what art teachers are not teaching, art students are not learning

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National Art Education Association What Art Teachers Are Not Teaching, Art Students Are Not Learning Author(s): Enid Zimmerman Source: Art Education, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 12-15 Published by: National Art Education Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3192741 . Accessed: 17/06/2014 00:36 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Education. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 194.29.185.145 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:36:37 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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National Art Education Association

What Art Teachers Are Not Teaching, Art Students Are Not LearningAuthor(s): Enid ZimmermanSource: Art Education, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 12-15Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3192741 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 00:36

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ArtEducation.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.145 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:36:37 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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What Art Teachers Are Not

Teaching, Art Students Are Not Learning

tercolor interpretation of a Cezanne painting by a sixth grade student in the Indiana University Summer Arts Institute.

Enid Zimmerman

ne of the most publicized contemporary studies of education, A Nation at Risk: Imperative for Educa-

tional Reform' (National Commission . .., 1983) has caused public concern and attention to problems our nation faces in terms of the status of its educa- tional system. This report has resulted in public attention to what children are learning and how they are being taught. The Commission "may be the first national body to insist. . . that in- attention to the schools puts the very

well-being of the Nation at risk" (Goldberg and Harvey, 1983, p. 15).

According to the Commission, mediocrity rather than excellence has become the norm in this nation's edu- cational systems. To remedy this situ- ation, the Commission made a number of recommendations. Secondary school curricula were described by the Commission as being "homogenized, diluted, and diffused to the point that they no longer have central purpose" (p. 18). They recommended that students seeking a high school diploma take a minimum number of courses in the New Basics: four years of English, three years of mathematics, three years of science, three years of social studies, and one half a year of computer

science. They also recommended profi- ciency in a foreign language and that schools " should provide students with programs requiring . .. subjects that advance students' personal, educa- tional, and occupational goals, such as the fine and performing arts and voca- tional education" (p. 26). It should be noted that the Commission did not recommend that arts courses be re- quired, only that they be provided.

The Commission came to the conclu- sion that when we expect too little of our students that is what we receive. More rigorous and higher expectations for both academic performance and student conduct were recommended to encourage academic excellence. The Commission also recommended that

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more effective use be made of available school time and that the amount of time for learning experiences be ex- tended. The shortage of qualified teachers due to poor pay and working conditions and the need for upgrading teacher preparation programs were also discussed in the report. Citizens across the nation were given the task of holding educators and elected officials responsible for providing leadership necessary to achieve these reforms. The report ends with an optimistic view that "Americans can do it" (p. 37). "(We) have succeeded before and so we shall again" (p. 36).

Two Other Recent Reports On the Status Of Educational Systems Other recent reports on the status of educational systems in the U.S. have also made recommendations for achieving quality education. The Twentieth Century Fund Task Force Report2 (Twentieth ..., 1983) came to the conclusion that elementary and secondary schools must provide minimum, core components for all students: basic skills of reading, writing, and calculating; technical capability in computers, training in science and foreign languages, and a knowledge of civics. The report stresses need for a continued federal role in improving education with incen- tives to improve the quality of educa- tion. Issues of quality education that must be addressed are recommended in language training and science and mathematics education; suggestions are made to augment the supply of teachers in these fields. The arts are not cited as fundamental to the purposes of our nation's schools. This report, as in A Nation At Risk, acknowledged the depressed state of the teaching profes- sion and suggested that means be found to attract the most able persons to the teaching profession and to keep excellent teachers in our nation's lassrooms.

The Educational Equality Project3 (College . . ., 1983) seeks to strengthen secondary education in the United States and to ensure equality of oppor- tunity in higher education. This project sought to define what students need to learn to be prepared for college. The six basic subject areas recommended in the academic preparation for college, as part of The Education Equality Pro- ject, are English, the arts, mathe-

matics, science, social studies, and foreign languages. In this report, the arts are included as one of the basic academic subject areas.

The inclusion of the arts as one of the basic subjects is thought by many to be revolutionary, since the arts have not always been thought of as part of the core curriculum. But the people who developed these statements were from the start very clear about the value of the arts as preparation for college study." (Bailey, 1983, p. 74)

Status of the Arts in the Three Reports All three reports emphasize the need to focus on quality, or excellence, if our nation's students are to become citizens educated to employ their full potential as enlightened human beings. These reports emphasize that current students are not prepared to make quality and excellence a priority in their class- rooms.

The status of the arts differs in these three reports. The Twentieth Century Fund Task Force Report does not men- tion the arts as a fundamental area of concern for our nation's schools. A Nation at Risk suggests that arts courses be provided but does not sug- gest requiring arts courses as part of the New Basics requirements. The Education Equality Project is the only one that includes the arts as basic academic subjects.

If the arts are to be valued and take their place along with other basic academic subjects, the current status of the arts in schools needs to be exam-

In this article . . . Zimmerman reviews

several reports, a survey, and an

assessment to back her claim that

"visual art students are not learning art

knowledge and skills because art teachers are not teaching art

knowledge and skills".

ined. If mediocrity rather than ex- cellence is the norm in arts classes across the country, indeed our nation is at risk. The question is, specifically, whether students are learning about, or learning to value, the visual arts. A related concern is the quality of teaching that students receive in schools. Art will not be considered a basic academic subject until teachers are teaching and students are learning specific art content and skills as part of a discipline-based art education pro- gram.

The National Assessment Of Educational Progress The National Assessment of Educa- tional Progress (NAEP) has completed two assessments of art in the public schools. The first was conducted dur- ing 1974, 1975, and the second during 1978, 1979. Each assessment surveyed student achievement and attitudes toward art of 9, 13, and 17 year olds. Results of the 1974-75 and 1978-79 NAEP assessments were discussed in five categories: art education and art experiences, valuing art, knowledge about art history, responding to art (perceiving, describing, analyzing, and judging), and design and drawing skills.

The most recent NAEP art assess- ment found that students whose parents had been educated beyond high school, whose homes contain books, magazines, newspapers, and encyclo- pedias, who attended schools in advan- taged urban areas, often visit art museums, engage in art and craft ac- tivities, or take an above average number of art courses perform better than the national average. Students who took many art classes did some- what better than average in valuing, knowing about, and making judgements about works of arts. They were not, however, better in their abili- ty to respond to works of art in terms of understanding and appreciation. Such students, whose performance was above average, did not perform at as high levels as was anticipated by the NAEP staff (NAEP, 1981, p. 4).

Most students approached works of art from narrow points of view and did not know how to perceive or respond to works of art well enough to ap- prehend their sensory qualities for making aesthetic judgements; most favored criteria based upon the depic-

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tion of realism for judging a work of art. Few could go beyond a work of art's subject matter to make aesthetic judgements. Seldom could half the students recognize famous works of art or identify when, where, or by whom art works were created. Answers to questions about chronology and art styles showed that most students could not categorize art works in these terms. The NAEP assessment concluded that the majority of students did not appear to draw or design particularly well. A shocking report of the NAEP assess- ment is that almost half the 17 year olds had never visited a museum or had been in one only once in their lives (NAEP, 1981, p. 19).

The NAEP assessment raises ques- tions about the quality of art teaching in our nation's schools. On only a few occasions did 17 year olds with four to six art classes perform differently than others their own age. "This find- ing raises interesting questions about the nature of high school art instruc- tion and characteristics of students who elect to take art classes" (NAEP, 1981, p. 61). Many art teachers "cling to the myth that if they teach art systematically or in a structured way they will destroy natural creativity" (p. 11). NAEP has suggested that art teachers move away from free expres- sion and imitative art activities toward the development of art making skills and include more instruction about perceiving, responding to, and evalu- ating aesthetic aspects of art works if students are to become artistically literate. There is little evidence that such instruction is taking place, presently, in our nation's schools.

Report 84: Arts Education in Grades 6 Through 9 In 1981, a national survey of arts teachers and supervisors, Research Report 84: Arts Education in Grades 6 Through 9, was also published (Crane ..., 1981). This national survey was designed to help the Agency for In- structional Television identify content areas and develop objectives for an in- structional television series in the arts.3 Specifically, arts teachers and visual arts, music, drama, and dance super- visors were surveyed. An Arts Educa- tion Questionnaire was distributed to the teachers, and a parallel survey was distributed to the supervisors. Surveys were returned from 50 states; almost

one fourth of the respondants taught in a suburb or large city. Less than 40% of the arts supervisors indicated that all students in their schools received for- mal arts instruction; one fourth of the supervisors reported that less than 50% of their students receive instruction in the arts in the school systems they supervise.

The goals and practices reported for arts education programs are of par- ticular interest. Teachers and super- visors were requested to rate the impor- tance of a variety of goals for their arts programs. Visual arts teachers rated stimulating creative ability of students highest, while music teachers rated developing skill performance highest. Developing knowledge of the arts (history, etc.) was rated lowest by all arts teachers and supervisors. Open ended responses indicated that all arts teachers felt that social skill develop- ment (as self-esteem, personal fulfill- ment, etc.) and career development were important goals for arts educa- tion programs.

Teachers were asked to indicate what percentage of their teaching was spent in activities that promoted performing, appreciating, understanding, and/or knowing about the arts, as well as creating the arts. Visual arts teachers reported that they spent 68%0 of their time teaching for creativity; teachers of other arts emphasized performing. The 68% figure was the highest percentage given by any arts teachers in any of the categories.

A sharp contrast was found between art and music supervisors' perceptions of how much influence teachers have on their schools' arts curriculum. Visual arts supervisors reported that visual art teachers had more than 60% influence on their schools' art cur- riculum. Music supervisors reported that music teachers influenced only 33% of their schools' music cur- riculum.

When arts teachers were asked to select the two most important types of materials for their teaching, materials for development of creative ability (49%) and developing appreciation, value, and respect for the arts (43%) were the two most popular. Materials for teaching understanding and knowl- edge of the arts were chosen by 31 % of all arts teachers. Visual arts teachers, however, selected materials that focused on developing creative abilities

(63%), relating art to students' lives (45%), developing appreciation, value, and respect for the arts (41%), and for teaching knowledge and understanding of the arts (37%0). On open ended ques- tions, visual art teachers indicated that art history, art appreciation, career education, new technologies and media, and field trips were important for a visual art program but that they were areas not included in their school's art programs (Crane Research .., 1981, p. 22, p. 24).

Toward Excellence in Our Schools' Art Programs Considering all these assessment reports and surveys, it appears that visual art students are not learning art knowledge and art skills in their classrooms. Art teachers appear to have a great amount of influence on the curricula they are teaching and a cycle has been established whereby the majority of art teachers do not teach valuing art, knowledge about art history, responding to art, or design and drawing skills, and do not take op- portunities to broaden areas they report as important to teach. Although teachers indicated, in Report 84. Arts Education Grades 6 Through 9, that they would like to teach other areas beside creativity and social skills, they do not teach these other areas in their classrooms.

According to Clark and Zimmerman (1981), the content of art education should consist of knowledge, under- standing, and skills drawn from the disciplines of art history, aesthetics, art criticism, and art production for art education to be meaningful. But this art content must take the form of ap- propriately structured learning ex- periences developed from the discipline of education. In this way, art educa- tion may come to be viewed as a discipline in its own right and therefore be considered one of the basic academic subjects fundamental to each student's education.

For art to become a discipline in its own right, art teachers' and art super- visors' priorities in terms of what will be taught and how it will be taught must be changed. In the past, there have been many art education pro- grams that sought to upgrade student skills by establishing enrichment ac- tivities and special afterschool or sum- mer programs, but only a small

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I r I - _ K

A torn-paper collage interpretation of a painting by Picasso by an eighth grade student in the Indiana University Summer Arts Institute.

number of interested students have been involved in these programs. A more fruitful direction would be to develop programs for art supervisors, school administrators, and in-service and preservice teachers that focus on formulating discipline-based visual arts curricula.

One such program, The Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts, part of the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, focuses upon school personnel development (Duke, 1983). This pro- gram is designed to provide elementary teachers, administrators, and school policy makers with information and skills necessary to develop and imple- ment a discipline based visual arts education program in their school districts. Curriculum changes can have a lasting effect, the Getty Institute believes, if there is substantive teacher- training, continued classroom assis- tance, support of school policy makers, local development of educa- tional materials, and emphasis on teacher participation in curricular deci- sion making. More programs, such as the Getty program, should be insti- tuted for visual arts teachers at elemen- tary, junior high, and secondary levels so that art teachers are educated beyond such narrow goals as im- proved self-concepts and creativity. Discipline centered art education cur- ricula, such as those designed by Chap- man (1978), Clark and Zimmerman

(1978), Efland (1970), and Eisner (1969) need to become the basis of art teacher training and in-service pro- grams. These programs emphasize developing students' art knowledge, understandings, and skills evidenced in improvement of student performance on art assessment and upgrading teacher expectations and standards for student performance. Our nation could then move toward an artistically literate citizenship, in the next decade, if art teachers were willing to risk changing their priorities and emphasiz ing the teaching, of art knowledge, understandings, and skills appropriate to the students they are teaching. U

Enid Zimmerman is an Assistant Pro- fessor of Art Education at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

References

Bailey, A.Y. (1983). The education equality project: Focus on results. Phi Delta Kappan, 65 (1), 22-25.

Chapman, L. (1978). Approaches to art in education. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

Clark, G. and Zimmerman, E. (1978). A walk in the right direction: A model for visual arts education. Studies in Art Educa- tion, 19 (2), 34-49.

Clark, G. and Zimmerman, E. (1981). Toward a discipline of art education. Phi Delta Kappan, 63 (1), 53-55.

College Examination Board (1983). Educational equality project of the college

board: Academic preparation for college. New York: The College Board, 1983.

Crane Research Communications, Inc. (1981). Report 84 - Arts education in grades 6 through 9: A national survey of arts teachers and supervisors. Bloomington, IN: Agency for Instructional Television.

Duke, L.L. (1983). The Getty center for education in the arts. Art Education, 36 (5), 4-8.

Efland, A. (Ed.) (1970). Guidelines for planning art instruction in the elementary schools of Ohio. Columbus: State of Ohio Department of Education.

Eisner, E.W. (1969). Teaching art to the young: A curriculum development project in art education. Stanford, CA: Stanford University School of Education.

Goldberg, M. and Harvey, J.A. (1983). A nation at risk: The report of the national commission on excellence in education. Phi Delta Kappan, 65 (1), 14-18.

National Assessment of Educational Pro- gress. (1977). Design and drawing skills (Art Report No. 06-A-01). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

National Assessment of Educational Pro- gress. (1981). Art and young Americans. (Art Report No. 10-a-01). Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States.

National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). Final report - A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform (Report No. 065-00000-1772). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Prin- ting Office.

Twentieth Century Fund Task Force. (1983). Report on Federal elementary and secondary policy. New York: Twentieth Century Fund. Footnotes

1. This was a report to the nation and the Secretary of Education by the National Commission on Excellence in Education. Excerpts from A Nation at Risk can be found in the following sources: A nation at risk: Imperative for educational reform, American Education, 1983, 19 (5), 2-17 and Final report: National commission on ex- cellence in education, A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform, The Education Digest, 1983, 19 (1), 36-40.

2. The Twentieth Century Fund, based in New York City, is an independent research foundation that undertakes studies of public policy. Excerpts from the Twen- tieth Century Fund Report can be found in the following sources: The twentieth cen- tury fund task force report on improving public schools, Education Digest, 1983, 49 (2), 26-39 and Farrell, C.S. Federal commit- ment to excellence in education urged by panel. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1983, 27 (11), 5.

3. This series, Arts Alive, is scheduled for release early in 1984. Zimmerman has been the visual arts consultant for this series.

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