I spent today at TAFE and over lunch an advanced student and technician revealed that a friend in her classes had utilised a technique it had taken her five years to develop. This technique had become a hallmark of her work and another student had blatantly copied it. The works in question have not been fired and will not ever make it to that stage as they are such direct copies of the advanced student’s work. The other student is however making this work and selling it outside of TAFE. This made me think about our students at school and the way they are not formally introduced to ideas of intellectual property and plagiarism until very late in their school careers. The ‘All my own work’ program that has been introduced into public schools (independent too?) I feel comes too late in students’ learning experience. By Year 10 they have usually established modes of working and researching information (ahoy the cut & paste generation!) that are unhindered by ideas of intellectual property and theft of ideas. As teachers I feel we are in a position to change this, and particularly as Visual Arts teachers where creativity and originality of thought and practice are paramount, we should be able to instigate change. I am still mulling over the ramifications of this and how it could be instigated in schools on a widespread basis. I guess it starts with classroom teachers – spot the plagiarism and give the work zero. There’s no stronger message that plagiarism is unacceptable than that!

Whilst feeling innately that there is something extremely valuable in the arts, and experiences in the arts, I have often found it a struggle to articulate comprehensively what it is and why people should study it. I found myself saying to a Year 7 class the other day, that I believed that there was something in Visual Arts for everyone, and that they just had to find what it was that they most enjoyed doing. This class was full of extremely bright children who agreed with my statement and this led to a discussion of what constituted the Visual Arts and a few students were surprised at its breadth and depth. I hope I’ve encouraged them to pursue art or even to just think of it in different terms. Within a school context it seems apparent that many students consider Visual Art to be a ‘bludge’ subject, one in which you get to listen to music and chat to your friends. It is so much more than this! I have long held the opinion that Visual Arts helps to form ways of thinking that are creative and that the problem solving ability students develop through their artmaking has wider applications. Enter Eliot W. Eisner. The man has written (eloquently compared to my rant) many essays and articles about the nature of art and the nature of artmaking and studying. Beginning in the late 60s by critiquing American school programs in art, Eisner has offered ways to approach the Visual Arts that incorporates it into mainstream curriculum. This is based on the ideas that the Visual Arts encourages brain development in ways, and skills, that students would not otherwise possess. Discovering the works of Eisner in the course of my assignment came at a vital time for my own professional development as it was becoming clear that part of my role as a teacher would be to be advocate for the study of Visual Arts within the school curriculum. I only hope I can do it justice!!

Perhaps the most important contribution that my immersion in the visual arts has made to my views of education is the realisation that neither cognition nor epistemology can be adequately conceptualised if the contributions of the arts to these domains are neglected…My appreciation for the kinds of thinking that qualitative mediation and qualitative problem solving elicited led quite quickly to the view that if education was to do more than develop a small part of human cognition, it had to give the young opportunities to work in the arts. The arts were mind-altering devices and the curriculum the major means through which such alteration could be fostered. To underestimate their importance in the array of cultural resources that the school could make available was to do a significant disservice to the young. Making a place for the arts in our schools became for me a kind of cause, a cause in the name of a balanced and equitable education.

Eisner, E. (1998). The kinds of schools we need: personal essays. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 60-61.

the advancement of technology, and its increasing accessibility for students, has created new ways of interacting, reworking and reimagining the Visual Arts. The issues of intellectual and artistic poroperty, coupled with copyright, permissions and acknowledgements are particularly pertinent to students’ artmaking and study of art history and criticism. As seen in the video above, the original animation has been reversed and set to a different soundtrack (I did initially think the sound had also been reversed but later read that it was an entirely different track!). The issue here is that this was likely done without the knowledge or permission of the artist who created the animation, and apart the from YouTube (the host site) identification of the above video as a response to the original animation, the artist’s intellectual and creative ownership is not asserted. Similarly, the views expressed by Terri Janke in the Copyrites video echoed the need for the establishment of clear procedures and protocols to protect and promote the rights of artists, and monitor and shape the ways that particular imagery is used, or not used, in contexts other than those originally intended by the artist. As the internet continues to open up possibilities in the Visual Arts field, and other facets of education and life in general, notions of artist’s rights and responsibilities will change. To the casual observer the unfolding of this will be an interesting journey, but to the Visual Arts teacher in a school full of computer literate, technology savvy students – the issues of intellectual and creative property and copyright will need to be addressed.

In between creating my Visual Design unit of work I have been doing some reading for the Professional Learning Portfolio subject’s first assignment about literacy in Visual Art. I have been reading a book entitled Arts with the Brain in Mind by Eric Jensen, published in 2001. Aside from describing children with disabilities in the ‘disability first, child second’ manner which is the reverse of how it should be, I stumbled across this little gem that almost gave me apoplexy (I went into an Art history/theory degree feeling that it was necessary to have a solid understanding and appreciation of the history of art and contemporary art contexts as part of my approach to artmaking). I will admit here that I reacted immediately and will further on down the line reflect and re read the paragraph but here it is now in all it’s glory

Visual Arts in the Curriculum

Schools should introduce learners to three aspects of visual art: the pleasure of it, the functionality of it, and the study of it. The first two ought to be mandatory. The last ought to be by choice. Though some people find art history and criticism interesting, most students don’t need to know who did art 30,000 years ago, who did it in the 12th century, or even in the last century. Most students are not concerned about the philosophy of arts, the statements behind it, or the symmetry of a beautiful design. And most students don’t need to see a thousand slides in an art class to memorize who painted what and memorize what school each artist represented. What does make a great deal of sense to most young people is learning to experience a wide range of art, from many cultures. Learners not only ought to experience diversity through art, but gain an insight into their own tastes and character. Formal study of art and art history can come later and by choice.

Jensen, E. (2001). Arts with the Brain in Mind. Alexandria, VA, USA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, p 66.

To me that smacks of an author who experienced dry tuition and rote learning regarding art history and theory. Formal study of art history and critical studies (as a proponent of the NSW Visual Arts syllabi) is far more adept at meeting learners needs than the above commentary would suggest, and the structure of the syllabi offer learners a ‘coathanger’ on which to hang their knowledge as they make connections with their prior learning and enhance their understanding of artists, art movements and artmaking. I am aware that the Visual Arts syllabi possess a unique language that is shaping students’ knowledge of art and the language with which they are equipped to discuss it, but I feel there are elements of the structure in terms of formal study of art history/theory and critical studies that will benefit students. I do however plan to incorporate a more linear presentation of the development of art across time and across cultures, in addition to the approach necessary to fulfil syllabus requirements. During my professional experience earlier in the year a teacher commented that the part of the curriculum that students struggled with most was the study of Postmodernism. This left me wondering that if students had a more thorough, and perhaps linear, understanding of the Visual Arts across time and cultures then perhaps Postmodernism may be less obtuse.

On reflection I do agree with some ideas put forward by Jensen, such as offering students broad experiences in visual arts, and avoiding death by PowerPoint or slide projector at all costs. However, I do feel that taking the separatist approach in regards to Visual Arts practice and art history and criticism, is to do students a disservice and offer them only part of the experience that art can offer. It’d be like burying phonics instruction all over again! The NSW Visual Arts syllabi are looking more and more attractive

Reflecting on the talented child who could wipe an entire whiteboard clean behind his teacher’s back – I recalled the below stop motion animation I came across in my 2D animation course last winter semester. Its simultaneous simplicity and complexity is intriguing. It also reminded me of the student work in the latest ArtExpress that was completed in biro. Despite these materials not being traditional ‘fine art’ materials, I hope to encourage my students to see any and all materials as potential artmaking media.

Whiteboard stop motion by Swedish animator kristoferstrom

The debate surrounding what constitutes fine art and the shift in contemporary thinking from the categorisation of art, craft and design to an increasingly interdisciplinary approach is reflected in the rethinking of media accessible for use in artmaking. An artist’s familiarity with a particular medium, and their experimentation with that medium, coupled with the freedom to switch between media to best serve their artistic vision is an approach I think students in schools should be encouraged to follow. This is probably a helpful approach given the often stretched resources in school art rooms and the more students are encouraged to be flexible in their approach to artmaking materials the more beneficial it will be to their Visual Arts experience.