Things that have been on my mind lately;
"The activity of making art is a unique form of wordless thinking."*
I think about the quote above and how seldom we in schools recognize what some artists know: making art is a way of learning. Art is a discipline that can engage with other disciplines (or not) to construct knowledge. Arts like drawing, dance and music are languages- symbol systems that can be used to reason through questions and puzzles creating new understandings. Art is not just a way to cement learning in another discipline, not just a way to engage with learning in some other realm. Schools talk about art as a vehicle for expression or for communication, a way of engaging children because it can make learning fun. Art will probably always be used as assessment- a way to show what you know. Art practice as research is recognized in art education as a form of inquiry for big people, but isn't talked about much in prek-12. Why is that?
"The activity of making art is a unique form of wordless thinking."*
I think about the quote above and how seldom we in schools recognize what some artists know: making art is a way of learning. Art is a discipline that can engage with other disciplines (or not) to construct knowledge. Arts like drawing, dance and music are languages- symbol systems that can be used to reason through questions and puzzles creating new understandings. Art is not just a way to cement learning in another discipline, not just a way to engage with learning in some other realm. Schools talk about art as a vehicle for expression or for communication, a way of engaging children because it can make learning fun. Art will probably always be used as assessment- a way to show what you know. Art practice as research is recognized in art education as a form of inquiry for big people, but isn't talked about much in prek-12. Why is that?
*by Barry Goldberg from the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series (educate.bankstreet.edu)
Anna,
ReplyDeleteI thought about what you said and it reminded me of some things Marina Mori said while we were at the NAREA summer conference. I quoted them below. - hoping you are having a good year at Sabot.
Nora
"Those of you who work with young children, you know they also speak while drawing. This project, Mosaic of Marks, Words, and Materials, helps us figure out how we will study this. They tell stories while they draw, the stories shift and change. They do one thing and then another and another and then when you ask what they did, they tell you something completely different. It is not that they are changing just for fun, for the sake of changing things but because the marks they are making suggest different stories. As Malaguzzi said, the connection between the hand and the brain - they each affect each other. They communicate."
"Making a mark is an encounter between two subjects - the thing that makes a mark and the one that receives a mark. This led to us working for a year, exploring the different things that make and receive a mark."
One story Marina showed of a paper with long black marks on it of different sizes and darkness.: "If you just looked at the story, you would just see marks. But his girl chose soft, long paper and was drawing with black, making a strong mark. She said Dog! loudly for one mark. She made a medium mark and less strong Dog! and a soft mark and a quiet Dog!. If you just saw the marks, they would have no meaning. Teachers must observe and listen. Imagine if the teacher had not been there documenting. This girl made a relationship between the marks she made with the strength of the expression."