Some problems in teaching appreciation of art (one type) in New Zealand (mixed) high schools

It is becoming abundantly evident that art instruction in New Zealand high schools must concern itself with something more than the practice of drawing and its allied crafts if pictorial Art is to play its proper part in the life of the community. The fact that a very large number of so-called "well-educated" people disclaim any real knowledge of pictorial art shows how ineffective our system of art education has been in the past.

Some problems in teaching appreciation of art (one type) in New Zealand (mixed) high schools

It is becoming abundantly evident that art instruction in New Zealand high schools must concern itself with something more than the practice of drawing and its allied crafts if pictorial Art is to play its proper part in the life of the community. The fact that a very large number of so-called "well-educated" people disclaim any real knowledge of pictorial art shows how ineffective our system of art education has been in the past.

Art and Design Education in Times of COVID-19: Distance Learning and the Importance of Interaction and Empathy

At the period of worldwide public health emergency of COVID-19, the majority of educational institutions in the world have faced the forced emergency lockdown and migration into the digital, online or virtual learning and teaching environments. Basically, it must be stated up front that digital media and processes have long been part of art instruction, and the maker movement has introduced 3-D printing, especially in design classes. But distance learning presents yet another set of challenges for these subjects. This article examines how this change has affected the teaching of art and design, looks at two case studies (secondary school and university) and refers to discussions at art education conferences and papers on the post-pandemic challenges of digitization in the arts.

Modern Art Education and Teaching Based on Artificial Intelligence

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has been intensely employed in art teaching and learning. Including the advancement of smart technologies, there are various difficulties in improving the teaching capability of technical art design courses, including the impact of several variables and the absence of quantitative study, and the imperfection in the index system. The paper proposes the Artificial Intelligence assisted Effective Art Teaching Framework (AIEATF) to expand the ability to adapt to AI-oriented art instruction, develop intelligent teaching styles, and enhance AI-oriented art teaching art knowledge and environment. The potential of improving AI’s effects on major art courses’ teaching effect has been illustrated in detail. On this basis, an assessment model has been developed to consider the enhancing effects. The study’s findings include a valuable guide for educators in art design to strengthen their teaching ability. The experimental results have shown that Modern Painting Perfection Ratio is 87.66%, Computer graphical representation ratio is 88.77%, Photographical Design Percentage ratio is 84.50%, Performance of Carving in Sculpture Ratio is 82.26%, Construction Development Ratio is 93.83%, Expressive Musical Performing Ratio is 92.70%, Energized Dance Performance Ratio is 84.26%, and overall performance ratio is 92.30%.

German children’s art during World War I

My article considers German wartime propaganda and pedagogy from 1914 to 1916, which influenced young schoolchildren (aged 5–14) to create drawings and paintings of Germany’s military in World War I. In this art, the children drew bodies of German soldiers as tough, heroic, on the move, armed with powerful weapons, and part of a superior military movement; their enemies (French, Russian, British soldiers) embodied disorder, backwardness, ineptitude, and deadly weakness. The artwork by these schoolchildren thus reveals the intense propaganda of the war years, and the children’s tendency to see the German military as the most accomplished combatant in the war. During the first two years of the war, in the primary schools of the nation, many children did such art under the supervision of teachers who passionately embraced the nation and the war cause. Within the classroom, teachers directed students to imagine the war by drawing scenes of battles, including the sinking of the Lusitania. Some of these teachers had been influenced by the Kunsterziehungsbewegung (the arts’ education movement) and thus encouraged children’s creativity in art of the war years. In this pedagogical wartime environment the young student became actively engaged in creative learning and study about the war, expressing romantic ideas of the indomitable German soldier and sailor. My research has involved analysis of over 250 school drawings done by children aged 10–14 in a school in Wilhelmsburg, near Hamburg, in 1915. I analyze the depiction of the German forces in six of these sources and also consider the history of art instruction in German schools. Furthermore, I address the ways in which historians can analyze children’s art as a historical document for understanding the child’s experience.

Pattern and pedagogy in print: Art and Craft Education in the mid twentieth-century classroom

In this article I compare a set of early and mid-twentieth-century print publications supportive of the 'new' art teaching in schools. The educator Marion Richardson's reflections on her use of pattern in the classroom in Art and the Child (1948) is considered alongside publications by artist-teachers such as Robin Tanner's Children's Work in Block Printing (1936) and Gwen White's A World of Pattern (1957). The monthly publication Art and Craft Education first published in 1936 was a magazine for teachers of art which showcased the work being done in schools around Britain that were involved in the 'new' art instruction. Pattern-making in schools in these publications is positioned as a modular and constructivist form of learning encouraging multisensory and exploratory ways of looking at and making sense of the world. Ackerman (2004) outlining theories of constructivist models for learning stresses the need for children to be 'builders of their own cognitive tools', and I argue that the exploration of pattern offers multiple strategies for the children to explore their phenomenological experience of the world. Pattern-making is also presented as a democratic form of creativity and a means of introducing the concept of art into everyday life, inculcating an appreciation of well-made things in daily life. I argue that through the lens of this pedagogic print culture with this emphasis on the benefits of teaching pattern-making in schools a nostalgic and pastoral English arts and crafts sensibility can be seen meeting a modernist cultural agenda via psychological theories of child development, creating a distinctively egalitarian, child-centred and craft-led model for learning. Revisiting this moment in childrens' education in Britain offers a timely insight into alternatives to the current educational landscape, with its emphasis on measuring pupil's achievement and downgrading of creative subjects in the school curriculum.

Learning Together

This chapter describes a 17-year partnership between the James Madison University Art Education Center and the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community. The collaboration centers on a service-learning experience for pre-service art educators to provide art instruction to the residents of the retirement community. In 2009, the author became the coordinator of this service-learning experience and instructor for its corresponding art education course. The art education students work with independent living and memory care residents of the retirement community. Being a part of a collaborative, long-term program with the retirement community has provided tremendous learning experiences for the author, her students, the residents, and the retirement community staff regarding the power of art making in an intergenerational setting. This chapter includes a literature review, examples of artwork made in the program, descriptive observations, and reflections on the author's experience working with students and residents in the retirement community.