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A number of global and historical perspectives are detailed which have had a significant effect on arts education, arts theory and curriculum development both in New Zealand and internationally. The following summary outlines some of the key arts education movements which have influenced and affected arts education in this country. These include: Discipline-based Art Education This section briefly discusses their contributions to the development of The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum. 1.1 Progressivism 'Child art' became a legitimate subject of scholarly discussion during the child study movement of more than a century ago (Bresler 1998). Its philosophical foundations can be traced to Rousseau's notion of non-interventionist self-expression. Key child art protagonists this century have included Read, Lowenfeld, Lismer, and Dengler in the visual arts; Laban in dance; Way and Cook in drama. In New Zealand in the 1950s, Tovey, under the direction of Beeby, introduced concepts of child art to teaching through his work with the Advisory Service (see Henderson 1998). He proposed three objectives for learning in the arts, including movement, music and the visual arts. These concerned the development of self-expression, the appreciation of beauty and the growth of practical skills. Each of these objectives were to be acquired by the child without significant adult intervention. With its focus on the innate and spontaneous expressive abilities of the child, however, Progressivism neglected to develop knowledge about the techniques and traditions of art making. Bresler (1998) has pointed out that expression and interpretation are complex processes and involve more than permission to be spontaneous and creative. Expression requires knowledge about feeling as well as sophisticated knowledge of intellectual, technical and formal skills. Without knowledge and personal investment, self-expression can become trivial, in Langer's words, symptomatic rather than artistic (Bresler 1998). 1.2. Modernism Modernism tends to see the value of art in terms of its originality. The modernist approach to art making hinged on experimentalism and the aesthetic experiences associated with the formal and expressive properties of art works. The principal reason for analysing art works was to reveal their underlying design, composition, and expressive qualities. School syllabi from the 1960's in music and the visual arts have reflected both the formalist and the expressive aspects of the modernist ideal. 1.3. Discipline Based Art Education Discipline-based art education (DBAE) adopted the ideas of arts educators who, since the mid-60's had called for a more holistic, comprehensive, and multifaceted approach to art education. DBAE is an approach based on a set of principles surrounding the study of art, which integrates content and skills from four areas: art making, art history, art criticism, art aesthetics, that contribute to the creation and understanding, and appreciation of art. Using the DBAE approach, children develop their ability to grasp the various cultural and historical contexts of art and examine the powerful ideas communicated through art works. DBAE enables children to develop increasingly sophisticated abilities to produce, describe, interpret, and analyse art works. Philosophically, the ideas which underpin DBAE have been an evolving feature of pedagogical practice in the arts since the 1970's. 1.4. Postmodernism In contrast to modernism with its focus upon formalism and expressionism, postmodern conceptions of art value the political and ideological character of art works within the context in which they emerge. The postmodern approach is to interpret, judge and question art works in light of their social context. Concepts of originality are questioned in the light of changing technological, and cultural arts practice. The aesthetic experience, although recognised by the postmodernist, does not by itself provide sufficient reason for the inclusion of art in education. Value is placed on the outcomes that result when works of art are created and interpreted from social, historical, and iconographic perspectives. Postmodernism places art works in the context of their social, cultural, political, philosophical and historical settings and locates them as texts to be interrogated. 1.5. The Arts and Cognition In developing sensory perceptions of the world, children respond to gesture and movements before they react to spoken word. They understand and explore sound before they learn to speak. They draw pictures before they form letters. They dance and act out stories before they learn to read. Gestures, movement, sound and pictures are codes or symbols which allow people to formulate and store ideas, observations and understandings about the self and about the world. The arts are therefore cognitive enterprises. Symbol systems identify forms of thinking in the different arts disciplines as these arts are processed and expressed. They also establish them as unique because each arts discipline is a different symbol system. Each symbol system therefore requires a unique kind of thinking. The use of symbol systems to create meanings establishes sets of rules which are mostly intuitive and natural, but are also partly conventional. "Artistic thinking is the perception of the terms of the symbol systems, creating significance and following the appropriate rules; and aesthetic thinking is the perception of that significance in the arrangement of those terms" (Parsons 1988: 108). Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Gardner 1983; 1993), affirms thinking in the arts as ways of knowing and as forms of intelligence. Gardner defines intelligence as 'the ability to find and solve problems and create products of value in one's culture'. He points out that the concept of intelligent behaviours varies from culture to culture. The seven intelligences he identifies are: Linguistic, Logical/Mathematical, Spatial or Visual, Musical, Kinesthetic and what he calls the Personal Intelligences - Interpersonal and Intrapersonal.
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