dissertation proposal by temi rose 2/20/02
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: THE PROBLEM STATEMENT
A National Perspective
Art in Academia: Valuing Aesthetic Cognition
Technology in Education: Ethical Considerations
Art and ritual.
Learning, Change and Democracy
Rationale for this Study
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction: Weaving a Web
Art in Schools: Theory
Justice, Responsibility and Care
Conversational Reality
Motivation and Learning
Adult Education
Action Research: Methodology and Principles
Art in Schools: Practice
Technology in Schools
Conclusion: Seeking an Articulation
CHAPTER III: METHOD
The Site
The Participants
Data Sources
Procedure
Researcher's Role
Data Analysis
APPENDIX I - THE STATE GUIDELINES FOR TECHNOLOGICAL
EDUCATION
APPENDIX II - THE STATE GUIDELINES FOR ART EDUCATION
APPENDIX III – LETTER FROM RESEARCHER TO THE CAMPUS
LEADERSHIP COMMITTEE
APPENDIX IV– FROM THE FINE ARTS ACADEMY COORDINATOR:
E-MAIL INITIATING CONTACT WITH RESEARCH COMMUNITY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ART IN SCHOOLS: THEORY
Democracy and Education (1916), Art as Experience (1934), and Experience and
Education (1938): It always seemed to me that there was one book missing in
Dewey’s astounding trilogy, a book that would bring together Dewey’s
vivid descriptions of living democratic action with his equally vivid depiction
of thinkers as creators. I want Dewey to have written a book called Democracy
as Art, and then a further elucidation entitled, Art and Education. I cannot
produce these non-existent works by John Dewey, instead, in this study I offer
to describe how the relationship between democracy, education, experience, and
art was supported during an action initiative to integrate technology into a
high school art curriculum. The philosophical questions this study explores
concern the interrelationship between art, experience, education and democracy
interrelate and how their co-operative evolution might be supported by technology.
My wondering on these issues is continuous and drew me to work as a consultant
in education.
Since the purpose of this study was to integrate technology into the art curriculum, we will begin the literature review with a discussion of art education theories that are particularly relevant to issues that affect the participant art teachers and their curriculum.
The following section will an overview of the work of theorists who have made
significant contributions to the present understanding of art curricula in our
educational system: John Dewey, Eliot Eisner, Jerome Bruner, Arthur Efland,
Nelson Goodman, Howard Gardner, and Maxine Greene.
Art in the Curriculum
Dewey pointed out that knowledge is embedded in, and derives from, experience. And that, for democracy to exist, democratic experiences must play a significant role in education. For Dewey, art’s cultural significance primarily lay in its practice. Dewey understood artistic praxis as a process involving simultaneous engagement with the tangible and the intangible. Dewey’s thrilling assertion that people are the means and the ends of education, art, experience and democracy has yet to be realized but remains a focus of many educational efforts.
Eliot Eisner (1976, 1978, 1985a, 1985b, 1994, 1998, 1999) argued eloquently that art belonged in the core curriculum. Eisner’s argument focused on the necessity of creating standards, and evaluation systems that would guarantee art the standing of an academic subject. Eisner's thought derive from and art criticism perspective. First introduced by Eisner, the concept of discipline-based art curricula, presently practiced in the state in which this study occurred, is now supported by the J. Paul Getty Foundation. Discipline-based arts as a cognitive and organizational structure for the art curriculum, makes assessment and evaluation more coherent for educational practitioners steeped in the ethos of pragmatic efficiency. Eisner has been successful: the justification for the centrality of art in the curriculum has been incorporated in the national standards and perhaps needs no further argument at this time (See Appendix 2).
Jerome Bruner (1985, 1986, 1990, 1996) is another theorist who has contributed a great deal of writing in support of creative thinking as an indispensable element of cognitive constructivism. Bruner’s appreciation of art education located art within a socio-constructivist philosophy of education. In Bruner’s model teachers are responsible for creating learning situations and environments in which students are able to actively participate in activities that purportedly lead them to comprehending extant theoretical models in the particular domain. Art and science are equally well suited to Bruner’s hands-on, participatory model of education because a melding of theory and practice is crucial in the practice of both disciplines.
Arthur Efland (1990, 1996) is another theorist who has had a fundamental impact on art education theory. Efland is an art historian whose work illuminated cultural attitudes manifesting in the purposes and values of art education. Efland suggested that the use of educational objectives forced educators to treat knowledge as a commodity rather than a process. Based on available information and skill, through the co-creation of meaning, within the context of living moments of experienced reality and relationship, knowledge emerges from synthesis. This view of knowledge Efland opposed to the view of knowledge as made and available for distribution. He asserted that the conceptualization of knowledge as a commodity, as already having been made, contributed to the sustenance of illegitimate social control. In Efland’s view, knowledge to be distributed is inimical to a democratic conception of learning.
Efland used Polanyi's (1966) definition of tacit knowledge to argue that understanding that is present but not yet articulated would always be greater than articulated knowledge. If art educators were allowed to recognize and value tacit understanding, there would be an appreciable difference in their curricular assessments and evaluations. Efland's position poses a strong counter-argument to the work of the discipline-based arts theorists.
Whatever theoretical position one prefers with respect to art education, it is clear that the discussion surrounding evaluation and assessment has occupied a central place in the theoretical discussion on art education. Perhaps there is room for a few new approaches to art education. This study would like to share relational descriptions from the point of view of exercising the ethic of care in a democratic change initiative involving art and technology in the hope of complicating and extending the conversation of what is appropriate for serious theoretical discussion in art education.
The following subsection will consider aspects of Gardner’s and Goodman’s theories of art and intelligence salient to this study.
Creative and Critical Thinking
Two theorists who have had profound effects on art education have been involved
in Project Zero, Nelson Goodman and Howard Gardner. Founded in 1967 by Nelson
Goodman, Project Zero is a research group based at Harvard investigating aesthetic
education, and the relationship between critical and creative thinking. When
Nelson Goodman founded Project Zero, it was for the purpose of supporting research
that would lead to the improvement of the teaching of art. The reason given
for naming the project "zero" was that there were zero studies on
art education that Goodman thought worth mentioning at the time. Gardner was
co-director of Project Zero from 1972 until 2000.
Goodman was an art collector and from ran an art gallery in Boston for several decades. In his book, Ways of Worldmaking (1978), Goodman contended that art is a way of making worlds. According to Goodman, there are many different worlds contained in our one world; and no necessary antagonism need exist between a pluralistic concept of experience and the notion of a unified world because these are compatible perspectives. From the particular point of view of individual experience, there are many, unique worlds. From the point of view of shared reality, we are living in one world together. The many worlds described are our lived, experiential worlds, reminiscent of Habermas’ concept of the lifeworld (1973, 1984). Goodman’s concept of the world we share is essentially an epistemological word developed to empirically describe the world in which our individual existences take their part. Goodman’s idea of worldmaking was that people engage in a process of making the world, and that art is the means through which we explore possible worlds before we commit to living them. Therefore possible worlds are the possible futures from which people will extract elements for making their lived worlds.
Another important idea that Goodman contributed to the arts education conversation is summarized in phrasing that has a distinctly Zen qualities. Goodman stated that he would have us rid ourselves of the onus of trying to solve the famously unanswerable question, "What is art?" and ask instead, "When is art?" When is art was meant to throw the focus of analytic attention and conversation onto the living moments, and the processes involved in the making, and in the interpretation of art. Goodman wrote extensively in the areas of logic and was a brilliant example of someone fully capable of working with all types of cognition; he was particularly capable in combining critical and creative thinking.
Developed under the aegis of Project Zero, Gardner’s (1983) theory of multiple intelligences proposed a complex view of education. Gardner contended that there were seven types of intelligence (bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, spatial, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and logical-mathematical). Gardner’s premise brought forward questions concerning how we might teach for the development of multiple intelligences and how we might assess and evaluate learning and teaching in multiplicity of modes. Gardner’s premise has also increased awareness regarding the value of all types of intelligence and the contributions each has made to society. Interestingly, all Gardner’s types of intelligence are practiced in the arts. It is important to remember also that there really is no limit to the possible combinations of types of intelligence. For instance, we can easily find examples of linguistic-kinesthetic, spatial-logical-mathematical, and musical-intrapersonal.
Gardner’s theory is compatible with that of Hirst (1974) who claimed that there are fundamental knowledge domains that embody, in their epistemological structure, different types of reasoning. Hirst’s suggestion was that each knowledge domain was cognitively unique; therefore every domain should be included in the curriculum to ensure the development of a fully rounded cognition. The theories of Gardner and Hirst have been used to argue in support of experimental forms of education, such as team teaching, collaborative learning, inter-disciplinary, and arts-based curricula. Information technology has been thought to be effective support for a variety of learning styles; and a great deal of research has developed around computer supported collaborative learning. (Baecker, Grudin, Buxton & Greenbert 1995; Bostrom, Watson, & Kinnet 1992; Chan & Chou 1997.
The following discussion on the philosophy of Maxine Greene, will be the last subsection in this section on art theory in the schools.
Becoming Who We Are
Maxine Greene (1978, 1988, 1995, 1998, 2001) dedicated herself to creating an
awareness of the kinship between the educational and the artistic process. From
Greene we learn that art has the power to educate. Greene inspired many teachers
and administrators to use art for personal and professional inspiration. Greene
is credited as being a founder of the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts
in Education. This organization provides workshops, lectures, and programs for
pre-service teachers, practitioners, and entire schools. An interdisciplinary
program dedicated to the integration of the arts and artistic process into the
curriculum; this project has had immense impact on practitioners.
Greene’s educational philosophy is eclectic. She combines a sensitivity to women’s issues, and a sense of the teacher as artist, with the understanding of teacher as a professional practitioner. She is an advocate for democratic practice in all aspects of education. Education, according to Greene, is about people, about learning to participate in a continual act of becoming through self-reflection, discipline, and celebration. Greene furthered the educational conversation by imagining a place for art, artists, and the artistic process in education. Greene often repeated the phrase, "I am not yet" (Pinar, 1998). We are always not yet fully who we might be; we are always in a process of becoming, and art is the quintessential medium for exploring issues of becoming who we are.
Just as a natural scientist observes nature attempting to find meaning in natural phenomena, Greene, Harrison (1913, 1962, 1973), and Dissanayake observed art in an attempt to find meaning in cognitive-spiritual imagination. Greene called on educators to mine works of art for the resonant truth, awkward beauty, and complexity of goodness that can be found there. She contended that the experience of studying and making art in the classroom was a liberating experience, both for the student and for the learner. Greene explained how teachers can honor their own learning process.
The book s that I wish Dewey had written, Democracy as Art and Art and Education would have addressed the living, creative, process nature of culture and how education might support and guide this process in the direction of democratic possibilities. These imaginary books would have combined Dewey’s understanding of art as a disciplined conversation between human beings and their ontological conceptions, a conversation that creates expressions that lead us into the future, with Dewey’s perception of democracy as a practical, rational attempt to live in ethical relationship with others. Maybe he would have written these books in collaboration with Maxine Greene, as they have as much or more in common than Dewey did with his famous friend, Jane Addams. Enough fantasy!
Summary: The Practicality of Diversity
There is commonality between Greene’s conception of art as an act of becoming,
and Vygotsky’s (1962, 1971) and Shotter’s (1993a) explications of
the role that conversation plays in generating cognition, theories that are
discussed later in this review, in the section on conversational reality. Greene’s
philosophy is also compatible with Dewey’s theory of art and education
as experience, and education as democratic practice. Goodman’s concept
of worldmaking and Gardner’s concept of multiple intelligences support
a pluralistic concept of cognition and the realization of alternative forms
of education. Hirst also argued for the need to offer education that responds
to a diversity in cognitive forms. Maxine Greene and John Dewey wrote and argued
for person-centered education that honors the immediate, relational, and self-reflective
experience, the sort of experience that is intrinsically aesthetic and practical.
The potentials of technology to support, serve, and perhaps even extend these
worldmaking and pluralistic concepts was the potential that excited and inspired
me to pursue this action research study.
In this section art education theory was discussed; the following section will initiate a second thread in the discussion. The next section will discuss moral orientations and the applicability of an ethic of care to educational projects in democratic institutions. next