Author: Council for Basic Education

Publication Year: 1978

Media Type: Report

Summary:

In the spring of 1978, Jacques Barzun, the University Professor Emeritus at Columbia University, and one of the Council's directors, delivered the keynote address at the annual meeting of the National Art Education Association in Houston, Texas. His speech, Art and Educational Inflation, presented in cogent terms a straightforward rationale for teaching and learning the arts, in contradition to much that is offered in support of art in the schools.

Abstract:

In the spring of 1978, Jacques Barzun, the University Professor Emeritus at Columbia University, and one of the Council's directors, delivered the keynote address at the annual meeting of the National Art Education Association in Houston, Texas. His speech, Art and Educational Inflation, presented in cogent terms a straightforward rationale for teaching and learning the arts, in contradition to much that is offered in support of art in the schools.

The speech thus provided a point of departure for an occasional paper. But more than a rationale was needed. Robert J. Saunders agreed to carry the argument forward from Dr. Barzun's point of departure, and show how teachers in schools can make art a generative kind of learning. Dr. Saunders is Art Comsultant in the Connecticut State department of Education. A teacher himself, he has written extensively about the teaching of art.

Readers should remember that Dr. Barzun's speech was just that: a speech, delivered to a national assembly of teachers of art, provocative in intent but constructive in purpose. Note that the speech comprehends all the arts, while Dr. Saunder's section of the paper is limited to the visual arts. (Foreword).

CONTENTS: Art and educational inflation by Jacques Barzun. Plain talk about art in basic education by Robert J. Saunders: How people who agree that art is basic disagree on the way art should be taught. The variety of valid approaches art teachers may use - and their tendency to give in to expediency. An exemplary lesson. Stages of growth in art. Teachers, not textbooks. A word about art in the secondary schools. Suggestions for further reading.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Arts Education