Dear Colleagues,
Simon and Katrinka made good sense to me.
Drawing has many purposes and it takes many forms. The demand for
empirical realism is suited only to certain kinds of drawing, and the
purposes of realistic drawing do not seem terribly important for the
extremely young.
One of the issues that deserve greater attention among art educators
are the issues of pedagogical purpose and the different styles of
learning and teaching appropriate to the purposes for which we teach.
While I do not teach drawing, I do teach courses in which empirical
observation and careful reporting must be balanced with creative
understanding and individual interpretation. The most important fact
is that I teach college students, and since all my students will
eventually earn a master's degree in a four-year integrated program,
they must learn research basics and critical thinking skills. These
students take my course in organization and leadership. For them,
creativity, innovation, ethics, and empathy are as important as
research skills. If I were teaching youngsters, I would not teach
research skills. Rather, I would engage them in learning how to think
and act.
In his second book of anecdotes and recollections, Nobel laureate
Richard Feynman (1989: 11-19) tells a wonderful story of how his
father engaged in him in the process of learning to think. He
distinguished between merely learned to label things and learning to
describe the, to observe a process and attempt to understand the
process.
At the start, drawing is a process. Most of the kinds of expressive
process required for mental development require a rich period of free
exploration. Those who start life by learning to explore effectively
seem far better suited to dealing creatively with empirical data when
the time comes for rigorous empirical observation. Empirical
observation is probably not (and certainly should not be) the goal of
teaching children to draw.
Best regards,
Ken Friedman
Reference
Feynman, Richard P. 1989. What do You Care What other People Think?
Further Adventures of a Curious Character. London: HarperCollins.
--
Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Leadership and Organization
Norwegian School of Management
Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University
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