Imagine if you will, a class of 25 2nd graders assembled in their classroom. It's art time.
The teacher claps two times to summon the children's attention. Instantly, the children direct their gaze at the teacher. She offers a picture making task.
"Today we are making a cubist portrait in the style of Picasso!" Once the teacher finishes with the directions, she asks for helpers to distribute materials. Paper, drawing materials and straight edges have been selected by the teacher to be used in the activity. She presents step by step instructions required to make the picture. "Step one: Fold your paper in half hamburger style. Step two: Fold it again!" The children all fold their paper and dutifully continue to follow the teacher's commands until the activity is completed. Twenty five abstract cubist Picasso style portrait images are produced by the children, each with slight differences
A similar scenario is described in Nan Hathaway's epic research article "Smoke and Mirrors: Art Teacher as Magician." In her paper, Hathaway situates the fundamental problem with teacher directed art activity. Children are outside the decision making processes central to the activities they participate in.
From this educators perspective, the Picasso style portrait drawing activity becomes an exercise in pseudo art. In the future, subsequent art activities are teacher-directed also. The children's entire art program experience is predicated on teacher-directed instruction. In this pedagogical role, the teacher acts not as an art authority, but as an authoritarian task master. For practitioners of the behavioral-objectives movement the goal is for children to follow step-by-step directions. The problem here is that children become reliant upon the authority for direction. In these programs, the child never experiences self-directedness.
Mental activity related to independent thinking, idea formation, executive functioning, choice-making, connection to the imagination and the subjective realm, these attributes are all missing in the example from Hathaway's teacher-led activity illustration.
Mental operations required to problem pose and generate ideas will never be realized in educational environments where those experiences are null and void.
How will the children's cognitive capacity to develop independent thinking ever be realized in curricula experiences shrouded by smoke and mirrors? When curricula participants are dependent on authoritarians to direct their energies and their actions, the curricula becomes unsustainable when the authority is missing from the situational equation.
In the author's research article, "I Got An Idea: Inside Communities of Studio Practice," co-authored with Clark Fralick, the emphasis of the curriculum is self-expression through independent art activity. Ideas realized through experimentation, conversation, reflective thinking, social interaction, choice-making and contemplation are all practiced in a Teaching for Artistic Behavior studio space. In this learning situation, the teacher models artistic behavior, initiates challenges, inspires creative action, offers activity choices and introduces learning content that connects to children's lived experiences.
The TAB curriculum model is self-sustaining because children are not tethered, they are empowered. Their will to power is exercised.
“…no system that usurps the autonomy of persons can be acceptable, even if it is in the name of greater social efficiency or the common good.”
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