"a nation at risk": mandate for change in arts education

National Art Education Association

"A Nation at Risk": Mandate for Change in Arts EducationAuthor(s): Terry ZellerSource: Art Education, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 6-9Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3192739 .

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Mandate for Change in Arts Education

Terry Zeller

he report of the Presidential Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for

Educational Reform (April, 1983), was greeted by many arts educators like a death knell. The report warns of a rising tide of mediocrity in American education. Concern is expressed about the rising percentage of functionally illiterate Americans, lower SAT scores, gifted and talented students who do not realize their potential, and the apparent absence of higher order intellectual skills among recent high school graduates. The "homogenized, cafe- teria-style curriculum" is criticized, as are content of courses, amount of

homework assigned, poor quality textbooks, and minimum competency re- quirements. All these factors must change in order for young people to be educated for life-long learning. Accord- ing to the report, our goal should be the creation of a Learning Society.

Such a society has as a basic foundation the idea that education is important not only because of what it contributes to one's career goal but also because of the value it adds to the general quality of one's life. Also at the heart of the Learning Society are educational opportunities ex- tending far beyond the traditional institutions of learning, our schools and colleges (pp. 13-14).

The whole tone of A Nation At Risk is colored by a call for higher and more rigorous standards. Many arts educators have reason to fear the con- sequences of this report. The be- creative-do-your-own-thing-macrame- refrigerator-art-marching-band- approach to art education cannot measure up to the recommendations for adoption of more rigorous and measurable standards, increased atten- tion to basic skills, stress on subject matter content, more homework assignments, and greater emphasis on higher order thinking. The report is, therefore, a mandate for change in art education. The currently widespread process/product/performance ap-

Art Education July 1984

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In this article . . . Zeller welcomes the

pressures of "A Nation At Risk" and

says it "is an opportunity for a

new beginning for arts in the schools."

Art Education July 1984 7



proach to the arts will either have to undergo fundamental and radical changes or face continued, and often justifiable, cuts in staff and pro- gramatic funding.

Chapman (1982) has made a strong case for the need to reform arts education. Her book should be required reading for all parents, administrators, teachers, and concerned citizens who have a commitment to quality art education for all children. Many of the points she makes are germane to the criticism levelled at America's schools by the presidential Commission. Chap- man is not alone in her concern.

The arts must be seen as basic; they belong in the school day, not as ex- tracurricular activities. Teaching art in the afternoon or on Fridays when students are less alert or attentive, as rewards after studying the 3Rs, as prin- cipal or PTA pleasers for school open house, as aids in teaching basic skills, or as socialization tools for promoting positive self-concepts and individual creativity signal that the arts are not fundamental and serious parts of the curriculum. Arnheim, author of Visual Thinking (1983), observed that "when one listens carefully to the arguments by which the place of the arts in the curriculum is justified, one cannot help sensing that even their proponents still count the arts more as ornaments than

as necessities of life" (p. 9). Broudy maintains that "So long as arts education programs restrict themselves to the skills of expression - image making - they will retain their status as pleasant

accomplishments but not really necessary for anyone save prospective ar- tists" (1978, p. 25). The Commission's report agrees and says that the teaching of the fine and performing arts should be rigorous and "demand the same level of performance as the Basics" (p. 26).

The arts should be approached as having a content worthy of being mastered for their own sake. Arts in the general education curriculum should teach content, concepts, and critical appreciation skills in order to help students become informed life- long consumers of the arts in the learning society. Textbooks and other in- structional materials should become fundamental parts of arts instruction that would involve less time making and performing and more time reading, listening, looking, and talking about the arts. Art history and regular visits to museums and performing arts institutions should play a greater part in the curriculum than they do (Chap- man, 1979). There are excellent art/aesthetic education materials available for these purposes (Cope- land, 1983, pp. 32-35). Students should

be able to borrow reproductions of works of art and recordings or tapes of literary readings and a wide variety of classical and ethnic music as they do books. Discussions of performing and visual arts events taking place locally and nationally should be regular parts of the arts curriculum in order to ac- quaint students with the role and value of the arts in today's society. The arts curriculum should be cognitive, devel- opmental, sequential, and cumulative.

The nineteenth-century scholar and critic, Fiedler (1949), observed that

The artistic impulse is an impulse of cognition; artistic activity, an operation of the power of achieving cognition; the artistic result, a sequel of cognition. The artist does nothing else than achieve ... the work of logical, creative configuration; herein lies the essence of every cognition (p. 76).

John Dewey (1934) expressed a similar conviction about the cognitive nature of art when he wrote that

For to perceive, a beholder must create his own experience. And his creation must include relations comparable to those which the original producer underwent. The artist selected, simplified, clarified, abridged and condensed according to his interest. The beholder must go through these operations according to his point of view and interest (p. 54).

Gardner (1983), whose research into multiple intelligences makes a convinc- ing case for arts education, believes that our society gives too much emphasis to the linguistic and logical- mathematical intelligences that are only two of the seven intellectual realms he identifies (pp. 48-49). The National Art Education Association devoted the whole of its March, 1983 issue of Art Education to "Art and the Mind." Many leading art/aesthetic educators and psychologists contributed articles to this special issue dealing with art and cognition. Among them, Goodman (1983) maintained that

Developing sensory discrimination is as cognitive as inventing complex numerical concepts or proving theorems. Coming to understand a painting or a symphony in an unfamiliar style, to recognize the work of an artist or school, to see or hear in new ways, is as cognitive an achievement as




learning to read or write or add (p. 34).

Back-to-basics advocates who question the arts in schools should refer to American, German, Dutch, and British research which shows that "basic skills were highest where the curriculum was widest" (A British Administrator . . . 1979, p. 6). Statistics on college performance and successful employment by graduates of such art high schools as those in Baltimore, New York, and North Carolina are effective arguments against those who question whether the arts are intellectually demanding.

The arts should be a significant part of the K-12 curriculum. Statistics show that when elementary music is cut, there is a 65 to 70% reduction in music enrollment in high school (Benham, 1982); enrollments in the visual arts decline from 77% in seventh grade to 16% in senior high (Chapman, 1982). Arts courses should be required as part of the general education of all K-12 students. Such courses should provide students opportunities to learn vocabu- lary, concepts, history, styles, tech- niques, and methods in the arts to help them make informed personal respon- ses to the arts, possess knowledge about the arts, and be aware of the role and value of the arts in their society. Studio experiences are not sufficient to study of the visual arts; study of art history is necessary for informed and critical appreciation of works of art (Dean, 1973; Wilson, 1966, 1973; Gardner and Gardner, 1970; De Porter and Kavanaugh, 1978). Many minor- ities and economically disadvantaged students, as well as others, are not get- ting such skills and knowledge according to the National Endowment for the Arts. More that 80% of those who are frequent museum visitors have at- tended college, and regular attendance to theatre, orchestra, and dance per- formances are also related to education and income (Audience Studies, 1978, pp. 20, 30).

Reformed arts curricula could help achieve the Commission's goals of full participation in the arts. A recent article claims that "students often do not see the most basic relationships among subject matter areas; the perception of relationships clearly requires directed teaching" (Anderson and Lawrence, 1982, p. 31). At elementary grades, regular instruction might be given through an approach using concepts

(space, pattern, growth, tension, distortion, etc.) that cut across art, music, dance/movement, literature, and theatre and that relate to learners' life experiences. At the secondary level, content of general education arts courses should be organized themati- cally and correlated with other areas of the curriculum. In secondary schools, there should be required, year long, in- terdisciplinary courses dealing with local visual and performing arts and humanities courses with heavy concen- tration on the arts. Courses such as these, with optional studio/performance labs, would help develop those higher order intellectual skills that A Nation At Risk (1983) claims are lack- ing in many high school, graduates. Perhaps more than any other subject in the curriculum, the arts call for multiple levels of interpretation. The report says that the teaching of English should prepare graduates to "com- prehend, interpret, evaluate," to "listen effectively and discuss ideas intelligent- ly," and to "know our literary heritage and how it enhances imagination and ethical understanding" (pp. 9, 25).

The arts can and should be taught to similar goals. If they were, students would develop visual, musical, and kinesthetic literacy and learn that the arts are about ideas, communication, people, and heritage. The visual, performing, and literary arts, perhaps more than any other subjects in the curriculum, promote imagination and ethical understanding. What is more, the arts provide the quality of life the Presidential Commission says is a vital part of education. A Nation At Risk calls for education that assures all children opportunities to "participate fully in our national life" (p. 7). To participate in the nation's rich cultural resources, such as its art museums, symphony orchestras, operas, dance and theatre companies, depends on learning the knowledge, skills, at- titudes necessary to become discrimin- ating arts consumers.

Far from being a threat to arts education, A Nation At Risk supports opportunities for a new beginning for arts in the schools. Art educators can take the offensive with bold new visions of, and practical suggestions for, reform- ing art education in American schools. The Presidential Commission on Ex- cellence in Education seeks no less than this. U

Terry Zeller is Chairperson, Depart- ment of Education and Public Pro- grams at the Rochester Museum & Science Center, Rochester, New York.

References

Anderson, W. M., Lawrence, J.E. (1982). Approaches to allied arts, Music Educators Journal, 69(1), 31-35.

Arnheim, R. (1983). Perceiving, thinking, forming. Art Education. 36(2), 9-11.

Audience studies of the performing arts and museums (1978). Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for the Arts.

Benham, J. (1982). Fight cutbacks with figures, Music Educators Journal, 69(1), 47-48.

A British administrator looks at British schools (1979). Phi Delta Kappan, 61(1), 61-62.

Broudy, H. (1978). The arts as basic education, The Journal of Aesthetic Educa- tion, 12(4), 22-29.

Chapman, L. (1979). Teacher viewpoint survey: The results. SchoolArts, 78(9), 2-5.

Chapman, L. (1982). Instant art, instant culture: The unspoken policy for American schools. New York: Teachers College Press.

Copeland, B. (1983). Art and aesthetic education learning packages. Art Educa- tion, 36(3), 32-35.

Dean, R. (1973). Art history approaches for early childhood education. Unpublished masters thesis, Tempe: Arizona State University.

De Porter, D., Kavanaugh, R. (1978). Parameters of children's sensitivity to painting syles, Studies in Art Education, 20(1), 43-48.

Dewey, J. (1934), Art as experience. New York, Minton, Balch & Company.

Fiedler, C. (1949). On judging works of visual art. Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press.

Gardner, H. (1983). Artistic intelligences, Art Education, 36(2), 47-49.

Gardner, H., Gardner, J. (1970). Devel- opmental trends in sensitivity to painting style and subject matter, Studies in Art Education, 36(2), 34-35.

A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. (1983) Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983.

Wilson, B. (1966). An experimental study designed to alter fifth and sixth grade students' perceptions of painting, Studies in Art Education, 8(1), 33-42.

Wilson, B. (1972). The relationship be- tween years of art training and the use of aesthetic judgement criteria among high school students. Studies in Art Education, 13(2), 34-43.




"a nation at risk": mandate for change in arts education

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