Page 32 - Studio International - November 1972

Aspects of art education 2

types — that it too is dependent for its efficacy on it is insisted that everything in this compass incoherent, but, if authority and the notion of a
the idea of a tradition. It is not, as has often been should be taken is perhaps more disquieting right and wrong way are construed as inimical to
supposed, that such authority stands apart from than would be strong conclusions adjudged liberty and freedom — a precondition rather than
context, but that it bears a special relation to it, wrong. But this is simply to return to the a curtailment—then the prevailing 'methodology'
without which relation it is unintelligible. The circularity — in that such are disqualified at the is an active abrogation of its own much-vaunted
invocation of such a role, as it often is invoked by outset. Kuhn noted that methodological goal of freedom of choice. In that reasons for
students, as an anti-historical factor (in the directives alone cannot suffice to dictate choice are only intelligible in the context of the
loosest sense) simply betrays misunderstanding. substantive conclusions to problems of the rules governing the activity in which one is
The point is, that parodied institutionally the activity; when these attain the vacuity of participating, considering reasons is a function
esotericism of the art context makes mockery of 'Make!' one wonders what global conception of acting according to rules. As Winch says 'to
any pretentions to education. As was stated could possibly have attended their formulation. eschew all rules — supposing for a moment that
earlier, a vicious circle begins once It seems, certainly, a propos 'mission', and at we understood what that means — would not be
'junior artist' has replaced 'neophyte' as the least arguably, a propos 'discipline', that to gain perfect freedom, but to create a situation
denizen of the colleges. problems generated by abstraction were never in which the notion of freedom could no longer
That this latter fact is the case, that the accounted for in any other than a conceptually find a foothold'.
blurring of education and practice is a norm, is a ad hoc manner; what then is the chance that Proponents of 'laissez-faire' in leaving the
fact empirically determinable, as opposed to the already attenuated 'aesthesis' frameworks can student to work things out, without supplying
theoretical necessitation from morphology to encompass problems of the decrepitude of that adequate environing conditions to start and
privatism. The very form of DipAD teaching is paradigm ? General education, and science guide thought, presume the student to possess
a pointer here: given the practice/education education, appear to have made argued attempts developed discriminatory powers; a capacity to
identification with its concomitance to privacy, at reassessment whereas art education has recognize, select, and order others achievements
it is obvious that one method is, alone, a simply witnessed a flight from guidance, — in short to produce an efficacious history, a
contender — laissez-faire; and such is the which has been educationally negative. prescriptive one. For the policy of
incumbent 'pedagogy'. 'Education' and 'non-interference', it could be non-interference transfers responsibility for
Adhering further to Weberian distinctions, maintained, are definitively incommensurable. domain coherency (history) from the educator
educational institutions teaching art can be seen It has been argued that privatism is logically a to the neophyte.
to be involved in formalizing the charisma of non-starter a propos art education insofar as the History as usually purveyed by the official
the artist by hypostatization of his charismatic business of that activity is communication and departments, is notoriously pseudo-descriptive.
authority into terms of the material constituents understanding. Following Wittgenstein's Such history is practically useless, it just cannot
manipulated by the neophyte: this is the illustration of the dependence of such notions as serve properly the function of discipline history.
consequence of the conflation of practice and these latter — those broadly involving 'an For it is only through the latter's high selectivity,
education whereby the laissez-faire attitude of agreement to go on in the same way'—on the a feature of some body of intertwined theoretical
the market place is transferred to the education concept of following a rule, the (almost truistic) and methodological belief, that apposite
sector — as the artist is conceived to be contention can be backed that education selection, evaluation and criticism, and thus
paradigmatically autonomous, so is the art (simpliciter) is a rule-dependent activity practical prescription can occur. In the absence
student. Additionally, more concrete features of carrying a conceptual connection with of such, the discipline is non-existent. Art
formalization can be referred to the imposition 'authority'; that is, that if education is about history, in this practical sense — involved in
of heterocephalous administrative structures on communication, then it involves the notions of doing the activity, becomes commensurable with
the supposedly autonomous body of the college, rule following, authority, and the consequent the Geistwissenschaften. Without embarking on a
as manifest in the predominant reference of acceptance that there is a right and a wrong way list of methodological distinctions here, the
ideological cavils into terms of administrative of doing things. It should not be really necessary question of teleological understanding — at least
expediency — viz, opposition to fluid staff here to stress that this is not to obtrude as regards intention and purpose — comes within
turnover, and the consequent ossification of neo-fascism into art, but it is unhappily the case the purview of theory. Attempts to maintain
career-mindedness; the inconsistencies of that this is one likely reaction — the iniquities of isolation from such concern, questionable as
laissez-faire compound to render its goals NDD rule-based teaching appear to have conducive to fabrication in current axiology,
inaccessible. blinded present-day educators to the fact that would in such a situation be conceptually — one
The bankruptcy of extant DipAD particular error here carries no implication to might say, analytically — untenable. Whether
'educational' strictures, has now to be the invalidity of the general concept : quite the department historians purport to be doing a
fully recognized by many of those engaged in reverse, in fact, incoherence enters with such a different job is not, for the moment, the point;
its perpetuation. What seems to be going swing. What did occur in the aftermath of the the point is that in the absence of any practical
unrecognized generally is that it is purported to NDD, the flight to a no-rules, laissez-faire history, pseudo descriptive history has
be a sector of further education; not an system, the DipAD, is a paradigm case of losing flourished. So with its morphologically
institutionalized patronage. As the latter, and the baby with the bathwater. An educationally anchored descriptive tendency a certain form
that is what seems to prevail, the notion of incoherent, and obviously short-lived 'system' of recognition and selectivity prevails (or is
education gets no purchase. It seems almost was generated as a result of the inability of the compounded), onto which is imposed the
incredible, in the light of current debates administrator/pedagogues concerned to make crude orderings of the student in an attempt
concerning scientific education, and elaboration the three-fold distinction between 'true' false' to make it work.
of the reconceptualization of the history of the and 'meaningless'. Or, in what one suspects is a The insufficient directive-constraints that are
activity, that art education, largely through more idealogically tainted light, between emitted tend generally to be couched in terms of
sheer inertia and myopia, should be toying with 'authority' and 'power'. 'make'. This unhealthy predilection for
remnants of the innateness hypothesis. Indeed, This point could be mooted more strongly — substantivity originates overwhelmingly from a
the grosso modo level of engagement at which that 'no-rules' is not only educationally misguided notion of visual (aesthetic)

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