What's Your Creed?

The Victorian Curriculum (VCAA) defines the Visual Arts as ‘fields of art, craft and design’ (VCAA, 2019). In the Visual Arts class, students make artworks that ‘communicate, challenge and express their own and others ideas. They develop conceptual and perceptual understanding, critical reasoning, and practical skills through exploring and expanding their understanding of their world and other worlds’ (VCAA, 2019). Judith Dinham, Author of Delivering Authentic Arts Education states ‘The emphasis on using the visual language to create meaning – to express feelings, to tell stories, to create sensory experiences, to provoke others to think or to experience certain realities – is an overarching theme’ (Dinham, 2014, pg. 307).

This education resource is aimed at Year 7/8 students and addresses the Victorian Curriculum’s Visual Arts elaborations for teaching this year level. This set of six resources are based from the outset on students beginning to discern their personal values and/or cause/s that resonate strongly with them. In this set, students will be introduced to political art and the positive effects it has had on the world, and is especially pertinent, considering the disenfranchisement in the community presently. To convey their truth or ‘Creed’, students will participate in learning about the ‘how to’ of their emerging creative processes, gain experience and understanding about the use of different mediums, and considerations of effectively presenting their artwork to an audience. Through this learning set they will also increase their Arts vocabulary, a good foundation for future learning in the Visual Arts. Students will also gain insight into a facet of recent human history and apartheid through learning about the contemporary South African artist, William Kentridge and his animation ‘Felix in Exile’. Subliminally, empathy, courage, self-acceptance and self-awareness, as well as critical and creative thinking, are potential gains in this learning set for participating students.

There are many reasons why students benefit from education in the Visual Arts. Robyn Ewing, Author of the ‘Australian Education Review, The Arts and Education: Realising Potential’, quoted McCarthy et al who stated poignantly, that the intrinsic benefits of Arts education as including the following:

  • ‘the pleasure and emotional stimulation of a personal, ‘felt’ response

  • captivation by an imaginative experience

  • an expanded capacity for empathy leading to the potential for creating social bonds and shared experiences of art

  • cognitive growth in being able to make sense of art

  • The ability to find a voice to express communal meaning through art’.

(Ewing, 2010, pg. 14).

Students also gain understanding of themselves in the context of their relationship to others, their culture and their place in the world and their time in history.

My pedagogical style for teaching aligns predominantly with Metacognitive Strategies as Visual Arts education requires students to discern and develop their creative process. The High Impact Teaching Strategies document (HITS, 2017, pg. 9) asserts, ‘Metacognitive Strategies teach students to think about their own thinking. When students become aware of the learning process, they gain control over their learning’. Aside from the necessity of students being consciously aware of their creative process, Visual Arts also requires personal and creative reflection. Differentiated teaching also plays a part in the teaching of Visual Arts as direction based on observation and intuition on the part of the teacher, reaps the best results from diverse learners. At times Explicit Teaching is necessary in the Visual Arts classroom, particularly when modelling the use of mediums and demonstrating particular creative techniques.

Students’ progress in the Visual Arts can be assessed by establishing a base line of ability with a simple observation exercise at the beginning of the school year (diagnostic assessment), which can be repeated at the end of the learning period (and at mid-year if desired). Visual diary instalments as well as providing engagement and feedback to students regarding projects provide insight into students’ development (formative assessment). Written responses to directed questions at the conclusion of a learning set make plain what students have taken away from learning based on a specific artist or art movement (summative assessment).

OVERVIEW OF CONTENT.

In the Visual Arts learning environment, the VCAA directs that Responding and Making exercises should be undertaken. The four strands that span Visual Arts learning, from Foundation to year 10 are: Explore and Express Ideas, Visual Arts Practice, Present and Perform and Respond and Interpret.

This set of six resources align with the four strands in Visual Arts. The theme for this resource is ‘Find your Creed’. Through the learning in Visual Arts education of this skill set, students begin to discern their emerging creative process and increase self-awareness by becoming conscious of their causes and personal values.

In the exercise that addresses ‘Explore and Express Ideas’, students interrogate historic illuminations from various religions and compare and contrast with contemporary graffiti art, becoming aware of methods used by artists to reinforce what is important to them. ‘Visual Arts Practice - Develop skills in planning and designing artworks and documenting artistic practice’ is attended to by Animation artist, William Kentridge who lends insight into what creative process means. ‘Explore and Express Ideas’ facilitate students embodied experience of mark making with a range of materials and mediums to tease out personal style and resonance. This is initiated with inspiration from underwater dancer Julie Gautier and activities inspired by bilateral artist Tony Orrico. This is followed by ‘Visual Arts practice - Develop skills in planning and designing artworks and documenting artistic practice’ where students watch a demonstration of gold leaf application and have opportunities to experience and learn about this technique and others. Students learn about ‘Present and Perform’, and accurately reaching the audience by observing and dissecting the animation ‘Felix in Exile’ by William Kentridge, as well as being introduced to political art. Finally, students engage will ‘art that changed the world’ to address Respond and Interpret, extending their understanding about the impact they can have on the world.

ARTS ADVOCACY.

Augustin Fuentes is an Anthropologist and Author of the text, ‘the Creative Spark: How Imagination made Humans Exceptional’. He establishes the strong link between humans evolving and our ingrained nature to be creative. Fuentes was interviewed by Simmon Worrel for the National Geographic. Fuentes stated, “Without art, we’re not human. The ability to imagine and take that imagination and make it into reality is one of the things that is really distinctive about humans” (National Geographic, 2017).

Creativity is a centuries old practice for humans. It benefits us in the ways that McCarthy stated above. It aids diverse learners in their education by providing alternative ways to communicate and extend themselves.

The ‘My Skills’ website, (the Australian Government’s Department of Education and Training), ‘Arts and Culture contributes a gross value of $10.1 billion dollars to the Australian economy’ (My Skills, Dept. of Education and Training, 2019). Mathematicians, scientists, authors and digital technology experts received scaffolded learning across 11 years of primary and secondary schooling before attending a tertiary institute to gain qualifications in their chosen field. The same degree of concentrated study is required for Visual Arts students to acquire the right level of proficiency in their artistic ability. Knowledge of mediums and expertise with techniques cannot be gained in one year.

Year 7 / 8 reference page

 

© Copyright Ingrid Schmidt