"the what's in its for me?" syndrome

National Art Education Association

"The What's in Its for Me?" SyndromeAuthor(s): Harlan HoffaSource: Art Education, Vol. 25, No. 8 (Nov., 1972), pp. 4-9Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3191749 .

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HARLAN HOFFA

Let me set the scene. It is mid-April in Raleigh, North Carolina. A meeting room in the Sir Walter Hotel contains a double circle of chairs occupied by young people, mostly college students. There are also a few older people in the circle, but they are evi- dently there as observers, though they occasionally speak up when ques- tions are directed to them. This is clearly the students' meeting, however; an enclave of art teachers-in- training in the midst of a convention of art teachers, art supervisors, and college professors who are on the far side of the generation gulch. The atmosphere, while not exactly tense, is not exactly relaxed either. The students are unsure of their role in the convention, and they are unsure of their role in the Association. To some of them the National Art Educa- tion Association seems terribly

remote-a distant entity in which their voices as students seem unheard by the faceless and nameless ones who govern the Association.

It was in this setting that I sat, one of the nameless and faceless ones who help to govern this Association, listen- ing to the students as they searched for ways to make their voices more effective. I had not been introduced, nor had my presence been acknow- ledged, and though a few of the students knew that one of the Associa- tion's officers was in the room, most were not really aware of who among their visitors was who.

More importantly-it did not seem to matter very much to them. This was their meeting, and they were intent upon their concerns as student members. The discussion soared and dipped around a number of is- sues, most of which reflected the identity crisis which these young people felt as neophyte members of an organization which to them seemed impersonal and ponderous. Finally the voice of one student, perhaps

more bold than others or perhaps just more bored, cut through the ver- bal smog. She said, "Why should I join the National Art Education As- sociation? What is it going to do for me?" In the momentary silence that followed that bombshell I found my thoughts turning back to the first convention I had attended. It was in Chicago, probably about 1950, and I remembered my sense of frustration and, indeed, anger that the convention appeared to be dominated by a small and remote group which seemed, to my naive and innocent eyes, closed and very cliquish. I felt then as these students were feeling now. I cared, but it seemed as though no one cared whether I did or not, and it made me want to cry out, in sheer, unvarnished frustration. I under- stood, only too well, how the young woman in Raleigh felt. Twenty-two years ago and a thousand miles away I had felt exactly the same way.

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Now, however, an answer seemed easy. In his Inaugural Address Presi- dent Kennedy had expressed a thought which seemed to fit the circum- stance," . . . ask not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country . . ." Ask not what the National Art Education Association can do for you but rather what you can do for the NAEA. It was, indeed, an easy answer to her hard question. In fact, it was too easy, too facile, too ready, too fatuous, and, fortunately, it never came out. What did come out as an answer was not easy-and I think it was entire- ly unexpected-but it bears repeating because I believe the same question lies restlessly unspoken on the back teeth of many art teachers.

Why join the National Art Education Association? What good is it going to do? An answer to that question is that if one looks to a professional association for a personal return on the investment, then, clearly, one should not join. That is not what professional associations are all about, and it is certainly not what the NAEA is all about. The benefits of membership are not only to the member but to the profession at large. The very idea of professionalism, in art education or any other field, implies a sense of working toward goals that go beyond the needs of individuals; and the purposes of the National Art Education Association, as stated in Article II of its Constitution, are clearly consistent with that definition of professionalism. These purposes

read as follows: "The purposes of the Association are to represent the art teachers of the country, to improve the conditions of teaching art; to promote the study of the teaching of art; to encourage research and ex- perimentation in art education." Membership in the Association, in other words, implies a commitment to these purposes and a voluntary joining together, as the Constitution's Preamble states, for the purposes of

"communicating these beliefs to the organized teaching profession and to the community at large, to strength- en the position of art as a discipline in the schools, and to affect positively the role of art in the culture."

The National Art Education Associa- tion is a voluntary professional association. It is voluntary in that no force other than professional con- science acts to compel membership, and it is unlike a trade union or a licensing organization in this regard. It is professional in its goals, purposes, and activities; and, toward this end, it aspires to represent the profession of art education as com- prehensively, as vigorously, and as accurately as these voluntary resources will permit. Finally, it is an association in both meanings of that word-as an entity and also as an act; as a noun and also as a verb. The NAEA, in other words, is nothing more-and nothing less-than the voluntary association of a group of like-minded people who are involved with the arts in education and who want to promote commonly held goals and purposes by pooling their efforts and their resources. It is based upon one premise and one premise only; that a group of people who want the same things-in this instance more and better education in the arts-can more readily gain these objectives by cooperative effort than they could by working sepa- rately. It is a simple idea, and certainly not one that is unique to art education, but it is also an idea

which demands a vision of professional goals and purposes beyond those which an individual might hold. Moreover, it is an idea which requires both the willingness and the ability to work in concert with others; though, for better or worse, work-

ing with others has not been a hallmark of art education.

The literature, the mores, and the mythology of art education reflect an unalloyed faith in the goodness, the truth of the individual and the sense of self. It has been our strength, our pride, and our joy. It is also, un- fortunately, our Achilles' heel, the source of some shameful self-indul- gence, and, if it blinds us to the benefits of working cooperatively, it may be our sorrow as well. There is no strength so irresistible that its misapplication does not constitute a flaw. There is no good so pure that, if carried to extremes, it does not become fanaticism. There is no pride that cannot fall. This is as true of an unexamined blind faith in the power and glory of the individual as it is of anything else; and, to the extent that it lay behind the question raised by that young woman in Raleigh, it represents a genuine danger to our profession. We are not living in times when a "what's in it for me" at- titude should prevail in professional matters. We are, indeed, individuals as students and as teachers, but we also live in a social order, in our professional lives as well as in our personal and communal lives; and professional associations, whether lo-

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cal, state, regional, national, or international, are the vehicles by which our need for each other, as fel- low art teachers, is manifested. The professional association amplifies the voice of its individual members; it magnifies their presence by the power of the others who have also joined the association to make it more visible; and, most importantly, it reacts both to the needs of its members and to the outside influences which bear upon that membership in a coherent manner.

A professional association, like the National Art Education Association, is a social organism, and, like a biological organism, it has evolved specialized parts to perform various functions. The Professional Materials Committee, for example, controls one of the voices of the Association by determining what will be published in its behalf. The Membership Committee attends to growth and regeneration. The officers and the Board of Directors represent the NAEA central nervous system which receives impulses from within the body of the Association and beyond it and in turn, signals appropriate responses. The Executive Secretary and his staff are the bones and muscles of the Association in that they support its various functions and articulate its movements. The div- isions (Administration and Supervision, for example), the regions (like South- eastern), and the States Assembly (representing state art education

associations) are the sensory appara- tus of NAEA, each of which is attuned to a particular element of the membership. The membership at large, which includes but is not limited to the specialized parts mentioned above, is the heart of the Association for, whether the term is used literal- ly or figuratively, the life of any organism depends upon its heart and, in the instance of NAEA, the members are the heart of the Associa- tion.

When art teachers ask why they should join their Association, why they should invest the financial equivalent of about one movie per month for the sake of their professional well being, it suggests that they may not consider that that association speaks for them-or even that it could if they let it do so. The National Art Education Association is, however, the only nationally recognized voice for art teachers. When a govern- ment agency wants to know how art teachers feel about a given program or legislative proposal, they call NAEA, not a random sampling of art teachers. When a museum wants to announce a new exhibit designed especially for teachers, they come to NAEA. When a school board needs information about standards of instruc- tion for art, they write NAEA. When an association of music or dance or theatre educators seeks the coopera- tion of colleagues in the visual arts, they call upon NAEA. The NAEA does, indeed, speak for all art teachers, whether they are members or not, and those who are not members are sacrificing at least two options to those who do speak for them. In the first place, by not allowing their voice, their opinion, their belief, their bias, to be known they absolutely guarantee that their wants and needs will not be expressed by the only national voice they have. Secondly, by withholding their energies, the strength of their involvement, and the sense of their professional concern they limit the force and the scope of the voice with which their association can speak.

It is almost inconceivable that con- cerned, professionally oriented art teachers would choose to have their only national voice speak incom- pletely or without all possible force. Yet those who say "what's in it for me" and hold themselves aloof by not joining their colleagues in a professional association guarantee that their voice and their needs will, indeed, be less than perfectly expressed. To paraphrase Hemingway, ask not for whom NAEA speaks; it speaks for thee. Like it or not, art teachers, it speaks for all of thee, and if that voice is to be more perfect and more forceful, there is but one way to assure that this can happen. It is to join-and to participate fully-in the activities of this association which speaks for all of art education: kindergarten through graduate school, nursery school through adult education; East coast, West coast, and all stops between; student art teachers, young art teachers, and old art teachers, black art teachers and white art teachers; rich ones and poor ones; art supervisors, art professors, museum types and research types. The National Art Education Association speaks as well as it can for all of these, but this voice will be only as effective as the membership will allow.

Harlan Hoffa is NAEA president, and head, Department of Art Educa- tion, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Penn- sylvania.

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"the what's in its for me?" syndrome

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