After reading the ideas the two authors present in the article, I have a new idea and take on art education. I agreed with the ideas they shared. They start by talking about the young learners and their surroundings, or chorotopos, and how they can affect their learning. From reading this article, it is clear to me that even though a child's environment is not that great a teacher can really change their outlook on learning by the way they treat their classroom and students. Although I found the three experiments with the schools to be beneficial for learning about surroundings, I find myself asking these questions.
All the children in the study were from rural areas, how would the outcome be for the children who live in cities? Would children benefit less if they were not exposed to museums and art galleries? and How would the outcome differ if the study was done on and older group of children?
Michelle you and Shannon have similar questions. I believe that there are advantages and disadvantages to growing up in a rural or urban area. Urban children are exposed and emersed in art and culture while rural children have nature and inspiration around them at all times. The study would no doubt have a different outcome but would still teach the same ideals of research, observation and development. I do not know if age effects the study, although older students would be able to make more indepth infrences and come up with well thought out theories; both are observing their surroundings to make decisions.
ReplyDeleteMichelle,
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about similar questions. As far as doing this type of study with chorotopos in a city, I've given this some more thought. Students could go out into the environment and collect, yet perhaps it would be a different kind of collecting. One thing most cities have in common is the fact that there are a lot of people around at all times. So, the students might not get to gather natural physical material, but they could still gather experiences. Going to a museum or an art gallery, seeing things first hand, maybe even getting the chance to talk to an artist in their studio, are all opportunities a student in an urban area could experience. There could be community walks where they visit local staples like the deli, pet shop, library, or even the post office. The owners could donate small objects which relate to each specific place, and children could come back to the classroom and find connections among the objects, just like they would have done with the organic material. The outcomes would be quite different I'm sure, but it's all the same idea of finding out how they respond to their environment and use that in their art making.