National Art Education Association

Transition in Art Education: Changing Conceptions of Curriculum Content and Teaching

Author(s): Manuel Barkan
Source: Art Education, Vol. 15, No. 7 (Oct., 1962), pp. 12-18+27-28
Published by: National Art Education Association
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MANUEL BARKAN

IN
ART
TRANSITION

Changing

Conceptions of
Content

Our own field of art education-and indeed all of

education-is now well beyond the threshold of a
period of acceleratedtransition and significant change.
Favored ideas and goals, which for some time have
been assumed to be the proper bases for wise curriculum content and sound teaching practice, are now
being held up to question. Accepted assumptionsabout
the proper characteristics and dimensions of both art
and education are now being viewed with increasing
skepticism and doubt. Many of our established
assumptions and goals are beginning to be challenged
because of misgivings, debated because of changes in
opinion, and opposed because of dissent.
If I were inclined to make prophetic judgments,
and if I were a betting man, I would here and now
predict that the next decade will bring some truly
fundamental changes in the theory and practice of art
education, changes which will be comparable only to
those overwhelming transformations that took place
within our profession during the late nineteen twenties
and early thirties.
The clues which lead me to make such a claim lie
in the content and character of the current debate
about professional issues in art education. And, as I
go on to point to these clues, let me urge you not to
overlook for a moment the significance of the theme
selected for this conference by the officers of the
Western Arts Association: "Transition in Art Education." It is very different from the themes of many an
earlier conference. Clearly it does not carry any of
the meaning of a holding operation. Rather, it asserts
that changes are in the offing, and ideas are on the
move.
When basic ideas are in the process of transformation, there is and must be an inevitable grinding of
opinions one upon the other. There must be inevitable
controversy and debate, because old ideas, by their
Manuel Barkan is Professor, Art Education,
School of Fine and Applied Arts, The Ohio State
University
*Prepared for delivery at the Western Arts Association
Conference, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 17, 1962.

EDUCATION
Curriculum
and

Teaching

very nature, cannot and do not change unless and until

they are challenged by new ones. Such a debate, I
believe, is now in the making within the profession of
art education.
To exemplify the nature of the current debate, I
want to examine three clusters of assumptions which
have been among the strongest guidelines in determining the nature of curriculum content and teaching
procedures in art education. All of them are very
popular in our field, but they are now beginning to be
viewed with increasing misgivings and doubt: One
pertains to conceptions about how a person to be
educated in art should be treated-whether as a
"whole" person or as an artist; a second is concerned
with the problem of criteria for understanding and
judging works of art; and a third cluster of assumptions deals with a crucial aspect of any teaching
program which seeks to encourage individual expressiveness, so much admired and aspired to by members
of the art education profession. Here I am referring
specifically to prevailing conceptions about experiences
with art media in the teaching of art. I shall discuss
in some detail the broad background and dimensions
of the present day controversies about these assumptions in order to show wherein the field of art
education, as we know it, is now in transition.
In order to grasp the significance of the transformation of ideas now emerging, it is necessary to
recapitulate some of the history of ideas in our field.
An historical perspective is always necessary, because
awarenessof when and why many current and prevailing ideas came into being sharpens our sensitivity to
the current signs and signals of changes which are now
in process. I am here simply repeating the eternal
verity that history is not only interesting and useful,
but it is absolutely essential. Only by backing away to
take a somewhat longer look than is customary in
our day-to-day activities, can one hope to better
distinguish some of the characteristics of the whole
forest from the qualities of the many individual trees.
Let me further emphasize the importance of an historical perspective if we are to control the current transformation of ideas toward positive directions. The
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philosopher George Santayana once wrote: "Those

who ignore history are condemmedto repeat it." With
this admonition, I shall begin my analysis of changing
conceptions of curriculum content and teaching in art
education with a discussion of the first cluster of
assumptions which I have just mentioned, the one
pertaining to the way people ought to be treated so
that they can become educated in art.
About twenty five or thirty years ago there was a
very powerful, and I think legitimate reaction
against the then prevailing academic strictures for
the teaching of art. This reaction, along with other
developments, led directly to our current conceptions about how a person ought to be treated if he
is to become educated in art. Prevailing content and
procedures which were then used in the teaching of
art were rejected: Art was no longer to be taught
through a series of tight exercises beginning with
light and dark or rather shade and shadow drawings of cones and spheres on 8" x 10" manila paper
using hard pencils. This was no longer to be followed, at a more advanced stage, with drawings from
plaster casts of hands, feet, and heads. The accompaniment of careful study of the color wheel was
also rejected, as was the required thorough acquaintance with a set of absolute and clearly formulated
but static design principles.
The rejection of such teaching was a reaction
against curriculum content and teaching procedures
which were being recognized as leading to rigidity
and the suppression of individuality. Furthermore,
this reaction gave rise to the visionary, highly creative, and very serious formulation of a new and now
familiar set of ideas and goals which are today
peppered throughout almost all of the current literature on art education: art is free expression; everyone can learn to express; spontaneity is the key;
art experiences are developmentally valuable; and
finally, that the educational job is to teach the whole
child rather than to try to make an artist out of him.
Though these leading ideas first emerged in the
late nineteen twenties and early middle thirties, it
took almost two decades until they became sufficiently
widespread for the National Art Education Association to issue a policy statement in 1949 which read
in part: "As an art teacher I believe that ...
Art
experiences are essential to the fullest development
of all people at all levels of growth . . . Art is especially well suited to such growth because it: encourages freedom of expression . . . Art classes
should be taught with full recognition that . . . art
is less a body of subject matter than a developmental
activity."1

Now, it is precisely this same set of beliefs, or

perhaps what has become of them, which is today

being challenged. These beliefs are being reopened

for a new level of examination, and they are hence
being brought to a new level of questioning and
doubt. Though these beliefs have placed an invaluable and indelible imprint on the development of art
education during the past two decades, I would contend that they have also become the source of the
popular and erroneous assumption among many if
not most art teachers, and among educators in
general too, that the job in our schools is to educate
people not artists. I would also contend that in trying to bring art education to all people, well meaning but overzealous art teachers have themselves made
learning in art appear to be all too simple, all too
easy, and all too much fun. Is it really any wonder
that so very many art teachers complain about certain difficulties in their work, the fact that their
sincere and energetic efforts are not being taken too
seriously? Too many people perceive the study of
art as child's play, hardly worthy of the time it takes.
Far too many students, guidance officers, school administrators, and parents perceive art courses as
places where easy credits are earned.
In pointing to such conditions which prevail this
very day in most of our school systems, and indeed
even in many of our universities, I am in no way
overlooking the negative influences and the materialistic pressures of an American middle-class society
which values the practical and the expedient. I am
simply saying that the important and moving ideas
in art education of the last generation have made
their contribution, but they have now lost their cutting edge. In fact, these once creative ideas are now
playing into the trap of these anti-humanistic, antiaesthetic forces within the general community, within
our schools, and within the culture at large. This is
precisely why these same ideas, assumptions, and their
consequences, are now beginning to be questioned
both from within and from without the profession
of art education.
The reaction against this cluster of favored assumptions about how a person to be educated in art ought
to be treated has been gaining some momentum during the past two or three years. It is typified by
many of the recent art education conference themes
which have emphasized the return of art to art education; it is also evident both in the popular slogans
and in the serious speculations among an increasing
group of art teachers that the people who teach art
should also be artists in their own right. The most
eloquent statement I know about, however, regarding this general problem stems from the Woods Hole
Conference of 1959, which curiously enough was
primarily concerned with improvement in the teaching of science, not art. Jerome S. Bruner, the Har-

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vard psychologist reported from that conference as

follows: "The dominant view among men . . . engaged in preparing and teaching new curricula . . .
lies in giving students an understandingof the fundamental structure of whatever subjects we choose to
teach."2 (Emphasis added.) In making this statement,
Bruner does not deny any developmentalvalues which
can be derived from engagement in the study of a
subject. All he is saying is that the key educational
task is to give students an understandingof the fundamental structure of any subject we see fit to teach.
When applied to the teaching of art, this would mean
that there is a subject matter of the field of art, and
it is important to teach it.
Having established his point about the significance
of teaching the fundamental structure of any subject
worth teaching, Professor Bruner turns his attention
to the kind of behavior a person must learn, if he
is to achieve understanding from the subject he is
studying. ". .. intellectual activity anywhere is the
same, whether at the frontier of knowledge or in a
third-grade classroom. What a scientist does at his
desk or in his laboratory, what a literary critic does
in reading a poem, are of the same order as what
anybody else does when he is engaged in like activities-if he is to achieve understanding. The difference is in degree not in kind."3
Taking into account the full meaning of Professor Bruner's statement, I don't think that I do him
any injustice by saying that artistic activity anywhere is the same, whether at the frontier of art or in
a third-grade classroom. What an artist does in his
studio is of the same order as what anybody else
does when he is engaged in like activities-if he is
to achieve understanding. The difference is in degree
not in kind.
And now, if that statement were not yet strong
enough to challenge some of our current and popular beliefs about how teachers should treat students,
Professor Bruner, with attention to the teaching of
science, provides, this powerful assertion, "The schoolboy learning physics is a physicist, and it is easier
for him to learn physics behaving like a physicist
than doing something else."4 If Bruner would have
been thinking about the teaching of art, I have no
doubt that he would have written: The schoolboy
learning art is an artist, and it is easier for him to
learn art behaving like an artist than doing something else.
This, I suggest, is a fresh and challenging conception of what we ought to be doing in the teaching
of art. It is by no means a matter of simple repetition
of history. Far from it, because this new idea differs
as much from our current beliefs about how we
ought to educate children, as our current beliefs dif-

fer from the academic strictures which preceded them.

And certainly, this new idea does not imply the
slightest suggestion of academic rigidity. It simply
asserts that to learn through art one must act like
an artist.
Thus, our favored assumptions about how to treat
people in the process of being educated in art are
strongly contested. They are placed in serious doubt.
Art education in transition must grapple with this
issue in order to resolve it.
The second cluster of assumptions is about works
of art and criteria for understanding and judging
them. It too has a relevant sequence of historical
antecedents,just as the first group of assumptions did.
Some thirty years ago, the teaching of art appreciation was an accepted part of the content of any art
program which was considered to be well developed.
As taught in the public schools at that time, art appreciation consisted of the study of tiny prints, about
the size of a playing card, of well known paintings.
These were carefully selected from the Renaissance,
and from the time up until the middle of the nineteenth century. On one side of these cards, there was
a poor quality reproduction which could serve no
other purpose than as identification of the subject
matter depicted in the painting; the other side carried some brief and superficial factual data about the
artist, where and when he lived and worked. Students were taught to examine these cards in order to
be able to identify the subjects in the paintings in
relation to their titles; the names of the artists and
their birth dates and dates of death; all of which
they were expected to memorize for recitation and
examination. The paintings selected for such study
were of a specific character. They fit a particular
criterion. In 1931, The Course of Study in Art for
Elementary Schools, published by the Board of Education of the City of New York declared as its purpose: the "conservation . .. of acceptable ideals and
canons of beauty against attempts to debase artistic
taste and judgment."5This was the criterion used in
the selection of works of art for study in art appreciation.
Now, I know that I need not remind you that by
1931 there was already a modest but substantial audience for paintings from Paris. The fifty seventh
street galleries in New York at that time had been
showing paintings by Manet and Corot; the leading
modern galleries were showing works by the Impressionists; and, in November of 1929 the Museum of
Modern Art had already presented its opening exhibition with a showing of works by Cezanne,
Gaugin, Seurat and Van Gogh. In January of 1930,
in fact, the Museum of Modern Art presented its
second exhibition entitled "Painting in Paris." InART EDUCATION

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cluded were the avant-garde of the day, at least as

far as the United States was concerned: Braque,
Chagall, Chirico, Leger, Matisse, Miro, and Picasso.
The ferment and vitality from the art center of
Paris had crossed the Atlantic through the Armory
Show of 1913. By 1929, this ferment and vitality
were clearly well established, at least in New York
City. It is, therefore, no wonder that inquiring, perceptive, and progressive art teachers rejected the 1931
dictum of the New York City Board of Education,
and refused to preserve: "the canons of beauty against
attempts to debase artistic taste and judgment." Artistic taste, at that time, was in flux; and adventurous
art teachers sensed the compelling nature of these new
artistic forms which they were seeing. Though they
knew that the old canons of beauty could no longer
serve as criteria for judgment, more adequate criteria
had not yet been formulated. Their reactions, therefore, came in the form of a rejection of all academic
criteria.
There were other powerful developments worth recalling during these same years and just prior to
them: William James and John Dewey had already
made their impact on educational theory; the stories
about Montessori and Cizek had already been imported to the United States; the famous Francis
Parker School was conducting educational experimentation; Hughes Mearns had already published his
signal work Creative Power: The Education of Youth
in the Creative Arts"; and the progressive education
and the child study movements were embracing the
arts as the fertile and promising avenues for creative
development. The child was perceived as the center of
the educational enterprise with feelings, needs, and
with developmental capabilities which were not to be
violated. The ideas developing in those years were
perhaps most aptly embodied in the very title of Van
Deering Perrine's charming little book Let The Child
Draw.' Don't teach him; don't show him; just let the
child draw.
The educational goals thus incorporated into the
teaching of art became the preservation of youthful
spontaneity, the attention to developmentaltendencies,
and the absolute protection of children from adult
standards. When these goals were coupled with the
utter breakdown of academic criteria for the judgement of works of art, one of the outstanding results
was the development of classroom practices which
literally shielded children from looking at, enjoying,
and studying the works of great artists. The study
of art appreciation virtually disappeared from most
schools, and many art teachers even argued strongly
that looking at works of art was detrimental for children. It inhibited them from being creative, because
they would surely copy what they saw rather than

exploring, experimenting, and creating on their own.

One key piece of evidence about this condition is the
present poverty or even general absence in most
schools of really good reproductions of art, let alone
some originals of works by professional artists. In
fact, most art teachers today might well ask themselves: what percentage of their annual budgets do
they spend on fine reproductions? And indeed, they
might also ask: what are their value judgments and
decisions when the chips are down, when it is time
for them to settle on those things they can afford to
order or buy? Do they sacrifice some paint, or paper,
or clay, or some other item of work material; or, do
they let the reproductions go by the board because
they think that they cannot afford them?
There is a growing emphasis among some art
teachers on the importance of sustained and continuous contact with great works of art. But, this is
a rather recent development in contemporary art education theory and practice. It stems from the discovery and the realization that the capacity for sensitive and knowledgable judgement rests in large part
on insights gained through acquaintance with and
careful study of great works of art. Indeed, the
capacity for sensitive judgement comes through having lived with great works. More art teachers are
now becoming less afraid to confront children with
paintings and sculpture by great artists of the past
and the present. The controversy in art education
today on this issue really hinges on the strong contention that learning in art requires careful attention
to qualitative criteria that pertain to works of art.
There is the very strong probability that in the next
several years, we will witness renewed and energetic
attention to the teaching of insightful observation of
works of art. It will not come in the form of the art
appreciation of the past, though there will probably
be some of that. Rather, this renewed energy will be
apparent in the creative development of teaching
materials and courses in art history and criticism.
These materials and courses will be based upon the
rich research by such men as Etienne Gilson, Rene
Huyghe and E. H. Gombrich. Such materials will be
developed for use at all levels of instruction. Such
courses will be developed in and for our secondary
schools to challenge the mature needs and desires
of young people, in order for them to better understand themselves through intimate study of great
works of art. The efforts and accomplishmentsin the
handful of school systems which have already instituted such experimental coursess will stimulate the
transformation of ideas already in process. These developments will hasten the controversy and the debate on this issue.
If there is any art teacher who still doubts that

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our ideas, our goals, and our assumptions are in

transition about confronting children with the works
by professional artists in order for them to learn
how to discover what is meaningful in the works,
I would suggest a close examination of a popular
magazine such as School Arts. Here is another place
where one can find useful bits of evidence about
current history which indicate changing emphases
in the teaching of art.
School Arts is a good quality popular magazine,
and though it exercises some leadership in disseminating ideas, it is not the kind of a journal
which generates new ideas. It reflects sound educational ideas, but it does not carve out new directions.
And, it is precisely because of this special nature
and purpose of School Arts that it can serve as a
useful barometer to gauge what is happening in our
field. If you would examine your file of back issues,
you will discover an important shift in editorial
policy. Beginning for the first time with the April
1957 issue, School Arts has been publishing a regular feature entitled "UnderstandingArt."
Now, why would a magazine such as School Arts
make such a change in editorial policy? In view of
the strong assumptions and beliefs among many
people in art education that "art is less a body of
subject matter than a developmental activity," why
would School Arts introduce a regular feature series
on the works of artists who "have influenced art history?" In view of one of the most favored assumptions in art education about the detrimental nature
and danger of imposing adult standards on children,
why would School Arts begin to feature a series of
articles to discuss and analyze the works by professional artists with emphasis on the criteria appropriate
for judging them? When such materials are suddenly
introduced and then regularly presented in a popular
magazine, it is a certain sign that ideas about and
attitudes toward the subject are already changing.
Clearly, this is evidence of the history of art education in the making. Our assumptions about children, works of art, and criteria for judging works
of art are all being challenged and changed before
our very eyes. These changes are signs of the transition in and transjormation of curriculum content
and teaching in present day art education.
My third cluster of assumptions pertains to prevailing conceptions within our profession about experience with art media in the teaching of art. In
many respects, the effects of this group of assumptions
are the ones which are most directly apparent in the
day to day teaching of art now going on in the public schools. These are among the assumptions about
curriculum content and teaching which are most obviously reflected in the daily events and occurrences

in the art classrooms of the nation in terms of the

types of things done and the kinds of materials
worked with at all educational levels.
Any careful reading of the current literature in
art education, both in books and in periodicals,
would lead to the inescapable conclusion that virtually
all art educators believe in using a variety of art
media. Indeed, I don't think that I am overstating
the case by saying that a great many art teachers
judge the effectiveness of their teaching in terms of
the number of different media they include. The
more the media they provide, the better they think
they are teaching; the more varieties of media their
children experience, the better they assume the learning to be. Talk to a great many art teachers, and by
all means, talk to most undergraduate students who
are preparing to become art teachers; and, ask them
to tell you something about a good art education
program. Almost all will place experience with a wide
variety of media uppermost on their list of values.
Most of them are on a perpetual hunt for not only
more media but also for new ones.
In preparing my material for this lecture, I thumbed
through my file of 1961 issues of School Arts magazine. Let me read to you a group of titles I selected
from among the special articles I found listed in the
tables of contents: "Dip-Dribble Sculpture," "Paint
and Strong Art," "Creating With Plaster," "Try
Eggshell Mosaics," "Featherrock, a New Carving
Material," "Floor Tile Mosaics," "Try Eraseable
India Ink," and on and on.
So powerful is the art teacher's belief in more and
new media that commercial suppliers of art materials to schools have adopted it, promoted it, and
capitalized upon it. Here are two examples of the
phraseology you can find in advertisements for art
materials: "New, easy way to teach stained glass,"
claims one supplier; and "New medium for artistic
expression and craft work," is announced by another.
One manufacturer apparently decided that it had
found a very good thing here; it simply appropriated
the whole package by giving itself the "honorific"
name of Nu-Media, spelled N-U-M-E-D-I-A.
Examine the current literature in art education with
care to discover the very rare occasions one encounters any words of caution or doubt about this
over-riding emphasis among art teachers. What are
the historical roots for these strong beliefs? Where
did they stem from? What meaning did they have
when they first developed? What is significant today
in the over-arching faith in varieties of new art
media?
Make no mistake in thinking that in raising such
questions I am arguing either for a reduced array of
media in art instruction, or for any particular priority

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for certain media over others. I also hope that you

won't interpret anything I have just said to mean
that I have the slightest aversion to the several media
I happened to mention. Quite the contrary! What I
do intend to try to show, however, is that the historical events which led to the emphasis on varieties
of media are not only long passed, but I will also try
to show why the historical reasons for expanding the
scope of art media are no longer meaningful for today's problems in art education. Furthermore, I will
try to explain why I believe that present problems in
the teaching of art require new solutions in the form
of new ideas about the utilization of media. In fact,
I will try to show why our persistence in valuing
variety and newness of art media, in its present form,
is actually detrimental to what we in the profession
of art education ought to be seeking to accomplish.
Thirty five years ago, the media used in public
school art, as it was then called, consisted largely of
medium hard pencils, small size oak tag and contour
paper, crayons, pens and india ink, cakes of transparent water colors, and vine charcoal for more
advanced students. Art was a two-dimensional activity, and even at that, the media used were restricted and limited. The reaction to these conditions
stemmed simultaneously from two sources: one was
the emerging movements of progressive education and
chilk study; the second was the creative upheaval
and turmoil in the world of the visual arts. The ideological power and energy of these two developments
hammered out their imprint on this aspect of art
education, as they did on virtually all of the others.
The progressive education movement of the late
twenties and early thirties pounded away at those
archaic school practices which in any way restricted
the energetic exploration, experimentation, and
creative formulation of purposive behaviors which
children are capable of pursuing. The child study
movement with its emphasis on the developmental
needs and tendencies of children began to demonstrate how children can thrive and flourish when their
physical, emotional, and sensual capacities are recognized, stimulated, and provided for. Rich, brilliant,
and thick tempera colors with large brushes for
smearing them onto soft absorbent newsprint paper;
huge blocks of soft wood, light enough for children
to pick up, move around, and use for arranging and
modulating real environmental space; sand for digging with all the muscular energy a youngster could
muster to build something; and clay for rolling,
smacking, and squeezing into worms, pancakes, pots,
or just nothing at all-all of these media and more
were brought into play for the sensual pleasure
they provided and for the immense possibilities they
opened for forming and shaping.

And from Paris there came the cubists to demonstrate that all of art is not of pencil, paint, and paper. Picasso, Braque and others invented the collage,
and the first new medium of our era was born. If
these artists could make pictures with bits of yesterday's newspaper,accentedwith the stubb ends of a few
burnt matchsticks, then art could be made out of
anything. The possibilities became limitless. Now, add
to this the strong influence of the Bauhaus which
was imported into the United States in the middle
thirties. Different materials were recognized for their
unique qualities of texture, tactile character, strength,
and form potentialities. What is more, the Bauhaus
taught us that the treatment of certain materials
with different kinds of tools opened up a mathematically incalculable number of potential combinations for the invention and creation of all kinds of
visual forms.
When all of these developments-the progressive
education and child study movements, and the influences of Parisian painting and the Bauhaus
aesthetic ideology-were put together with the art
teacher's perennial problem of managing on a skimpy
budget, you have the makings of the quest for new
and different media. This quest was completely
sensible twenty five years ago, because art teachers
were throwing off the shackles of academic strictures and arbitrary rigid limitations. It continued to
remain sensible even as late as 1949 when the National Art Education Association urged in its statement of policy that "Art instruction should encourage: exploration and experimentation in many
media."'
In 1949, there was still some reason to argue the
educational debate over the value of varieties of
media. But, that battle has already long been won,
and to continue on that course today is to follow a
mirage. Just look at the media which have been admitted into the aesthetic experience by the New York
School of Abstract Expressionist painters and sculptors-steel, stone, burlap, chicken wire, rags, found
objects, and for that matter, any kind of junk that
happens to have a shape, color or texture that can
be combined with something else. Is there really any
art teacher now who is worth his salt and who is
unable to develop and acquire just a reasonable array
of media for his students to use?
The continuing quest for and emphasis on varieties
of art media in planning curriculum and teaching is
today detrimental to the purposes which art education ought to be trying to achieve. Now that the cupboard of media is literally burgeoning with possibilities, the demands upon art education are indeed in
transition. There are more media available than we
could possibly know what to do with. We are free

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to choose among any and all of them. Now the crucial

questions are: How are we using this freedom we
have? What are we doing in our teaching with our
ever expanding catalogue of media? How are we using
our wealth of media to serve educational purposes?
In short, what ought we be educating for through the
teaching of art? As I see them, these are the questions
at the heart of present day problems in art education. If there is any transition now occurring in the
ideology of art education, that transition must become
apparentin our goals and in our teaching procedures.
In order to propose some possible answers to this
final set of questions, I find it necessary to return to
the point at which I concluded my discussion of the
first cluster of assumptions, those which pertained to
the way we treat people who are to become educated
in art. I want to reiterate my paraphrase from Professor Jerome S. Bruner: Artistic activity anywhere
is the same, whether at the frontier of art or in a
third-grade classroom. What an artist does in his
studio is of the same order as what anybody else
does when he is engaged in like activities-if he is
to achieve understanding. The difference is in degree, not in kind. The schoolboy learning art is an
artist, and it is easier for him to learn art behaving
like an artist than doing something else.
If art education is to serve the American community as it should, our task is clear. If aesthetic
significance is to make any appreciable imprint on
how children grow up and conduct their lives, then
we the art teachers must treat them as artists for
whatever period of time they come to work with us.
Our job first and foremost, is to help them to behave
like the artists they can become rather than doing
something else. And our catalogue of media, new and
old alike, serves no useful purpose whatsoever unless
we use it to enable the schoolboy to engage in artistic
activity. To do so means for us to teach toward
aesthetic sensibility and not toward learning less and
less about more and more media.
A wide variety of media is indeed essential for good
teaching of art. But, it can also be a hindrance if
children are expected to sample all of them. It is like
the story about the famous school for ducks, where
the young ducklings spent most of their time learning how to climb, and dig, and fly, instead of learning how to develop their capacities as elegant swimmers, because they already knew how to swim.
Different artists use different media, but no serious
artist we know about flits from medium to medium.
Among the most universal characteristics we can see
in the artist are his dogged perseverance, his immersion in a medium, and his determination to make his
chosen medium a part of himself in order to achieve
the discipline and the skills which are involved. These

are among the qualities of artistic dedication.

There is great value in a variety of media, but the
value is now being lost through the ways in which
so very many art programs are organized, and the
ways in which so many art teachers use the media
at their command. Media are tools for teachers to
use in teaching art, and for students to use in learning to behave like artists. Each, however-teachers
while teaching and students while learning-need to
use art media for distinctly different purposes.
The student, like the artist, needs some degree of
exploration in order to find the medium he enjoys
using, because through that medium he is able to
formulate ideas of aesthetic significance at his level
of development. Through his education in art, he
needs to learn to come back again and again to
work with the same medium. He needs to learn to
finish many works and to begin even more of them.
He needs to learn that to enjoy the thrill of creation
requires him to shape his own purposes now, not
later. In a certain sense, learning to create in art is
no different than learning to create with verbal language. Just as it is not necessary, and in fact is a
hindrance, for children to accumulate a huge vocabulary before they even try to write a story, so is it a
hindrance if children collect knowledge through haphazard experiences with many different media before
settling down to the serious business of behaving like
artists. Children use the words at their disposal in
order to say what they want to say. The important
thing is that they write about ideas that interest them
in story after story. In art, it is important for them
to learn to like a medium and to use it to express
their ideas in art work after art work.
For the teacher, all the media in the catalogue are
teaching tools to be used for no other purpose than
to teach children how to learn to behave like artists.
This means creating the atmosphere of an artist's
studio in the classroom. It means encouraging children to try different media for the primary purpose
of discovering the one worth sticking with. It means
using media selectively to help children achieve insights into important ideas and problems in their
own work. It means having many media available
for use by a whole class. But at the same time, it
means teaching children how to make individual
choices in order for each child to be able to exploit
the medium of his choice for the fruits it can provide.
In conclusion, I want to read a brief and impressive passage by the renowned historian, Ralph N.
Turner, who wrote that, "The capacity of creativeness whether it operates as trial and error, reason,
emotional sensitivity, sympathy, intuition, or spiritual
aspiration, is the central part of history. Man with

18

continued on page 27
ART EDUCATION

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stability, and strength of the society taken as a total

entity. It is now our task to justify that faith and by
serving the high principles of a free society build a
future whose course is determined by those who are
true lovers of freedom and for whom the worth and
dignity of the individual is the proper foundation of
social policy and social action.
We must refuse to believe that the historic possibilities of our culture have all been laid before us. We
must refuse to believe that the future is closed. We
must refuse to believe, as the Marxists insist, that the
course of history is determined and that the decline of
our culture is inevitable. By the quality of our educational effort and by the force of our commitment and
our determinationwe must justify a new confidence in
our power to affect the future.
We must cultivate in our people such a sense of high
vocation and high purpose, and so adequately equip
them with knowledge, good will, and courage, that
they will not be frustrated or daunted by the monumental tasks that lie before us. Whether we like it or
not, our enemy is deadly serious; his power is
immense, and he is playing for keeps. Nothing less
will do for us now than a new intellectual, moral, and
spiritual vitality that will overwhelm the demonic
forces of regimentation that are arrayed against us
and establish the autonomy of freedom over the otherwise meaningless and destructive course of human
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the capacity of creativeness, can transform material

factors and reshape goals, bring visions to reality.
History is the formation and transformation of
visions."'1
Art education today is indeed in transition, but
the way it will be transformed depends upon what we
think it ought to become. If I may borrow a phrase
from our youthful President: The educational frontier
of the sixties in art is to make the aesthetic life a
reality for ourselves and for our students. The least
we must demand of ourselves is that as art teachers,
we should behave like artists. If we can achieve this,
we will have transformed our visions.
NOTES
1. "As An Art Teacher I Believe That," Art Education,
Journal of the National Art Education Association, II,
No. 2, (March-April, 1949), p. 1.
2. Jerome S. Bruner, The Process of Education, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 11.
3. Ibid., p. 14.
4. Ibid., p. 14.

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INSTANT
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5. Course of Study in Art for Elementary Schools, (Board

of Education of the City of New York, December 1931),
p. 5.
6. Hughes Mearns, Creative Power: The Education of
Youth in the Creative Arts, (New York: Doubleday,
Doran and Co., 1930).
7. Van Deering Perrine, Let the Child Draw, (New York:
Frederick A. Stokes, 1936).
8. Dearborn, Michigan and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
9. "As An Art Teacher I Believe That," op. cit.
10. Ralph N. Turner, "Mankind from a New Summit,"
The Saturday Review of Literature, XXXV, No. 14
(April 5, 1952), p. 9.

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