Art Education for Understanding: Goodman, Arts PROPEL, and DBAE

Abstract

‘What is art for?’ This provocative question was the motto of the 31st Annual Convention of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) held in Atlanta, Georgia, 1991. As a visiting scholar for a semester at Harvard Project Zero, I had rich opportunities to study art education programmes in higher education and public schools all over the United States. As a consequence, I felt complelled to reformulate the NAEA question, and ask ‘What is art education for?’This essay argues for the importance of understanding and meaning‐making in art education. It starts with a review of some common rationales for the teaching of art that stress both the alleged ability of the arts to promote ‘good’– i.e. creative, harmonious, and civilised – characters and the instrumental value of the arts as a means of communication. These rationales are then evaluated within the context of Nelson Goodman's philosophy, which emphasises the primary role of curiosity in the arts.The following two sections discuss the rationales, contributions and limitations of two art programmes that are currently being carried out in the United States: Arts PROPEL and Discipline‐Based Art Education (DBAE). Arts PROPEL has introduced long‐term, open‐ended projects that integrate production (making) with perception (learning to ‘read’ art works and observe the world closely) and reflection (thinking about one's work and the works of others). The DBAE curricula are sequentially organised and integrate content from the disciplines of art creation, art criticism (learning what to look for and how to interpret), art history (studying contexts and alternatives of taste and style), and aesthetics (building a personal philosophy of art).In the final section, Arts PROPEL and DBAE are compared. In the context of previous rationales for the teaching of art, the similarity in aims of these programmes stand out as more important than the differences in approach. Neither do these programmes overstate the humanising power of art, nor do they focus on visual literacy per se. Instead, both programmes emphasise the role of reflection, interpretation, and understanding in art. Productive and analytic art activities are used as important vehicles in making sense of the world and of ourselves. It is concluded that Arts PROPEL and DBAE offer promising and supplementary approaches to promote curiosity and to teach art for the sake of understanding.