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Lesson Plans


Re: Teaching Art

[ Thread ][ Subject ][ Author ][ Date ]
Teresa Tipton (ttipton.wa.us)
Sat, 2 Mar 1996 14:09:55 -0800 (PST)

Shelly, when I first read your e-mail message, I felt a sickening sense
of dismay that we are still debating this same issue and question after a
good solid 45 years or so of scholarly writing, research, experience and
models developed by educators throughout the world on this topic. Like a
bad dream, this shadow "record" is stuck on repeat, over and over again,
repeating the question without hearing and understanding the response.

With the language of hemispheric brain functioning, you could have
responded to the person who felt that reading was somehow more important
than art by saying that by our nature, we are image generating beings. One
half of our brain is devoted to the capacity.

Johnny and Jimmy and whoever else, drug dealer, single mother, whatever,
(if those examples are supposed to be our cultural bottom-line,) could not READ
words without the image generating capacity of the brain, which READS the
shapes of letters simultaneously in our right hemisphere as our left side of
the brain ascribes the recognition of the shapes. This visual literacy
must go hand in hand with any other kind of literacy.

In fact, we THINK in pictures developmentally, before our
educational system usurps that natural capacity and replaces our
thinking with WORDS, so that words begin to mediate our pictures and too
often, replace them completely, as working with fourth graders will
show you. To not devote instruction to one half of the brain's natural
capacity and functioning is rapacious neglect of the education of the whole
person.

But there's more to say. That's only the beginning. We could talk about
how what we know of our earliest civilizations is through the images they
have left behind. What we know of them and ourselves is mediated through
the experience of art.

We could talk about how our culture is an image-generating and image-consuming
society and that learning to READ images given to us through media sources,
will help us become informed consumers, instead of being swayed by
imagery with which we have no critical discourse. Or we could talk
about how the majority of JOBS our students and that unemployed mother
have available to them, utilize image-generating technology that they
must utilize and respond to.

An eric search on ART EDUCATION should get you started on further specifics,
such as the research that has shown an INCREASE in SAT scores of high
school students when the arts are incorporated into traditionally academic
curricula. Hopefully, the next time, you will have an answer to discuss
and and enlighten your colleagues. And after your research, perhaps you can
give your faculty a reading list on the subject so that other students will not
have the same question after their graduate training.

Teresa Tipton


On Tue, 27 Feb 1996 Sombralee wrote:

> Hi! My name is Shelly and I am a post-graduate student at Southwest Texas
> State University. I am currently getting my teachers certification in
> secondary Art Education.
> I recently was asked an interesting question and had a hard time giving an
> answer and I am curious what others in the Art Teaching field think. At the
> time of the question we were discussing the importance of Education and the
> question was asked, "How important is Art Education to a street dealer or a
> out-of-work mother of five?" The person basically was saying that the
> cut-backs that the Arts get are because it is more important that "Jimmy" and
> "Sally" know how to read and forget about if they have any idea or concept of
> Art. I guess my question would be how do we as Art Teachers justify the need
> for Art Education. Granted it is probably more important if "Jimmy" and
> "Sally" know how to read, but if they have something like Art to give them
> some kind of hope or joy isn't that important too. Right now I'm really
> having a hard time justifing to others and even students the importance of
> Art in schools. Mr. Hollands Opus was a wonderful insperation but I need
> some more suggestions.
> Thanks,
> Shelly
>