Immanuel !aochamub
3 November 2008
opinion
The relevance of art education has long been a bone of contention within our education system with it at some point being labeled as useless and a waste of time.
Art as a subject has for years been undermined in our schools. The one or two periods assigned for art lessons per cycle or per week on the timetables of our schools both at secondary and primary levels are either used by teachers to do other administrative duties and by learners as just another free period to do homework. This is the sad reality within our schools.
New Zealand's Art Curriculum defines Visual Art as follows: visual arts comprises a broad range of conceptual, material, and dimensional forms through which we communicate, learn about ourselves, and make meaning of the world.
The visual arts link social, cultural and spiritual action and belief and inform our relationships with other people and our environment. This definition tells us that art is the only subject that can educate a person as a whole.
Whether it is visual, musical or performing the subject art has proven beyond reasonable doubt that it is the only subject that triggers all five senses in the learning process.
Our education system allows learning across the curriculum and art as a subject can have meaningful links to other subjects, thus making the learning experience purposeful and fun for the learners. Such links can be initiated by the teacher where he or she can incorporate one or more art disciplines to aid his or her teaching in the class.
Eisner (2002) offered a list of eight examples of aims of arts education. He recognised that each view is unlikely to occur in isolation in any educational setting, but rather a combination of these views is usually employed. Eisner also pointed out that a range of views on the function of art are likely to exist in different contexts and that they are likely to change over time. The views presented by Eisner (2002) are summarised as follows:
1. Discipline-based art education is especially likely to occur in the visual arts. This approach focuses on the development of skills and imagination for high quality performance as well as students being able to see aesthetic qualities in art works. Students also develop understanding of the cultural and historical significance of art as well as the value of art in society.
2. Visual culture is a focus on the ability to read the arts as a text in order to uncover hidden meaning so as to make informed choices and to understand the culture of the society producing the particular art form in this way.
3. Creative problem solving is a focus on the design aspects of the arts.
4. Creative self-expression is a view promoting the role of art in allowing students to express emotions and ideas which free them from tensions and leads to flexibility in attitudes as well as fostering individualism.
5. Preparation for work is a view that values the development of vocational skills such as creativity, initiative, imagination, pride in craft, planning skills and teamwork through working with the arts.
6. Cognitive development is a view that working artistically develops complex and subtle thinking including the ability to reflect on one's own work, and to connect art forms to culture. Visual perception, developed through the arts, is another important type of thinking.
7. Promoting academic performance is a view based on the idea that the inclusion of arts education in schools increases performance in other educational areas.
8. Integrated arts is a perspective in which the arts may be integrated with other disciplines such as history, or within several arts forms, or to explore a central idea, or to solve a problem using ideas from many disciplines.
Looking at the eight points above, we can conclude that there is no other subject in our school curriculum that deals with all these aspects.
Social or emotional skills such as concentration, self-motivation, self-confidence and decision-making can be developed through art (Svendson, 2004).
Such characteristics were described as contributing to EQ or emotional intelligence by Goleman (1995, cited in Wright, 2004) who described emotional intelligence as including self-awareness and control, empathy, listening to others and cooperating.
Eisner (2002) also pointed out the distinctive role of the arts in self-expression, and the construction of identity and self-awareness, because the arts emphasise the expression of individuality and focus on the ways that vision and meaning are personalised.
Chapman (1978) described school art programs as encouraging personal fulfillment.
The challenge that faces various developing countries is to educate individuals that can take charge of development in their respective countries and at the same time compete with the globalised world. This vision might be far fetched for Namibia, but it is definitely one that is within our reach as a developing country.
We should revisit our priorities and revise the ways in which our children are educated not only for their benefit but for the benefit of the country and the generations to come.
Thus art should be made a compulsory subject from Grade 1 to 12 within our schools. The advantages of the subject outweigh the disadvantages, if there are any at all.
Immanuel !Aochamub is a student teacher of Windhoek College of Education presently studying in Sweden.
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