Emphasis in Art Education

Running head : Emphasis in Art Education

Emphasis in Art Education

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The art education that has developed over the past hundred and fifty years has had a deep influence in the US . Much more is usually known about art than in the past . Museum attendance has repeatedly increased becoming a main form of 'edutainment , as well as children 's artistic expression is normally considered part of healthy growth and development (Preziosi , D , 1989

Simultaneously , though , US art educators

have been forced to struggle to keep art in the schools and are continuously threatened with reductions in programming , personnel , materials , and all that . This is the case even now , when it is likely that students learn more from visual culture than from texts , since people are still not persuaded that the visual arts are as significant as literacy and numeracy . Every state in the US has different requirements for the amount of art offered in schools and site-based management has ensued in an increase in art education in some and its elimination in others . At colleges and universities , art programmes are frequently those with the smallest amount financial support and political clout while student numbers are high (Duncum ,

, 2000

These conflicting values and disagreements regarding the importance of art education have fuelled debates about how much or how little the central government must control curriculum and assessment . The debates are like those in other countries , however unlike many other countries the US has no single , government-controlled curriculum

However , other forms of national curriculum exist . For instance , state and national standards have been developed and testing in the arts has turned out to be widespread . Teachers are expected to teach to tests planned to assess students ' memory of sometimes arbitrary and trivial art historical information and restricted applications of elements and principles of design . Contrary to the flux and contradictions of actual knowledge and production in the arts , centralized curriculum standards and testing are footed on what is expected to be a consensus regarding the criteria and indicators of academic , together with aesthetic quality . The standards and testing propose that curriculum can be made static and that alter in the arts can be limited by putting regulated boundaries around it . The thought of an agreed national knowledge imitates the expectation that 'local ' knowledge is lacking and nationally defined bs delimit cultural boundaries (Efland , A 1976

The theoretical horizons for state-controlled curriculum discourse and student assessment in art have been offered by scientific rhetoric , as well promoting an implied national curriculum (Freedman 1995 Scientific oratory is not science per se and does not merely apply to the study of scientific skills and concepts . Somewhat , it is an element of educational discourse that demonstrates common beliefs regarding the structure , certainty and applicability of science in all school subjects . Scientific rhetoric carries with it the supposition that social life may be systematically tested like the physical world . It reflects a conviction that...