The same thing happened to me in language when I took my first German course as a junior in college. I should have had it long ago but the education system declared that I do math and science instead. I make my living in languages now and almost never use math and the science I learned in school has nothing to do with the science I use outside. With the exception of a lab in biology where I experienced human tissue that helped me in understanding lungs and larynxes I got very little. Although I tended to make classes fun and still do. Art is antecedent. If you are older it should be taught not as technique but as exploration. Learning form by rules rather than by seeking out the forms within and working to express them is the only useful art for those who, like language, are too far past the foundation building purpose of technique. Unless you had to build something, like cabinets, a house or understand the quality of a fired pot you had already done all of the practical purpose of your art before you ever got to that class. That is why I bring up the brain development of the feral child. Missing the boat on aesthetics literally made it impossible for the wolf girl to speak in grammar although she had a good memory for words. When they did an MRI of her brain, she had missing pieces in those language and symbolization areas of the brain. That is what I mean by saying that art is taught illogically and rather stupidly in the schools by the curriculum planners.
Art is also hard because it is holistic and demands non-linear thinking. A simple movement out of phase can destroy a work of art like playing the piano or throwing a pot. The vertigo that I had not long ago, made voice teaching incredibly difficult and physically fatigued me to the point of not being able to teach more than 45 minutes at a time. It was in the thinking and the psycho-physical computing of the sound of the student that a slight being out of phase disturbed. I could sit at the computer all night and just feel slightly high but at the piano it was impossible. You can't be high and do complex artistic techniques. You have to able to think with your entire being. That should be taught or rather allowed through good teaching in people from the very beginning. I blew it on the language with my daughter since I didn't have the courage to tell her language teachers how bad they were. I should have done the same as I did with the art. I hired private teachers to work and play with her and she has benefitted ever since. Her discipline was grilled at the ballet bar from the age of three. She never danced but her work dances every day when she sits down to write. Ray Evans Harrell. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2003 7:47 PM Subject: [Futurework] Art Education in the public (and private...) schools > I'm wondering if there has been progress in > art education in the public (or private...) schools > since I was in one in the 1950s. > > I went to an upscale public school, where the > principal was a PhD before every principal had > to be one to collect a paycheck. > > We had maybe 6 art class periods per semester, mostly > pottery. > > I learned two things of lasting value from > this experience: > > (1) There was not way I was going to make > anything of value in this class. > > (2) This was yet another way to make me feel > meaningless and insignificant -- which I > was already well aware I was. > > If art education in the schools has not > gotten beyond this, I say better without it. > > Yet again: "Never again." > > \brad mccormick > > -- > Let your light so shine before men, > that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) > > Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) > > <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
