National Art Education Association

Teaching Art from the inside outAuthor(s): Brian T. JeffersonSource: Art Education, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Mar., 1981), pp. 30+32Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3192536 .

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Teaching Art f r o t h I n i d eO u

Brian T. Jefferson "My Thesis, Then, Is That

the Individual Uniqueness of Every Student Forms the Foundation For Expressive

Activities and That Our Number One Priority As

Art Teachers Is To Assist Our Students in Identifying

Their Creative Expressive Potential."

Ladies and gentlemen, this course is Basic Design I, a survey course in which you will explore how the elements of line, color, value, texture, space, and shape are used to create successful visual arrangements. We will begin today with line, so I'm going to pass out a large sheet of white paper and a half sheet of black paper to each of you. While I'm doing that, please get out your scissors and glue. What I'd like you to do is cut your black paper into different sized strips and arrange them on your paper so that you have an interesting design.

This conversation is pretty typical of what is heard in art class-

rooms throughout the country. Such dialogues are natural extensions of curriculum designs that seek to pro- vide structured group art experience for students. The system has many advantages, not the least of which is that every student in Drawing I, De- sign II, or Painting III is exposed to the same experiences, allowing the next teacher a standard base to build upon. It looks good.on paper and con- fers legitimacy on the art program. Maybe we should be content with what we presently have ..... maybe. Let me explore that "maybe" by asking three questions. If the pres- ent curriculum structure is adequate, then: *Why is it that so few art students complete their artistic training with a real style of their own? *Why do so many art teachers comp- lain about their students' lack of commitment? *Why have sixty-three million recre- ational and leisure artists ignored the traditional art programs?

The answer for all three questions is that we as art educators have con- fused our priorities. We have been so anxious to be a respectable discipline like math, reading, and science that most of our energies have been de- voted to developing impressive cur- riculum packages. The result is that we can now go to student exhibitions and pick out very easily all the work done by the students in What- chamacallet's or Whosewhatsis' class. We see impressive imitations of Whatchamacallet's style or Whosewhatsis' technique. I have no intention of minimizing the need for technical skill, but I feel that such technical considerations will follow naturally if we focus on building each student's expressive choice.

What we have failed to do is show our students that art comes from within and that the very first priority in expressive activity is to find the self; thus learning art from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Let's stop offering the same old art experiences to our students that we had as students and take a fresh look at what our real responsibilities are. Let us take a philosophical and prag- matic stance and declare, "As art teachers our role is to assist individual students in achieving their own unique expressive goals." What I am propos- ing is not new. We have talked about it for a long time. We tell principals, superintendents, and school boards that the art program exists to offer students opportunities for personal expression. Yet, when administrators visit art classes, they are likely to see students moving through carefully structured art projects emphasizing the development of skills, not genuine artistic expression from within.

Art Education March 1981 30

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One essential condition in indi- vidual development we ought to rec- ognize is that working with one art material is not better than working with another, and one expressive style is not more praiseworthy than another. Heirarchical systems that place painting and drawing on a higher level than ceramics and weaving have restricted the free flow of expressive ideas and objects. Inner-outer expres- sion is based on the belief that a per- son who works in oils is no different than a person who works in leather and has chosen to work in oils be- cause it best meets his or her own ex- pressive needs. Similarly, a person who works abstractly is no closer to heaven than a person who works realistically, but has chosen abstrac- tion as a style that fits his or her ex- pressive needs. Thus many arts stu- dents lack commitment because they have never found anything worth committing themselves to. Nobody really ever asked them to think about what they wanted to say in paint, clay, or metal. Assignments were simply given with the expectation that they could be carried out to the instructor's satisfaction, and grades were assigned according to how closely the student approached the instructor's model.

I believe that the sixty-three million people that a recent Harris poll iden- tified as regular participants in art and craft activities have generally ignored our offerings because we have not been responsive to their needs. These artists do not go to art school, do not make art for a living, and do not ex- hibit their work in major art galleries. They elect to engage in art and craft activities for one simple reason: it makes them feel good. The only way we as art educators can function in this marketplace is to help those people feel even better about their ex- pressive activities by showing them how to achieve the results they feel are important. Very few of these people would consider taking a tradi- tional drawing or painting course at a local college. Yet we could not keep them away if they knew that art edu- cators respected them as artists and that art educators were dedicated to helping them achieve their artistic goals, whether they were as simple as learning how to make a tree look more wintery or as complex as preparing for a show in a local gallery. My thesis, then, is that the individual uniqueness

of every student forms the foundation for expressive activities and that our number one priority as art teachers is to assist our students in identifying their creative potential. This may sound great in theory, but let me as- sure you that it works even better in practice. It is a simple procedure that is initiated by having the student do some personal research to discover for himself what experiences, skills, and expressive art activities are best for him. I've identified three stages of personal research:

Experience Mapping An experience map summarizes the student's significant experiences in life. Students begin by listing approx- imately ten memorable experiences: a fine day of sailing or hitting a home run are possible examples of memora- ble experiences. There is a very good reason for choosing only positive life experiences: We feel good about them, and if we choose to express our feelings artistically, they should be expressions of our most cherished feelings. This survey process is de- signed to show the student what con- tent resources are already at hand.

Creative Mapping A creative map is a list of skills that are used in creative activities. Each student is given a check sheet of skills that are used in creative expression. These skills are categorized under three headings: intellectual, manipula- tive, and creative. Skills such as re- searching, testing, experimenting, sorting, classifying, defining, and composing are listed under the intel- lectual heading. Assembling, glueing, nailing, sewing, sanding, and drilling are listed as manipulative skills. Plan- ning, interpreting, innovating, adapt- ing, and imagining are listed as cre- ative skills. On the actual check sheet there might be several dozen skills listed in each category. The student simply writes down the events from the experience map, one in each col- umn at the top of the page, and goes down the list of skills that could apply. Every student will have an entirely different creative map which itself produces a very positive experience. This goes a long way toward keeping the "I can't draw" comments to a minimum, because the teacher can simply say, "Drawing may not be one of your highest rated skills, but you do

have other skills that you possess in great abundance. How about working on developing those?"

Preferred Media Mapping The third phase begins with matching the skills in the creative map with the skills most commonly used in draw- ing, painting, sculpture, and other art areas. The student knows by now what his/her interests are, and this, together with his experience map, stimulates thoughts about subject matter. He knows what skills he has so that it is not difficult to choose one or two areas of art that will allow him to use his skills and interests most ef- fectively. For example, if a student finds from his survey that he likes to work methodically, and prefers small scale objects, and is good at sawing, filing, and fabricating, jewelry would be a natural art area for him to select. I find it helpful to keep each art stu- dent's art map (a combination of the experience map and creative map and the preferred media map) in a file so that he or she can refer to it when nec- essary.

I have used this process with adults as well as with high school students and have had positive results in every case. Some students are reluctant to show their experience maps, and I never force them to. I can't emphasize enough how important this survey is, because having written proof of artis- tic skills goes a long way toward main- taining confidence in making art. This confidence combined with the knowl- edge that "arting" is personal and ought not be subject to others' value judgments encourages enthusiastic artistic involvement. Many children and adults consider themselves artis- tic cripples because they have had so many negative experiences trying to complete tasks assigned to them by other people. Consider the fact that every musician, poet, writer, or artist who has ever distinguished himself has done so by drawing from personal inner experiences, often after many years of searching. I suggest that we assist our fellow artists in the class- room in finding their inner creative self without years of searching so they may freely exercise their expressive rights.

Brian T. Jefferson is assistant profes- sor of art at Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia.

Art Education March 1981 32

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