New Directions in the Training of Teachers

National Art Education Association

New Directions in the Training of TeachersAuthor(s): Ian ThomasSource: Art Education, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Mar., 1968), pp. 4-7Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3191159 .

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BY IAN THOMAS. There can be no possibility of providing satisfactory directions for the education of art teachers unless there is first some certainty about the general direction of art education itself. In his editorial to a 1963 edition of Studies in Art Education, Kenneth Lansing states that art educators have immersed themselves in a meaningless mountain of words because they have not begun by clarifying their starting points or tackling fundamental problems. Consequently pro- fessional meetings in art education often resemble "gigantic treadmills and we get on and off each year in exactly the same place." 1 In another article in the same edition Irving Kaufman describes art education as existing in a "limbo of uncertainty" and the art teacher as looking for direction from other areas of education rather than establishing directions himself.2

The art educator has allowed his territory to become a No- Man's Land and the property of any predator with a theory to expound. Having no well-grounded theory himself and no definite direction, he has become a parasite feeding off the predators. At the present moment the predators fall into two major groups-the psychologists and the aestheticians. Thanks to the psychologists, words like "development" and "adjust- ment" may often be heard parroted by the art teacher, and the latest addition to these is the term "creativity." On the other hand the aestheticians claim that art education is primarily art appreciation and its purposes lie in the direction of teaching children how to judge and discriminate through discussion and exposure to great works of art rather than through the performance of it.3 The art teacher himself is chiefly responsible for this state of affairs, for rather than estab- lish his own direction he has too easily accepted the direction of others.

The aestheticians are right in demanding that art is a subject that must be taught, but their emphasis on logical operations, rules, definitions, facts, and criteria 4 often results in a denial rather than incorporation of existing aims and could lead to a very limited conception of the function of art education. In any attempt to formulate new goals the total pattern of art as response, expression, creation, and appreciation must be realized. This total pattern will be defined here as the aesthetic experience and, insofar as art relies primarily on the visual sense rather than the auditory sense as in music, or the kin- aesthetic sense as in dance, this can be further delineated as the visual aesthetic experience. It will be maintained that this provides the basic framework and long-range goal toward which any future planning of art education must be oriented.

In relation to this, the more immediate need is a heightened response to the visual world in order that the individual can become involved in visual aesthetic experiences. Thus the goals tentatively proposed here are: 1) The visual aesthetic experience; 2) The heightened response to the visual world.

Before proceeding to the implication these aims may have for the education of art teachers it is first necessary to explore the basic assumptions upon which they are constructed.

First it is necessary to define the term aesthetic experience. In the broadest dimensions the aesthetic experience can occur in interaction with anything that is knowable. "Aesthetic experience is defined not by what it fastens upon, for this is limit- less, but by the way in which it attends to this and deals with it."5 In this respect some degree of aesthetic experience is available to everyone, and the scientist may at some point in his experiment be equally as involved in an aesthetic experience as is the artist over an extended period of time. The aesthetic experience is essentially an act of total attention upon some particular thing or event. The thing or event is perceived in its totality for its intrinsic qualities and thus differentiates the aesthetic act from simple recognition where the thing or event is seen in relation to a predetermined system of classi- fication or in relation to basic needs and a particular course of practical action.6 The aesthetic act is the highest form of human action when the individual makes himself open to an experience and there are no barriers between him and the thing or event and he experiences it immediately for what it is.

The levels of aesthetic response may vary from the fleeting perception to a disciplined attempt to maintain the experience and translate it into some concrete form. Everyone has the ability to undergo some degree of aesthetic experience, of being responsive and making some expressive gesture in relation to that response whereas only a few may be able to take this to the highest levels of creation where the original experience is made concrete and communicable in the form of an object of art. Herein lies the function of art: to re-present things as complete entities in themselves in order to make it possible for others to enter into an aesthetic experience with these entities. "In doing this, its first great gift is to shatter our preconceptions, our pretensions, and our complacency. Its second is to compel our attention so that it largely succumbs to the immediate encounter; things then assert their own uniqueness, and we attend to them as fully concrete and determinate." 7

The aesthetic experience ranges through levels of response

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to levels of expression and levels of creation. At the highest level of creation the aesthetic experience becomes its most complete and results in a symbolic form that re-presents the aesthetic experience itself. The symbolic act demands the effort of complete concentration and a disciplined interaction of sense, feeling, and thought that unites both the outer knowledge of the world and the inner knowledge of the self. The aesthetic experience is consequently an essential way of per- ceiving, exploring, and knowing more about the world. It is a way in which we give meaning to existence.

In summary, some level of aesthetic experience may be achieved by everyone in any number of ways. It may occur as the result of solving a complicated mathematical problem or running a cross-country race or through simply loving someone. It is the moment when we are most human and satisfy the highest of human needs: the need to achieve a unique and vivid relation with the world, that gives meaning to our being in the world. In this sense the arts are the expression of man's highest aspirations, and they reflect a basic need, "a natural appetite" in man.8

It is important to note that the things and events of our environment are brought into focus through our senses. Our orientation to, and knowledge of, the outer world stems primarily from sense impressions of which the visual often appears to predominate. In the visual arts the object of art is a visual symbol. It is this visual symbol that is the most complete expression of the aesthetic experience, since it is only the visual symbol that provides an immediate and instan- taneous vision of total form and total being. It is the kind and quality of our visual responses that determine in a large measure the extent of our aesthetic experiences. Gyorgy Kepes believes that man's ability to survive and the quality of his life are determined by his ability visually to orient himself and that "the basic characteristic of any artistic expression is the ordering of a visual impression into a coherent, complete living form." 9 He concludes that man must re-educate his vision and reclaim his visual sensitivities in order that he may overcome his present "impoverished ability to see, with freshness, clarity, and joy." Moreover, it is the visual symbol that provides man with means of linking the outer vision of his environment with the inner vision of himself. "And above all the work of art has sustained man with visions of a felt order. It has returned understanding to the indispensable eye, the foundation of our thought and feeling, the core of experience." 10

Art is as indispensable as the eye, for it involves the highest levels of aesthetic experience, of human response, and makes this experience available to everyone in a visual form.

The above provides the most complete justification and central goal for art education-the visual aesthetic experience. For if the function of art is the aesthetic experience then this must be a function of art education, and if the unique character of the arts is revealed through visual responses and visual symbols, art education must be the domain of visual activities that will help to reclaim and revitalize the visual sensibilities. In an article entitled "Schismogenesis in Contemporary Art Education," Vincent Lanier comes to a similar conclusion and states that the most important benefit to be derived from art activities is to partake of visual aesthetic experiences. He also asserts that this concept retains the intrinsic value of art, whereas this is overshadowed when art education is conceived as having its primary value in promoting creativity.

In effect the attitude can be said to remove the "art" from art education and to substitute "creative" for it. It is difficult enough at best to "teach" art, but to over emphasize originality, in either of its meanings, in art activities is to risk a weakening

6

of the contribution made by the experience of art.11 The second goal cited, of a heightened response to the

visual world, is really only a corollary to the first goal. The response in itself can reach a level of aesthetic experience and is the essential determinant to aesthetic experiences at higher levels. Without the capacity to have a heightened response, there is no possibility of having an aesthetic experience. This concept is extremely important in relation to "directions" in art education. The heightened response can be defined as being above ordinary levels of response. The ordinary level of human response is one of labeling and ticketing, and man relates to his environment through an automatic system of classifying and categorizing the things and events that confront him. This level of response is oriented to the immediate practical world of day-to-day activities and is as essential in this sphere as the heightened response is in the sphere of aesthetic experiences. The danger arises through a habitual use of the ordinary levels of response which results in a suppression or crowding out of the heightened response. The emphasis placed upon competitive and aggressive drives in our contemporary culture and the ideal of success through actively manipulating the things and events of the outer world toward immediate material and practical ends result in a negation of the heightened response, and aesthetic experiences diminish and wither.

In transcending ordinary levels of response, the heightened response becomes what has been defined by Abraham Maslow as a peak experience.12 He maintains that the peak experience is the essential characteristic of the healthy, creative, self- actualizing person and results in overcoming the fear of "knowing" and "becoming." Furthermore, he claims that this healthy creativity cannot be attained or defined through the purely rational process of verbal analytical and abstract thinking, and he comes to the conclusion that: "Science and education, being too exclusively abstract, verbal, and bookish, don't have enough place for raw, concrete, aesthetic experience, especially of the subjective happenings inside of oneself." 13

Thus the heightened response leads to a holistic rather than atomistic perception of things, and the holistic is not easily reached through abstract thinking and verbalization. Rather it is revealed through the aesthetic experience and made concrete in the visual symbol. If all people bear within them the drive to be healthy and the capacity to have a heightened response, it must be one of the central tasks of education to foster this health and make people aware of this capacity and encourage them to use it. It follows from this that art education must be primarily concerned with making people aware of their capacity to gain "raw, concrete, aesthetic experiences"-visual aesthetic experiences. If we live in surroundings and in a culture that has neglected and distorted this capacity for visual response, the first concern of art education must be toward a visual education that reveals the natural capacity in everyone to have a heightened response to the visual world.

The goals for art education outlined above provide for a direction in the education of art teachers that relates to the long-range goal of the visual aesthetic experience, yet points to the more immediate necessity of a heightened response. No art teacher will be able to approach his subject effectively unless he is aware of, and able to use, his capacity to visually respond-to get excited about looking at things. The response itself is part of the aesthetic experience, but it does not denote the whole or complete experience. Expression and creation require the channeling, selecting, and ordering of responses into a communicable form. Creation requires the subtle and complex interaction of intuition, emotion, and thought. All



of this is the concern of art education, but the first necessity is to provide the possibilities for response so that the visual aesthetic experience may occur. But, paradoxical as it may seem, the response is not a separate occurrence but an essential part of the aesthetic experience. It is impossible to respond without having the desire to express, or to express without responding. Perhaps the problem can only be clarified as it relates to teacher education by beginning with the present visual characteristics of our culture. In this connection people are visually dead and have lost their ability to respond visually. Their ability to see has become atrophied, and they live onI, at the level of ordinary response, of categorizing and classifying, and they no longer make themselves open to the possibility of having a visual aesthetic experience.

The implication that this has for art education is described by Sir Herbert Read in his remarks about the need to provide an "inlet" for the shaping of spirit of imagination: "The inlet is situated in the mind of the individual, and we may say that at birth and throughout childhood it is wide open. But it gradually silts up with the dust of our practical activities, with the verbal mucus excreted by the rationalizing mind until, long before the individual becomes an adult, he is deaf and blind to all sensitive experiences, incapable of bringing new passions to expressive shapes. We begin our task, therefore, with an individual whose aesthetic faculty already atrophied, and our first task is to reanimate dead nerves, to reopen the doors of perception." 14

Read continues by stating that of necessity a kind of "brain- washing" is the prelude needed to art education. Consequently, art education must begin by making it possible for the individual to have a response to visual phenomena, and this applies equally well to the education of adults, teachers, and even children, once they have reached adolescence and the inlet is beginning to silt up. The prelude must be considered as a "breaking down" period rather than a building up, for this is what brain-washing involves.

Such an approach is in keeping with Jenkin's belief that one of the functions of art is to shatter "our preconceptions, our pretensions, and our complacency." Insofar as those who advo- cate an "aesthetic education" believe that it is possible to begin by building up and by refining existing visual sensibilities, they are doomed to failure, and their proposals will result in sterility and an intellectual approach divorced from feeling, emotion, and true visual awareness. The aestheticians would begin by training only the outward features without first breaking into the inner sources of the individual. Instead of "opening doors" they would conceal them behind a mass of definitions, rules, and procedures that will prove meaningless unless the "doors of perception" are first opened and the individual is oriented toward the possibility of response. There is every indication that our present system of educating art teachers commits a similar mistake. It provides the future teacher with a loose sprinkling of facts and fundamentals, media, and methods without first ensuring that he has the ability to inhibit these tendencies rather than encourage them.l5

The education of an art teacher must involve a "self- sensitizing process" that occurs through an increased visual awareness-the heightened response-and alongside this, and succeeding it but not preceding it, must come a consideration for fundamentals, materials, media, and the discipline of creation and appreciation. However, the prelude or starting point for any training program for art teachers must be a breaking down period. In cases where teachers on the elementary program receive only one short art course, the whole course may have to be devoted to this prelude. There must be no "building

up" in terms of fundamentals and art methods and materials suited to children before an atrophied mode of seeing has been shattered and the visual sensibilities revitalized. In this sense the breaking down process also involves a breaking into the inner subjective world of feeling from which originates the heightened response. Until this has happened, the art program will either remain directionless, floating aimlessly in a sea of fundamentals and dissociated exercises, or it may become rigidly confined in a set approach that isolates and overempha- sizes one particular aspect of the aesthetic experience, such as expression or appreciation. Future art teachers must be more visually aware of their world and more able to respond to it both visually and aesthetically. This must be the beginning and basis to any program for the education of art teachers.

The implications of such an approach may lead-particularly at the initial stage of teacher training-to artistic endeavors that appear unfamiliar. A student confronted with a strange and unfamiliar situation and finding that ordinary levels of response will not suffice, may begin to discover for himself and become more aware of resources within himself that have lain dormant from childhood. This would be the positive result of the breaking down process, but there would also be negative reactions of indifference and even hostility which would, most probably, be particularly evident in relation to the student's first experience with such situations. However, given time, careful planning, and the guidance of a patient and sympathetic instructor, such an approach would result in an increasing number of positive reactions and a growing sense of visual awareness among the participants. The continued inability to overcome negative feelings and to become involved might indicate the student's unsuitability as an art teacher.

An introductory course for future art teachers that developed around unfamiliar situations and experiences might differ radi- cally from the traditional pattern and content of present art education courses. It would grow out of what has been estab- lished as the most immediate goal in art education-the heightened response to the visual world. Once this capacity for visual response has been realized, a more diverse and complex pattern of art education must be introduced so that the training program may encompass all the dimensions of the visual aesthetic experience. The visual response is not the only aim in art education, but it is the first. We must begin by reopening the "doors of perception."

REFERENCES

1. Kenneth M. Lansing. Editorial: Studies in Art Education. Washington: National Art Education Association, Vol. 4, Spring 1963. p. 1.

2. Irving Kaufman. "Art Education: a Discipline?," Studies in Art Education. Washington: National Art Education Association, Vol. 4, Spring 1963. pp. 15-23.

3. Harry S. Broudy, B. Othaniel Smith, Joe R. Burnett. "The Exemplar Approach," The Journal of Aesthetic Education. Illinois: Inaugural Issue, Spring 1966. pp. 113-121.

4. Aesthetics and Criticism in Art Education. Ralph E. Smith, editor. Chicago: Rand, McNally and Company, 1966. p. 513.

5. Iredell Jenkins. Art and the Human Enterprise. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958. p. 144.

6. Ibid., p. 39. 7. Ibid., p. 44. 8. Ibid., p. 234. 9. Education of Vision. Gyorgy Kepes, editor. New York: George Braziller, 1965.

p. it. 10. The Visual Arts Today. Gyorgy Kepes, editor. Connecticut: Wesleyan Univer-

versity Press, 1960. p. 4. 11. Vincent Lanier. "Schismogenesis in Contemporary Art Education," Studies in

Art Education. Washington: National Art Education Association, Vol. 5, Fall 1963. p. 16.

12. Abraham W. Maslow. Toward a Psychology of Being. New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1962. p. 214.

13. Ibid., p. 194. 14. Herbert Read. My Encounter with Education through Art. New York: Trident

Press, 1966. p. 155. 15. Calvin W. Taylor. "Some Implications of Research Findings on Creativity,"

The Teaching Process. Eastern Arts Association, Vol. 19, April 1962. p. 46.



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New Directions in the Training of Teachers