“They might learn to describe works in terms of their formal elements, but rarely can they explain how these function to contribute to a work’s expressive power or how the expressed content reflects the perceived realities that fit its cultural location.”This is a quote from a book I’ve just started reading called Art and Cognition: Integrating the Visual Arts in the Curriculum, by Arthur D. Efland. I’d have to say that this statement is generally true and reflects what goes on in every lesson in every Art classroom that I’ve ever been in… including my own. I teach what I’ve been taught. In every curriculum or standards writing workshop I’ve been to art teachers go on and on about the elements and principals of Art as if to say that if we break Art down into it’s basic quan
tifiable parts and teach the kids to memorize, analyze, and organize these elements and principles then we’ll have taught them something worthwhile. I’ve always found these kinds of discussions dusty and pedantic… I’ve actually heard teachers arguing over what is and isn’t an element. Who cares? I get it that certain artists have taken a very clinical approach to these “building blocks” and done wonderful and meaningful work but I can’t think of any that have started any work with a thought about them; rather our work begins with other things and as the work progresses we consider the elements and principles more or less intuitively and instinctively… or… more or less reasoned and calculated. I’m now beginning again to look at curriculum, having never been satisfied with the current version (usually something I’ve inherited and modified slowly over time), and I’m looking at the Standard for Art Education (National and State). I’m finding myself again at odds with this insistence that kids be made to “know the elements and principles…”Let them explore Art and it’s meanings for them as well as for others... we can worry about the elements and principles as we go along.
