Sandra Johnson
As recently as the ’80s, no one owned computers or had even heard of mobile phones. Research happened in libraries, and teachers spent many hours making visual resources for pupils.
Now, television sets have screens that double as computers. Stoves and washing machines are computerised, and there is more sophisticated technology in an ordinary mobile phone than was used to successfully achieve the first moon landing. Smart boards are used in classrooms to access the internet as resources for teaching. The world has moved ahead at an alarming speed.
One may argue that if the purpose of education is to prepare children for the future worlds, then there is little point in encouraging them to consider the ways in which they draw, dance, sing or express themselves creatively.
This, however, demonstrates a superficial understanding of the purpose of the arts, and of their value in the holistic education of the children who live in this transforming world.
The arts encourage children to think for themselves, and to find unique solutions to the problems they confront. They explore their interactions with the world in a meaningful way.
In visual art, while they are drawing or painting, children are encouraged to observe and use line, tone, texture, shape and colour.
They begin with blank sheets of paper, and end with a personal mark, a statement of who they are, and of how they see their worlds.
When they work in three dimensions, children come to a new understanding of shape in space, and of the way that they move and interact with the world. They learn new skills and techniques, and levels of self-respect rise as they create individual objects that are a statement of their developing awareness of concepts like “behind”, “on top of” and “below”.
A new addition to the current curriculum is visual literacy. This encourages children to be able to see, interact with and express their worlds in visually literate terms. They are able to notice the aesthetics of the environment around them, and also to recognise and interpret through the art elements and design principles, which embrace concepts like contrast, proportion and balance.
There are no right or wrong answers in the arts, and children are given the freedom, and the responsibility to think critically, and to make and understand their own interpretations of the world. They reflect, create, learn skills, and express themselves.
These benefits equip them to live in a rapidly changing world, and to find personal solutions to challenges that we have never before had to confront. Creative, critical thinking is essential to the survival of the human race.
We do not know how technology will change the world in the next 10 years, and yet we believe that we are appropriately educating the children of today, who will be the decision-making inhabitants of that future world.
There are other values associated with a sound visual art education. Some teachers are not aware that all children are born with an innate subjective knowledge, and feelings that they may not be able to express verbally.
This instinctive, felt, non-verbal knowledge can only be expressed and made visible through the child’s art and should be guided by a teacher who knows and understands the creative development of the child.
Children who are poor achievers in mathematics and the sciences are often bright beings who have a strongly developed creative side. They are frequently able to achieve in the arts, which improves their self-esteem.
Working with clay and other materials encourages the development of fine motor skills, encouraging focus and concentration. Working in groups inspires shared ideas, paired learning, and developed social skills.
Beyond school, there is the economy of our country. We rely on income from tourism, and tourists want to see and take home our unique culture. They visit theatres, and buy arts and crafts as gifts and mementoes.
If we believe that we are preparing children for their place in the future world, then we should also be preparing them to adequately fulfil this space.
In a perfect world, there would be balance between the arts and the sciences, and children should be equally educated through all of these disciplines. The benefits of this kind of equality are crucial.
However, it becomes clear that mathematics and the sciences are regarded as the most important subjects in this rapidly transforming world, and these subjects are foregrounded in the school curriculum. The National Department of Basic Education even provides Funza Lushaka bursaries to encourage education students to specialise in these subjects in their undergraduate years of teacher education.
In the current curriculum, six hours a week are allocated for mathematics in the intermediate phase, and three hours and 30 minutes for natural sciences and technology. In this quest to gain supremacy for the sciences, the arts are marginalised.
The time allocation is 90 minutes a week to be divided between all four of the arts disciplines. There are no bursaries offered for the specialisation of the arts in intermediate-phase teacher education.
The result is that the arts are largely taught by generalist teachers who lack the enthusiasm, the content knowledge and the pedagogical skills that are necessary for meaningful teaching and learning in these disciplines.
There is little time for conscious professional growth, for learning new skills, or for developing their practices as visual art teachers.
Educators who are tasked with teaching visual art are encouraged to attend the Atasa symposium. The organisational company Sorted has dedicated its expertise to assisting with the administration of the symposium.
l Teachers who would like to attend the exhibition, which is a free event, or who would like to enrol for the symposium can contact James Smal at [email protected]. The cost is R300, and includes refreshments and all materials.
l Dr Johnson is a senior lecturer and subject co-ordinator: creative arts in the faculty of education and social sciences at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.