framing the art curriculum || rites of passage for middle school students

National Art Education Association

Rites of Passage for Middle School StudentsAuthor(s): Mary StokrockiSource: Art Education, Vol. 50, No. 3, Framing the Art Curriculum (May, 1997), pp. 48-55Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193697 .

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AL

FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS

o you remember the rites of passage of your own middle school years, when you were no longer a child,

but not an adult either? Did you ever feel alone and out of place? Did you share membership with other preteens as you tried to find your place in the world? As an adult, do you feel secure in your identity as a member of a group? This article is about how art educators can help middle school students structure and reflect on their predominant rite of passage-the transition from adolescence into adulthood.

In many societies, adults initiate children (5-12 years old) to publicly recognize them as adults. Induction rites may be lengthy, dramatic, and painful socialization tools. Socialization is a process of transmitting cultural traditions through "rites of passage."

Because few rites of passage exist in the United States, teens form their own peer groups or gangs as socializing institutions. In other words, they initiate themselves through elaborate rituals such as tattooing, daie deviling, and nlakeup as war paiiit (Tannen, 1994). Such behavior frequently may seem rebellious but it is also a means of survival in a hostile world (LeBlanc, 1994).

This article does iiot advocate such initiation rites. Rather than waiting for preadolescents' negative and deviant manifestations, teachers might want to explore rites of passage with them early. In this article, I introduce the conlcept of rites of passage, offer examples of preadolescent rites in other cultures as well as our own, present a multicultural framework especially for the middle school student, and suggest how teachct s can

translate these rites into art experiences.

THE RITES OF PASSAGE Rites of passage are social and

ceremonial acts that accompany a person's or a group's transition in social place, state, position, or age. These transitions include the changes of birth, death, puberty. and marriage. Van Gennup (1961) presents symbolic rites in three stages: separation, tranisition, and integration. Separation is the stage of isolation from a social structure or a siate of cultural conditions. In sorlme tribal cultures, adults strip the youth of clothing, shave all body and head hair, and circumcise sexual parts to symnbolize this break in status. '1ransition is the stage in which participants are 'betwixt and between the positions assigned and arTayed by law, customi, convention, and

BY MARY SI'UKROCKI

I ART EDUCATION / MAY 1997

I



ceremony" (Turner, 1969, p. 95). At this stage, novices have no status, property, emblems of honor, or clothing of rank; are passive and humble; undergo severe puberty trials; and learn the sacred lore. During integration, adults

ceremoniously accept participants back into the community with new status, rights, and responsibilities.

INSTITUTIONAL SEPARATION Some educators refer to schooling

as a ritual performance or a rite of passage (Mc auren, 1993). Schooling may be a highly structured or informal

Figure 1. Wearing a T-shirt of laughing skulls and

army pants, art teacher Larry Woodson playfully banters with students.

time of institutional separation. The period of separation can be formal, such as institutional separation in the military. Middle school represents a period of forced seclusion from family and children at other stages. The middle school movement developed to provide better transition experiences for students from grades six through eight, to foster positive relationships among students and with teachers, and to provide integrated learning experiences for students. Braddock and McPartland (1993) report increased departmentalization of subject matter and tracking of student ability in the middle school. Such trends directly oppose the original intent of the middle school as a place for integration of learning. Another trend that stems from educational research and policy stresses challenging and exciting projects, as well as active and cooperative learning. Educators also need curriculum ideas, based on field-focused research, which respond to student needs to isolate and interact among themselves.

PREADOLESCENT SEPARATION THROUGH SPECTACULAR SUBCULTURE

Separation occurs socially and informally as preadolescents band together to form groups-the gang years (Lowenfeld & Brittain, 1975). Neophytes separate themselves by dressing alike (e.g., ragged clothing), sporting the same hairdos (punk-dyed locks, shaved skin-heads, or

MAY 1997 / ART EDUCATION



Figure 2. This example

from Ken Beittel's pottery

class shows structured

cooperative work in

which students separate

the debris from the clay.

dreadlocks), acting alike (submissive and silent or noisy and obnoxious), and

expressing themselves in similar ways (secret talk, signals, and drawings). Hebdige (1979) explains these behaviors as "spectacular subculture" (p. 102). What society considers bad taste, preadolescents regard as good taste. Such behaviors and fashions provide excellent sources of art inquiry. ART INQUIRY

The middle school years are times of intense curiosity for preadolescents who are interested in their past, present, and future possibilities. In his curriculum proposal, Sahasrabudhe (1993) called for students to search their ancestries, identities, and destinies through inquiry about ancestral art objects and art-making practices. The benefits of such inquiry

include "discovering metaphoric dimensions, cultural motivations, symbolic meanings, and aesthetic character" (p. 8).

Focusing more specifically on preadolescents' rites of passage, especially clay and mask-making, I suggest that students discuss, explore, and learn about the arts in puberty rites of other cultures as well as their own, including how to find a vision, the magic of preparing media, the secrets of art skills, and the value of communal work. Clay and mask-making are some of the oldest human traditions used in

puberty rites of passage. Art teachers have discovered that clay and mask- making are favorite activities for non- art students. Communal clay experiences, for instance, help students create a bond for group firing (Studio Potter Foundation, 1988). Students need to explore the anthropological

roots of these forming processes-not just the products.

THE TRANSITION STAGE During the transitional stage, elders

explain the sacred lore, processes, and attitudes associated with different kinds of rituals. In such a period of induction, they fascinate youth with action-packed legends, magical herbology, forbidden litanies, and spiritual schemes for understanding their world and cosmos. In Northern Rhodesia during their Chisungu rites, Bemba elders use clay images to teach tribal symbols to secluded pubescent girls (Richards, 1956). The elders show these young women that they are merely clay or dust with forms impressed upon them by society. These girls learn that certain symbols

I ART EDUCATION / MAY 1997



are correct and others are taboo. Such societies value tradition, while others, such as the United States, prize innovation. American teens, in comparison, have more freedom to form and embellish clay and other media; however, schools may censor some of their expressions, such as sexual and satanic images. Art teachers need to explain to students the historical reasons for such seclusion practices; for example, to develop good concentration, memory, comradeship, and citizenship.

PREADOLESCENT EXISTENTIAL CONCERNS

During the transition stage, preadolescents experience a change in identity. Their feelings of loss,

unpredictable behaviors, and inner conflicts intensify (Stokrocki, 1990). In a sense, they pass from childhood to emerge into a new state of pre- adulthood. Their artwork becomes a place to explore alienated feelings, new art forms, organization patterns, and life and death symbols (Burton, 1981).

In one of my microethnographic

Figure 3. Teachers may allow unstructured clay play such as making kiln gods or "wedgies," newly beaten

clay in the form of clay animals that await their "turn"

[pun] on the wheel.

Figure 4. Students reverse their subordinate role to

transform themselves into powerful beings, such as

this dragon, through masks on Halloween.




Figure 5. Examples of reflective journals

that capture the spirit of the clay process;

e.g. "I leave patterns on the clay and the

clay imposes patterns on my life."

'de c o/d u, OF 0

f the

Wof,h. r i ore e _2 ?e P r' ? ^ ltie. fo"Q " cC se, ,

P A

.nor sait time.

--?e~k~lBp4I--o O

ART EDUCATION / MAY 1997

m O' - -- 1



studies, for example, while students learned about mask-making in different tribal cultures (Stokrocki, 1996), art teacher Larry Woodson showed a video, Death-The Trip of a Lifetime (1993). Students sat mesmerized by the exploration of death rites in different cultures and noted similarities with their own celebration of the Day of the Dead and Yaqui Lenten ceremonies (Pomar, 1987). Larry Woodson noted that some students rejected the ritual and others invited teachers to come to the feast. As a result, teachers were fed "way too well!"

In a second study, I noted how a particularly difficult class of seventh grade boys became excited when exploring ancient Mayan death images and rituals from an exhibit

called The Blood of the Kings at the Cleveland Museum of Art (Schele, 1986). Students were amazed by Mayan scarification rites for the purpose of vision seeking and were flabbergasted that the Mayans sometimes used skulls in their ball

'v '

_ games. In a lesson on linoprints

t i hi (positive/negative reversal images), they negotiated

si..-ac with the instructor Fd edu to imitate the

Mayan reproductions that featured serpents, jaguars, and birds (Stokrocki, 1988). In spite of all their macho talk, they

chose images that seemed tame compared to the examples in the exhibition.

NEGOTIATION FOR SURVIVAL At the secondary level, Wilson (1977)

reported conflicts in her drawing class. Such conflicts were expressed by subtle deviations in behavior, such as ways of talking, dressing, celebrating, and art making. She, therefore, negotiated art learning by allowing occasional diversions. Art teachers may already be using such ritualistic behaviors and not be aware of their powerful motivational significance in the rites of passage that modem education has ignored.

NECESSITY OF HUMOR During the state of transition,

foolishness balances sagacity and alleviates conflict. In some societies, a clown or court jester keeps the spirits of initiates high as they endure the rites. The jester, a person of low class, has the privilege of arbitrating morals and teasing the ruler. Instructors also may reverse their authority role, and become the clown to communicate their point. Larry Woodson, for example, verbally identifies his problem students with such nonsense terms as "Benzesky Butt Butt!" Both students and teacher consequently laugh at themselves. Van Gennup (1961) has identified this role reversal as a pattern of transformation used to alleviate stress in social drama.

I have observed teachers in art classes who occasionally play the jester to motivate students to think. They engage in sacred play or "double talk" where puns and unusual language occur. In my study of Kenneth Beittel's university ceramic class, for instance, I noticed him subtly joking about institutional football at Penn State when referring to "throwing a pot." One student quipped about his pot as a "super bowl." He threw the bowl across the room simulating a football pass. Later, he called his bowl a "kamikaze pot" when it broke.

Middle school art teacher Larry Woodson occasionally reversed his role as drill sergeant [review for a ceramics quiz] to become a clown who wore a T-shirt of laughing skulls and army pants [kooky dress] while he bantered with students using nonsense talk (see Figure 1). He referred to it as "the attack of the yak" (Stokrocki, 1996). This playful tendency might attest to the need among teens to survive authority. Art teachers might officially augment such verbal and




visual play with social satire or critique. For example, they might inspire students to humorously evaluate commercial art forms such as the uses and abuses of fashion design, advertising, electronic media, and television presentations, through creating cartoons and verbal expression.

COMMUNITAS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF CREATIVITY

Communitas is a temporary, unstructured state which may occur sometimes when people form a community of equals (Turner, 1969). During this state, creative ideas may

rites adapted from Kenneth Beittel's approach to ceramics (Stokrocki, 1982), include cooperative, challenging work sessions, such as clay preparation that involved digging clay and separating debris (see Figure 2). Activities may need to be scheduled after school for extra credit. Students thus learn to work as a team and to establish trust.2

Gradually, teachers may allow and even instigate antistructure. For example, teachers, may permit students to imitate their actions (throwing with eyes closed or bowing to greet the clay pot and each other) and to pun their talk(with sayings such

Rites of passage are social and

ceremonial acts that accompany a

person's or a group's transition in social

place, state, position, or age.

flourish. Artists bloom as they seek imaginative or vital encounters with others to rid themselves of cultural cliches and to establish new symbols. While creativity for artists may break boundaries, creativity for preadolescents can be seen as pushing the boundaries of their stereotypic ideas (Eisner, 1972).

Spontaneous communitas or creativity may occur when students bond together to survive their institutional trials or pressures from other peers. Middle school art teachers might consider adapting rites of structure and anti structure in their teaching. Structural rites are well planned and organized, while antistructural rites are allowed to emerge during instruction. Structural

as wabi-sabi, meaning the pot is good because it is rustic and wobbly). Students thus subtly absorb aesthetic doctrine: a) centering is a process of quieting the mind as well as the clay, b) one must respect the pot and its space.

A second way to induce antistructure is to allow constructive "clay play" (see Figure 3). Teachers may suggest creating lively kiln gods and goddesses [which may resemble faculty members with their permission], to protect the pieces during firing. Teachers also may inspire nonverbal critique by cooing and ogling pottery pieces. Finally, students may document their clay

adventures in cartoons. Conflict then consists of alternative, not rebellious behaviors.

INTEGRATION & TRANSFORMATION

Integration is a formal or informal period of release from the state of transition in many societies. Schools, for example, hold formal graduation rituals with much pomp and circumstance. Administrators may allow playful and artful interpretations such as decorated mortarboards, some gown embroidery, and contrapuntal chanting (for visual examples of cross- cultural rites, see Cohen, 1991).

Other integration rituals are more informal. During certain holidays, such as Halloween and Mardi Gras in Western culture, preadolescents transform themselves into powerful monstrous beings through masks. The masks function as role reversals in asserting power; such as the anti- fertility image of the witch, the sexual symbol of Dracula, or the rebellious effigy of a bully or dragon (see Figure 4). At the same time, citizens may poke fun at elected officials, shown by Nixon "false faces." The masks both reveal and conceal psychosocial conflicts, such as sexual anxieties, peer conflicts, and political disagreements. Teachers may seize the opportunity to: discuss the reasons for such holidays, compare the aesthetics of costuming, and direct students to research historical, cross- cultural costume sources.

A third example of integration rituals in a school program planned with a physical education teacher, was an afternoon of tribal rhythms. Students transferred designs from their clay masks [an earlier art project] to their own faces and became living masks. Then they participated in circle dances, mimicked the physical

ART EDUCATION / MAY 1997



education teacher's movements, and improvised variations. Such public display solidified the group in communal activities, and were critiqued and then videotaped as sources for future projects. Students were encouraged to reflect, as well as to invent and participate in the integration rituals.

LIST OF WAYS TO ENCOURAGE ARTISTIC REFLECTION

1) Record in journals the evolution of their art ideas and art work: brainstorming ideas, sketches, cartoons, plans, notations, stages, and final results (see Figure 5).

2) Share and draw in each other's journals.

3) Evaluate individual performance to which the teacher may add reactions.

4) Grade themselves [new rights and responsibilities] with some teacher input.

5) Critique popular art forms (fashion design, advertisements, and films) and rituals (football games, going to the prom).

6) Videotape their celebration ritual for class review.

7) Organize art work, photographs, and written explanations of their ritual performance.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION In this paper, I suggest schooling as

a rite of passage in which behavior is structured, antistructured, or negotiated. I focus on preadolescents' rites of passage, separation, transition, and integration, and explore them for curricular implications. The separation stage is both institutional and social as preadolescents detach themselves to form informal groups. The transitional stage is a time for learning sacred lore

and rituals, to explore existential concerns, and for inquiry about ancestry, identity, and destiny matters. During transformation, humor is necessary for social survival and community so that creativity may occur. Finally, integration, whether formal or informal, is a period of release and transformation.

In this multicultural curriculum framework, the arts become means by which students can learn about and understand their transitory state, evident in past and world cultures, share visions and feelings, and transform themselves through legitimate art forms. Art inquiry and art- making become the modes for life and cultural understanding.

Mary Stokrocki is Professor ofArt Education, School ofArt, atArizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

NOTES 1Teachers also can show students the award-

winning video The Shadow Catcher (McLuhan, 1974) that features Edward Curtis's photography of the North American Indians. Curtis underwent initiation as a priest in the Hopi snake dance so that he could understand their spiritual lives and feelings.

2See Mary Erickson's "Our Place in the World," a program published on the Getty Education institute's web site (ArtsEdNet.getty.edu).

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Burton, J. (1981). Representing experiences: Ideas in search of forms. School Arts, 80 (5), 5864.

Cohen, D. (1991). The circle oflife: Ritualfrom the human family album. San Francisco: Harper.

Death: The trip of a lifetime. (1993). KCTS Television. Seattle WA. Palmer/Fenster, Inc.

Eisner, E. (1972). Educating artistic vision. New York: Macmillan.

Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The meaning ofstyle. New York: Methuen.

LeBlanc, AN. (1994, August 14). While Manny's locked up. The New York Times Magazine, 26-33.

Lowenfeld, V., & Brittain, W.L (1975). Creative and mental growth (6th ed.). New York: Macmillan.

McLauren, P. (1993). Schooling as a ritual performance. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

McLuhan, T.C. (Dir. & Prod.). (1974). The shadow catcher: Photo work of Edward Curtis and the North American Indians. New York: Phoenix Films.

Pomar, M.T. (1987). El dia de los muertos: The life of the dead in Mexican folk art. Fort Worth, TX: Fort Worth Art Museum.

Richards, A (1956). Chisungu:A girl's initiation ceremony among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia. NewYork: Grove.

Sahasrabudhe, P. (1993). Ancestral art objects as contextual anchors for a multicultural art curriculum. Paper presented at the INSEA Conference in Montreal, Canada.

Schele, L. (1986). The blood of kings: Dynasty and ritual in Mayan art. New York: George Braziller.

Stokrocki, M. (1982). Spheres of meaning: A qualitative description and interpretation of an art learning environment. Doctoral dissertation. The Pennsylvania State University.

Stokrocki, M. (1988). Teaching preadolescents during a nine-week sequence: The negotiator approach. Studies in Art Education, 30 (1), 3746.

Stokrocki, M. (1990). Problems in teaching art to preadolescents. Studies in Art Education, 31 (2), 106-117.

Stokrocki, M. (1996). Aparticipant observation study of how a middle school art teacher integrates multicultural art history with art making. In C. Henry (Ed.). Middle School Art: Issues of curriculum and instruction (pp. 35-55). Reston, VA: NAEA

Studio Potter Foundation (1988). The case for clay in art education. A symposium held at New York University, New York. Reprinted by National Art Education Association.

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Van Gennup, A (1961). The rites ofpassage. Chicago: University of Chicago.




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