I know as I am reading my text that I should focus more on the philosophies of art education and their evolution to contemporary practice, but I had some difficulty doing that this week. After discussing the last chapter, I now question how much women’s dominance of the teaching profession has hindered or helped the progress of public education over time. It seems so far in history, the foundations of study and institutions created for the teaching of art were established either solely by or with the help of men. But the philosophies were adapted, altered, and otherwise carried out by a bunch of women. For example Froebel’s kindergarten movement, a program of study developed by a man, but subsequently advocated by lots of women. I’m not making that observation to undermine these men’s contributions. I’m just curious about how much is actually shared about or credited to women’s involvement during the formation of these formal education practices in history.
That said, I have to share I quite enjoyed the story about how Elizabeth Peabody foresaw the coming backlash of Alcott’s “conversations,” and disassociated herself with him prior to his demise. Alcott identified children as saintly and also attempted to expose them to knowledge that wasn’t exactly appropriate in adult conversations let alone conversations with children; Peabody left Temple School and saved herself from the eventual censure and public ridicule of her former partner…Bravo! Smart girl!
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| Women campaigning for equality during sufferage movement of the late nineteeth century. Image source: Google Images |
Always repeated is the perception that women’s efforts are somehow less meaningful than those of men. It’s disappointing that this behavior continues today. A shining example is Governor Pence’s interference with Superintendent Glenda Ritz’ duties. I never realized how much prejudice and inequality still exists until I started graduate school (which conveniently coincided with our first black president’s re-election and my use of social media). I haven’t decided yet if this newfound awareness is a gift or a burden, because it bothers me to know just how intolerant and uninformed some of my friends really are.
What I see happening during this period of time (mid-nineteenth century) is foundations being laid for contemporary practice and then, just as today, people working out exactly how most appropriately to bring art education to public school. I should add that I am quite okay with that. I'm not okay with how little has changed in our education system since industrialization, but I am okay with the fact it is always up for debate. Ideas about education should always be challenged, that's how (ideally) education evolves to meet our current needs. But it seems there are at least two sides to the advocacy of art education: people who campaign art as a natural part of development, healthy expression, the root of aesthetic experience and innovation, and people who regard art as more vocational, a means to acquire the “nuts and bolts” of art to be used for industrial purposes, typically drawing/drafting skills, and engineering. It’s almost like the first group can’t get on board with being told what to do with their art and the second can’t find value in making art for fun! Why not both? It seems we have made issues in education so much more complicated than they should be. An effort that should focus on developing thoughtful, aware, and productive members of society chooses to focus more on control, influence, and who gets their say in what our kids learn. It’s become a manner of establishing and maintaining control instead of fostering individual growth. God bless the educators who have found avenues of providing students with independence and confidence in their own ideas and individual skills, because I see now how long they have had to manage the bureaucracy to do so!
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| A quote shared in the text from Emerson's 1838 address. What a beautiful way to describe corporate insensitivity and the plight of workers. |
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