|
New
Ways of Appreciating Art
By
TOM KERTES
If
you haven’t seen a large group of school superintendents all in
one room swaying, rowing an imaginary boat, singing “Lean On Me”
and fighting the one-eyed monster Cyclops with an umbrella (in
place of a sword), well you haven’t lived a full life. Or at least
you haven’t attended “Superintendents Day” at the Lincoln Center
Institute for the arts in education. Over 50 school superintendents
from 24 states (and one from Thailand) recently did this and more,
and did it all in the name of ‘aesthetic education.’
“Aesthetic
education is a revolutionary concept whereby the subject takes
a work of art, studies the text, and then experiences that work
of art from all angles, from the inside and the outside, in a
wide variety of enriched contexts,” said Scott Noppi-Brandon,
Director of the Lincoln Center Institute. “It’s comprised of moments
of direct interaction with the work of art and a series of other
hands-on experiences. It aids in a deeper understanding of the
work of art by developing heightened abilities of perception,
receptivity, critical thinking, and response.”
Superintendents, working with Homer’s epic The Odyssey,
talked about what it meant to each of them, and did movement exercises
to connect movement to emotions such as joy, loneliness and sadness.
Finally, they broke into small groups to read and perform lengthy
scenes from the poem. The educators then viewed a one-man performance
of The Odyssey by virtuoso Lincoln Center performance-artist
Odds Bodkin.
“We
want to take this process of experiencing art in a new way into
teaching and learning,” said Noppi-Brandon. “The idea is that
these educators and administrators should develop a closer connection,
and therefore a greater appreciation, to art. And the goal is
that this increased appreciation would eventually affect their
decision-making and that, as a result, they
will bring art into their district classrooms on a
more profound level.”
Of course, “Superintendents Day,” which was part of the Superintendents
Work Conference conducted by former New York State Education Commissioner,
Dr. Thomas Sobel of Columbia University Teachers College, was
just a small segment of the month-long Summer Session the Institute
has held every year since 1976. Having grown from the original
47 teachers and four artists, this 25th anniversary
session included 2,000 participants—students,
educators, principals and administrators—and over 20 teaching
artists in extensive performances, programs and experimental workshops.
This year’s Summer Session also included an exciting new feature:
“Imagination Conversation,” a two day forum focusing on the role
of imagination in a standards-based learning environment that
brought together professionals from the fields of arts, science,
education, business, and the humanities.
Still, theory is one thing, and practice sometimes can be quite
another. So does aesthetic education really bring anything extra
to the educational table? “Without a doubt,” answered Noppi-Brandon.
“Through our educational outreach with partnership schools—255
of them in the New York area, reaching over 150,000 students and
1,775 teachers—we’ve had fantastic reactions and results. Works
of art don’t automatically open themselves to appreciation and
enjoyment. You have to learn how to encounter them.”
“In
the current, almost exclusively standards-based, high-stakes testing
educational environment, I’m very afraid of a developing apathy,”
he added. “As the great progressive educator John Dewey said,
if you don’t have aesthetic education, you end up with anesthetic
education. And I don’t think out nation can afford that at this
time. Or at any other time, for that matter.”
This
is the second story in a series of articles looking at arts organizations
in schools.
Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001. Tel:
(212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of
the publisher. © 2001.
|
