Questioning the Role of Art in Education: Paradoxical Views of Preservice Teachers

Abstract

Many of the preservice elementary teachers with whom I work begin to contemplate questions such as, What is my role in the teaching of art? and What is the role of art in education and society? while enrolled in the elementary art methods course required for teacher certification. As a form of critical inquiry, contemplation of such questions can be an important and integral part of these preservice elementary teachers' professional development. Moreover, recent research has shown that preand inservice teachers and students can use questions or questioning as strategies to develop critical thinking, increase cognitive or metacognitive activities, improve comprehension, focus attention, organize new material, and enhance learning in general.1 In this article, however, the focus is not upon the strategic use of preservice elementary teachers' questions to enhance learning, but rather, on my use of such questions to gain important and evaluative insights into the field of art education. Because preservice elementary teachers consider themselves to be outsiders looking in on the field, they can offer fresh and valuable perspectives to those of us inside it. These perspectives, of course, are shaped by preservice teachers' experiences of the elementary art methods course. Indeed, the particular texts used in the course serve to construct the lenses through which they look at art education and what it means to teach art at the elementary level. During the past several semesters, preservice elementary teachers enrolled in my courses have engaged in a form of critical inquiry as each kept a journal, reflecting on and questioning one of the following texts: Creative and Mental Growth (Viktor Lowenfeld and Lambert Brittain),2 Children and Their Art (Al Hurwitz and Michael Day),3 and Emphasis Art (F. Wachowiak).4 That is, 137 preservice elementary teachers enrolled in six sections of elementary art methods at two different institutions formulated questions