Jean
Geller's 3rd & 4th Grade Class
• Lab School for Creative Learning • Ft. Collins, CO • Fall 2004 •
Photographed by A. A. Schorsch
|
In
the final analysis it is not what you do for your children
but what you have taught them to do for themselves
that will make them successful human beings.
~ Ann Landers
Where Art Education Fits into the Curriculum
by A. A. Schorsch
Modern artists are notorious for looking at the artwork of children for
inspiration. Picasso said that as a youth he could paint like a master but
it took him a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child. What is it in
children’s art that is sought after by so many accomplished artists? What is
it that we lose when we grow up and learn “better” ways?
As a parent, I know firsthand what draws me to my son’s art—it is his
spontaneity, not only in imagery but in his unconventional use of materials.
As a toddler, he knew of no other way than his own, than what he invented
himself. There were no rules; just materials readily available. My own
personal artwork has grown, has become more free, a direct result of the
influence of my son.
Elementary school children, their spontaneity, their joy of learning still
present, unaffected yet by years of following rules, readily connect with
the magic of the world that surrounds them. As an adult I have witnessed
this magic as I observe their joy in watching a ladybug crawl across a leaf,
in their squeals of laughter as rain falls upon their faces, or in their
look of sheer ecstasy as they observe green, seemingly magically, appear
from a mixture of blue and yellow paint.
The role, then, of art education, is to build upon these innate abilities without overshadowing them. At its best, art education builds upon the innate curiosity of youth; it develops students' ability to see, as well as, their ability to record what they "see" as observed through their physical eyes or conceived in the imagination through their "mind's eye".
When students are engaged in personally-significant, inquiry-based art projects, they develop their problem-solving skills; skills that will help them in every facet of their adult lives from their capacity to connect intra and inter-personally, as well as, their ability to apply higher-order thinking skills in the work place. When students are given the opportunity to generate original, personal ideas, and, are encouraged to develop their ideas from conception, through the multiple stages of modification, analysis, and synthesis, the ultimate result is an end product, an artwork, that not only has changed through the process, but has changed the student, as well; it is a product that a student is pleasantly surprised by its quality and depth, an original artwork that a child is proud to share with the world.
Ultimately, art education will prepare our youth for the future, not by teaching the Elements of Art or the Principles of Design, or by teaching a child how to throw a pot or use overlapping, (although it does these, as well), but by teaching our youth how to think, how to see, how to problem-solve, how to generate ideas and implement them, and, how to share them with the world.
© A. A. Schorsch. contact
Every child is an artist.
The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
~ Pablo Picasso
