SchoolArts - April 2008

NCLB
DBAE
CBAE Assumptions
TAB

Some common fundamental assumptions made by proponents of CBAE are that the child is an artist, the workspace is comprised of activity centers specific to selected art media, and the teacher is the

facilitator for student choice-mak-ing within that workspace.

The available literature provides too little in

Is accentuating “student support of choice” regarding the media of ^these ^assump-art occurring at the expense of ^tions. ^Advo-cates claim higher-level thinking? _that _becausethe child is already an artist, he or she will, following an introductory period of instruction in a variety of art media, make art using a chosen medium. This casts doubt regarding the proper role for the professional art educator in such an environment, and yet CBAE is promoted as an effective method for what is termed, Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB).

CBAE works best, most sources suggest, on the elementary and early middle school levels. Most of the documented experience seems to be in grades K– 4. However, the advantages of this methodology in Should We Be Concerned? the higher grade levels have yet to be tested over time and on a wide scale. The problems in applying the concepts of CBAE to art programs

^Ken ^Vieth ^and ^Dan ^Bushin the upper grades are predictable.

CBAE
Choice Based Art Education

So here we are again, with a small segment of the art education community looking at yet another new set of buzz words, these being Choice Based Art Education (CBAE), combined with Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB). At first glance, one cannot fault the titles. As artists and teachers we like choices and so do our students.

We also want to support higher-order thinking skills and greater ownership of student art-making. We all like the idea of teaching for artistic behavior.

It is upon further research that one comes to understand how these new buzz words can change the direction of art education. Perhaps they are leading us in directions that may not be very beneficial to our profession.

We need to look back on the early twentieth century through the eyes of artist Wassily Kandinsky as he crafted his position regarding the importance of both form and content. He helped to establish the foundations for modernism in art.

As we all know, buzz words come into our professional lives through various channels. For example, Discipline Based Art Education (DBAE) was supported by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is mandated by the federal government. Some of these philosophical approaches come with funding, while others leave us in frustration as to how to put them into practice. On the surface, all appear to have good intentions. It is when we look closely and reflect on what is actually going on that we see that their titles can gloss over their real meaning.

To Kandinsky, that which was to be expressed (the content) was as important as, if not more important than, the medium (the form) through which the expression was to be communicated.

Today CBAE is an approach that seems to place more emphasis on having students experience a variety of media, and less emphasis on having students experience art as a means for visual communication and expression. Most of the websites dedicated to CBAE provide ample descriptions of modifications made to artrooms to better accommodate this methodology. Little information is provided as to how these modifications influence student perception of art as a means for visual communication.

Excellence and Depth

Secondary level students are aware of quality and are quite sophisticated in sensing where quality is present and where it is not. These students tend to be drawn toward excellence. A major component of excellence results from learning in depth. In an environment built around activity centers, learning in depth can be problematic because of the variety and number of skills the teacher is required to teach simultaneously.