National Art Education Association

Thoughts on Language and Teaching ArtAuthor(s): Jerome J. HausmanSource: Art Education, Vol. 43, No. 3 (May, 1990), pp. 4-5Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193219 .

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?Vivienne della Grotta 1989

Without our realizing it, culture and envi- ronment pose conditions that shape our perceptions. We construct our ideas as to what is "real". This is a process in which we are conditioned by the culture in which we live. Underlying cultural patterns are so pervasive that we are not conscious of them. It was the ancient Heraclitus who observed: "man is estranged from that with which he is most familiar". Yet, it's obvious that these patterns exert a profound influence upon our lives. For example, children living in an environment of video images and push button machines come to experience and anticipate events with a particular sense for themselves and their world. It's all very easy: you push the button, and the machine responds. Work is done for you.

No wonder that so much attention is being paid to how technology is altering peoples' lives. Increasingly we use ma- chines where personal ends are served without our necessarily comprehending the inner workings that are involved. Everyone can activate a television set; few compre- hend the complexities of the circuitry inside the set.

Editorial: Thoughts o

Some things have not changed very much. Physiologically and emotionally, people are relatively unchanged. That is, cells and organs and emotional mecha- nisms function in pretty much the same way as was the case hundreds of years ago. The human brain or heart or lungs function pretty much the same now as in the past. Fundamental needs for achieving personal satisfaction and fulfillment are basically the same. What has changed for us are the contexts and mechanisms by which these needs are met.

Those of us involved in teaching art need to pay attention to the substance and means by which ideas are shaped and conveyed. Teaching art is more than teaching "how-to-do-it" techniques. It's more than "fun and games". Most as- suredly, it's not a'matter of helping stu- dents to find simple solutions. Richard Saul Wurman offers us some valuable insights (see Design Quarterly 145, "Hats", 1989): "Making things understandable should not be confused with simplification. Most people think that the way to make some- thing clearer is to simplify it, and vice versa. But this is not true. Many times information becomes vague and meaning- less when there is nothing to relate it to - it is the idea of simplification that has led

to the "dumbing" of America. "UNDERSTANDING IS NOT ABOUT

SIMPLIFICATION AND MINIMALIZATION, IT'S ABOUT ORGANIZATION AND CLARIFICATION." (p. 5). A "push-button society" suggests an illusion that there are short-cut answers to fundamental and complicated issues and problems. Look at the manner in which election campaigns are conducted or products are advertised. In art education there are suggested short- hand or sequenced approaches based upon simplified distillations derived from

4 Art Education/May 1990

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n Language and Teaching Art

more complex origins. Advertisements abound that promise the development of "skills and understandings". But what happens to students? They may well learn to "scan" a work of art without grasping the larger significance of the form as art.

L. S. Vygotsky (Thought and Language, MIT Press, 1962) has called attention to "inner speech", a speech almost without words. Inner speech is to a large extent thinking in pure meanings. Every artist has an understanding of the real time and sustained effort necessary to the shaping of a work or art. There are no short-cuts! Every art historian knows of the "digging" and analysis as one looks and makes comparisons of objects in an historical context. There is no such thing as a single, all encompassing, linear sequenced History of Art. Rather, there are histories fashioned by art historians. Every art critic knows of the challenge to elucidate a work of art. This is not a simple journalistic assignment of rating or quantifying what the work is about. Rather, art criticism chal- lenges us to examine the works and the criteria being used to add to our insights and understandings.

Art teachers need to be sensitive to an "inner speech", a way of knowing that responds to "pure meanings". Of course, words are important as we discuss, describe, or evaluate art. Words are essential for teaching. They need to be connected to the understandings and passions that make up creating or re- sponding to art. What we need to avoid is what Oliver Sacks called "a one-dimen- sional grammar" that depends exclusively upon a temporal succession of words. His urging is that we need to generate an "inner dialogue" that gives rise to virtually another language. Based upon his study of deaf people and their visual language,

Sign, Sacks observes: "It is all too easy to take language, one's own language, for granted - one may need to encounter another language or rather another mode of language, in order to be astonished, to be pushed into wonder, again". (Seeing Voices, University of California Press, 1989, p. IX).

The visual arts provide an added dimension in our experience. Like Sign, expression in two- and three-dimensional form grows out of a unique spatial syntax and grammar different from more custom- ary linguistic communication. Visual as well as verbal communication affords a special entry into the realm of higher order think- ing. Lauren B. Resnick's discussion of higher order thinking is instructive here: "higher order thinking involves a cluster of elaborative mental activities requiring nuanced judgment and analysis of complex situations according to multiple criteria. Higher order thinking is effortful and depends on self-regulation. The path of action or correct answers are not fully specified in advance. The thinker's task is to construct meaning and impose structure on situations rather than to expect to find them already apparent" (Education and Learning to Think, National Academy Press, 1987, p. 44)

Artistic thinking is higher order thinking. It is about organization and clarification involving visual and verbal modes of thought. Teaching art can open hearts and minds to new realms of wonder and imagi- nation. We, as art teachers, open minds to enlarged poetic and personal insights. We need to be wary of being reduced to a single dimensioned language for the sake of ease, simplicity, and superficial appear- ance.

Jerome J. Hausman

Art Education/May 1990 5

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