the trojan horse of glass: a cabalistic theory of recent developments in art education

National Art Education Association

The Trojan Horse of Glass: A Cabalistic Theory of Recent Developments in Art EducationAuthor(s): Vincent LanierSource: Art Education, Vol. 31, No. 6 (Oct., 1978), pp. 12-15Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3192290 .

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12 Art Education, October 1978



conspiracies are not necessarily evil. For example, the revolutionary activities of our "founding fathers" were certainly conspiratorial. Most, however, would find them praiseworthy, at least from the hindsight of today. Thus, the reader is welcome to accept and employ the theory and yet ignore my alarm and concern.

Now as to the events which require the theory. First of all, they are all public and available. That is to say that one need have no secret documents, gossip, or rumors to be adequately in- formed as to what is going on. In fact, unprecedented national publicity is one of the salient characteristics of these events. Secondly, all of them af- fect every single one of us in art education; they are not localized as to geography or academic level. Third, they appear at this writing to be gain- ing momentum and increasing in tempo. More is happening more quickly.

Perhaps the most significant of these events, or at least the most re- vealing of them, is the Rockefeller Commission Report, Coming to Our Senses. Here the entire scenario for the future is ingenuously displayed in storyboard fashion, a sort of Mein Kampf for the arts. Less obvious but no less important on the operational level are some other happenings such as:

1) The slow but undeflected ad- vance of the Artist-In-School program, with respect to both its size and its influence in our thinking.

2) The significant proliferation of arts organizations, both inside and outside of government, on the federal, regional, state, and local levels.

3) The sudden emergence of a rather small handful of people, whose voices are heard everywhere and who speak for the arts with apparent sin- cerity and unquestionable authority.

4) The growing rash of news items and articles in newspapers and quasi-popular periodicals which manifest a surprisingly similar ideological vision of the role of the visual arts and the other arts in education.1

There are, of course, a respectable number of other occurrences in the same vein, but these four would seem to provide enough of what empirical researchers might call raw data.

Now as to the theory that is sup- posed to explain these events. Simply stated, it is that there is a cabal of bureaucrats and citizenry involved in the sub-culture of the arts, whose purpose is to subvert and control teaching of the various arts. They have appeared in true Trojan horse manner in our midst (though quite transparently) and are busily-and at the moment quite successfully- positioning themselves to replace art educators in the decision-making rel- ative to curriculum, methodology, cer- tification, and teacher preparation (in

effect, all art education policy). The cabal is the tail that wags the dog and proposes to wag it out of existence.

As was noted earlier, there is no problem in identifying some of the members of this conspiracy. They are the leadership of the National Endow- ment for the Arts, the Alliance for Arts Education, the arts people at the U.S. Office of Education, and the Rockefel- ler organizations involved in the arts.2 Those who are close to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., can easily add to this list. Furthermore, each of us all over the nation can iso- late those local, state, and regional figures who serve to implement the policies of the cabal in these more lim- ited contexts.

It should be possible at this point to test the theory in some reasonable fashion. This might best be done by developing hypotheses derivative of the theory, to see if they are supported in the statements of intent of the cabal or, in particular, in the Rockefeller Commission Report, which appears to be designed as their program for the future. These hypotheses might include:

1) There should eventually be no more art education (or music, drama, or dance education) but only "arts" education in the schools and, presumably, outside the schools as well. One does not need to read all 334 pages of the report to validate this point. The recommendations alone bear witness to the intended elimina- tion of the various specific arts disci- plines as they are presently consti- tuted. The constant repetition of the term "arts specialist" and the infre- quency of reference to "art teacher" (though, strangely, "art educator" appears on p. 254) reveals this direc- tion.

2) The curricula of arts education should be formulated by those who do not represent the traditional arbiters of curriculum in the public schools, that is, those who teach and study education in each of the arts. Coming to Our Senses recommends very spe- cifically that "Arts teachers, arts specialists and artists take part in all phases of program planning and basic curriculum developments for each school system."3 As this particular recommendation makes quite clear, the locus of power with respect to children's activities in art will be among the multi-discipline personnel of the school, or even outside the school, if the artist designated is not a school employee.

3) Those who teach art in the schools (and, I suspect, teach art education in the colleges) should be re- placed by artists and arts specialists. The report is never clear about who will teach what and seems to ignore any consistent distinction among age levels. Nevertheless, it does un- equivocally state: "Teacher certifica-

tion standards be waived for all artists in residence and visiting artists partic- ipating in academic programs."4 Later it recommends that "State and district supervisory personnel have budgetary discretion... to hire noncertified personnel, that is, artists."5 Art (and music) teachers will, apparently, have to be retrained as arts teachers or re- tired or re-oriented to teaching non- art subjects. While the report does not confront this issue, its preference is unmistakable.

4) Though the report is even less clear on the intricacies of teacher preparation than it is on who will teach what in the school, it does seem to suggest that some sort of art or arts education be conducted, ostensibly in the colleges. Two recommendations are noteworthy: "The training of all teachers include an introduction to existing research on aesthetic growth, personality development, and the unique nature of creative individuals," and "Arts specialists have mastery of their particular art forms and the competency to teach them."6 These sound suspiciously like what we now call art education and seem to be out of phase with the rest of the report.

However, there is an entire section on "Leaders" with the recommendation:

A national task force be created to assess current arts education leadership and to recommend ways to infuse the field with the necessary leadership skills, including management, political action, and human relations. It would seem that leadership for

the new arts education will come from or be guided by a different segment of the art world than is presently the case. Instead of professors of art education or teachers or supervisors of art, the new breed of professional will be, it would seem, the arts bureaucrat.

5) Policy with respect to the four points above and other issues should be decided by a number of bureaucratic constructs in addition to those of the present cabalistas. Though the report professes: "We believe that the key to good arts education will not be found in bureaucratic systems or or- ganizational structures..."8, it does recommend a vast number of new agencies and projects. These include a cabinet level secretary for Educa- tion, with a Special Advisor for the Arts in Education, a special White House Advisor for the Arts, a new federal agency called the National Center for the Arts in Education, a National Citizens Council for the Arts in Educa- tion appointed by the President, two five-year plans for national strategy for the arts in education developed by the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, a "saturation" pilot program in three cities of moderate size, a high-ranking "assistant" in arts education for each state governor, a

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policy partnership between "state arts agencies" and state departments of education, and a National Institute for the Study of Arts, Aesthetics and Edu- cation.9

It would seem that there is no lack of evidence to validate the cabal theory. Moreover, it should be noted that the theory and its supporting ma- terial are, up to this point, substan- tially value-free. To the conspirators and their supporters, the future as de- scribed in the five points above is clear, bright, and desirable. This is precisely what should happen to art education (and music, dance, and drama education) and the sooner the better. Others might disagree. The question raised by this paper is: What do those who are presently teaching art and studying the teaching of art (and the other arts) think of this scenario? Are they fully aware of its implications, some of which we have attempted to outline here? It is still, presumably, an axiom of our political tradition, that whenever possible those affected by the consequences of a decision should have some voice in the making of that decision. That this has not been done is also quite clear.

On the other hand, the results, had we been consulted, are far from pre- dictable. Art education presently suf- fers from a serious case of economic malnutrition and has always been the victim of massive feelings of inferior- ity with reference to artists, art critics, and art historians, bureaucrats-in fact, almost everyone else in the art world. Perhaps if we had been asked, we would have gladly (and rather des- perately) embraced the policies of the cabal. I do not myself believe that would have been the case, but I am far from certain.

Finally, some observations need to be made. It should be unnecessary to note that these comments are entirely personal. I speak for no group, agency, or institution, and only in the spirit of that venerable exercise sen- tence, "Now is the time for all good ..." I will list these observations for the sake of coherence:

1. As a professional art educator with some experience in the field, I am appalled at the disdain with which our literature, personnel, and interests have been treated by the cabalistas. That they might disagree with some or all of the writings in art education is quite understandable. I disagree with much of it myself. But to ignore its existence is quite another matter. It is at once offensive and frightening. It is offensive not only because it ignores the accumulated experience of art education, but because it appears to be unconscious of the literature of aesthetics and art criticism in which questions are raised about concepts the conspirators take for granted. Further, to read their writings-of

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which the Rockefeller Commission Report is a fine summary-is to won- der what all these artists, arts specialists, arts teachers, to say nothing of the enormous rabbit warren of new bureaus, will be doing with young- sters. The heart of any educational en- terprise is curriculum, and the lack of any one or several coherent curriculum ideas in the flood of statements by the cabal is strikingly apparent.

On the other hand, the cabal is frightening because of its political power, the prestige of its members, and its easy access to funds and the media of publicity. Topped by the magic name of Rockefeller, the conspirators are attempting to make the arts a household word, particularly in Congress, where it counts the most. Indeed, were it not for the ineptness of the cabals' ideas, one might be grate- ful for their having raised the impor- tance of the arts in our collective con- sciousness.

2. Fully in line with an unquestion- ing air of certainty, the members of the conspiracy assume the existence of something arbitrarily labeled "arts education", which, in fact, does not exist. There is no theoretical base or adequate practical, operational body of educational experience that sup- ports such a construct. It is difficult to refrain from observing that a slightly more tentative approach would be more intelligent. Simply doing "things" without careful thought before or after acting, is not exactly desirable educational policy. Teaching all the arts together raises some serious questions which must be at- tended to before it can totally replace our present structure. Nowhere in Coming to Our Senses or the other writings, speeches, and press re- leases of the cabal does one find any recognition of these problems.

3. The inevitable result of the thoughtlessness explored above is, of course, dogma, and nowhere is the dogmatism of the cabalistas more abundantly manifest than in their in- sistence on the primary role of the artist in arts education. From Nancy Hanks' immortal words, "Very simply, the Artists-in-the-Schools program says 'Let's stop talking and writing about how to put the arts meaning- fully into our schools, let's just put some live artists in and see what hap- pens. Let's call on the practitioner to help show us the way",10 to the Rock- efeller Commission Report's recommendations on the immediate cer- tification of artists, the assumption of the conspirators is that artists have some magic key to promoting learn- ing unavailable to the non-artists, an assumption totally without either speculative or empirical evidence. Further, it appears that decisions as to which of us are artists and which non-artists are to be left to the wisdom

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of state and local art groups with possible monitoring from Washington, D.C., a practice which might not in- spire the greatest confidence in either group.

The entire concept and its im- plementation demeans art teachers, most of whom see themselves as artists in whatever time and energy they have left over from teaching. It is also ill-advised with respect to non- teaching artists, whose full time commitment to making art would better be supported than constricted by either temporary or permanent forays into the consuming world of the school. Finally, the dogma of the artist in the school reveals one more thread in the growing spider web of Federal control of local school affairs. It is one thing to enlarge such interference on the moral issue of opposition to dis- crimination. It is quite another to do so on the flimsy basis of an intellectu- ally inadequate educational assumption. But then the function of dogma is to displace the careful considera- tion of ideas, and policy based on dogma is frequently, if not invariably, oppressive. It would seem that 1984 is close to us ideologically as well as chronologically.

4. All of these prior observations necessitate another, which is even more threatening to the future. The conspirators appear to represent a wholly new class in the subculture of the art world. As far as one can ascer- tain from their records, many of the leadership of this group are people who do not produce, teach, criticize, or study art; they simply manage it. This managerial virus has spread so far that we now have seminars on arts management and even a book on the subject.11 One cannot avoid the sus- picion that all these arts managers are a kind of parasitical growth and that the reduction of art (or arts) teaching to a commodity to be packaged and sold, managed in typical Madison Av- enue fashion (like underarm deodor- ants, shampoos, and junk foods) is our professional Gotterdamerung. It remains to be seen if art education will disappear in a blazing Wagnerian finale or will simply fade silently away.

5. Further, the almost hysterical an- tagonism of some members of the cabal to verbal education is, at first glance, quite puzzling. For example, the Rockefeller Commission Report opens with the paragraph:

Imagine two people in conversa- tion using a Teletype machine instead of speaking to each other di- rectly. The words, all in upper-case letters, are a stammered outpouring from a mindless mouth. No gesture. No facial expression. No vocal rhythm or pitch. No emotion. Sim- ply a procession of sterile symbols on a paper tongue.

This Report asserts that American education exaggerates the impor-

tance of words as transmitters of information. 12

It should be unnecessary to suggest that words have meanings and need not be "sterile symbols." The words: "This morning Japanese bombers at- tacked Hawaii..." on December 7, 1941, on the paper tongue of a teletype machine needed no emotion, gesture, facial expression, vocal rhythm, or pitch to convey their mes- sage of horror.

There is one convincing explana- tion of this anti-verbal stance. Words are dangerous weapons with which all of us can examine the inequities of our social, economic, and political lives and alter these circumstances. To demean the intellectual power of words and emphasize instead the euphoric massage aspect of the arts is to curtail our inquiries and control our citizenship. One hesitates to ascribe such a nefarious motivation to any group. Perhaps the conspirators are unaware of the import of their position, caught up as they are in the mis- sionary zeal of selling the arts. Again, this is what comes of embracing dogma, of promoting unexamined ideas. This is also what comes of ig- noring the literature of art education, where a small but significant body of criticism of some of the ideas the group espouses does exist, as a matter, I might add, of public record, available to anyone who is interested in reading it.

6. Finally, there is the unavoidable if somewhat rude personal observa- tion that the leadership of the cabal appears to be by experience or present occupation too far removed from the sturm und drang of the classroom to be able to adhere its ideas in the wet cement of the real world. Having worked in Washington, D.C., for one year on a federally funded project, I am conscious of the illusion (far too often, in fact, a delusion) of right- eousness and power which federal and foundation position and funds engender in the unwary. Decision- making in a two story office or in a serene marble hallway is very different than the same process in the grimy bustle of a school. Perhaps the bizarre ideas of the conspirators are a result of this origin. If this is the case and if the ideas were not so destructive of the welfare of the young, I might well be sympathetic. At this point, I am not.

This paper has sought to explain the Trojan Horse of glass in our midst by developing and supporting a cabalistic theory of present events. Further, it has attempted to assess the values and detriments of the conspiracy to our profession. It is to be hoped that both the theory and its evaluation are in error. If they are not, the paper will have served its purpose. The decision is up to the reader.

Vincent Lanier is professor of art education, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.

REFERENCES 11 am indebted to both Ralph Smith and Michael Steveni for the term "Tro- jan Horse," since both of them used it before me. 2A good example is Roger M. Wil- liams, "Why Children Should Draw", Saturday Review, August 3, 1977, pp. 11-16. 3To his credit, Ralph Smith warned us about this group in "The New Policy-Making Complex in Aesthetic Education", Aesthetic Education To- day, Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University, undated. 4 ., Coming to Our Senses: The Significance of the Arts for American Education, N.Y.: McGraw- Hill Book Co., 1977, p. 252. 51bid, p. 253. 6lbid, p. 262. 71bid, p. 251. 8lbid, p. 253. 91bid, p. 250. ?Olbid, pp. 260, 261, 263. 1Nancy Hanks, "Education Through Art: A Gateway", Art Education, Vol. 24, No. 7, October 1971, p. 14. 12Alvin H. Reiss, The Arts Management Handbook, N.Y., Law-Arts Publishers, 1970. 13 ., op. cit., p. 3.

POSTSCRIPT Since this paper was written, the

National Art Education Association held its annual convention for 1978 in Houston, Texas. The convention program included a panel composed of David Rockefeller, Jr., Ray Eames, and James Michener, the chair and two members of the Commission, with Charles M. Dorn as the moderator. Following the presentation of the NAEA award for distinguished service to art education to David Rockefeller, Jr. (in light of the approach of this paper, the award was a bizarre event), the panel made statements and answered a series of questions. One of these questions raised the issue of why there were no panel members with some experience in art(s) education. Mr. Rockefeller answered that the omission was entirely "deliber- ate." He said, in effect, that since those presently involved in education in the various arts had been unable to properly expand the position of arts education, another group had decided to undertake that task.

Mr. Rockefeller's frankness is dis- arming and delightful. It is also most useful as support for the cabal theory presented in this paper. Whatever our future as a profession, we will not be able to say that we had no way of knowing what might happen.

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the trojan horse of glass: a cabalistic theory of recent developments in art education

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