world seen through the multimedia applications of computers, Emme urges us to critically examine means for learning. Like the other authors in this issue, he affirms the importance of Dewey's notion of reflective attention.
The "reflective practitioners" (Schon, 1983) whose articles make up this issue have identified problematic situations in daily practice. They have defined those uncertain situations so that we can see them as professional problems within the context of art education. Their process of inquiry may take many forms, but the reflective attention that each author has brought to bear on the questions they ask can help us learn to look at art education from new perspectives.
Mary Ann Stankiewicz Editor
REFERENCES Dewey, J. (1915). The school and society (rev. ed.). Chicago: University
of Chicago Press. Schon, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in
action. New York: Basic Books. Taylor, J. C. (1981). Learning to look (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
JANUARY 1996 / ART EDUCATION
e*~-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~e~ee -~~~ ---~--------~~-----~~~~-~~~~-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~e~~~~ee~~ Joel,oeseasooe
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