Public schools should teach kids how to draw from observation at the very least. People are visually illiterate. Same goes for music.
>>7402295>Public schools should teach kids how to draw from observation at the very leastwhy?
>>7402295what's the point
Our art teacher was a mentally retarded old hag. It would have been better if she didn't teach anything. I was already better at drawing than any art teacher at school back then.
>>7402295I was lucky enough to go to schools that did when I was growing up, but not all public schools are built the same. Most of the public schools in the USA unironically cut their budgets around the humanities (arts, music and literature) and embezz- I mean re-invest! the rest in other school related programs.
>>7402295I don't really see the point. The average person can go all his life without drawing a single thing accurately just fine.
>>7402295Drawing is not a necessary life skill.
>>7402471Same with math
>>7402295my art teacher made me research art deco, it made me lose all interest and set me back literal years
>>7402353>Most of the public schools in the USA unironically cut their budgets around the humanities (arts, music and literature)and many don't have that much money to begin with. I mostly went to the same school up through middle school, and it was relatively small (I think at most I had about 20 students in my class in a year, but often times fewer). we did go through a few different mediums (crayons, colored pencils, graphite, watercolor, acrylic, pottery), but the education was so stripped down and basic that I would bet we hardly passed the legal standards that were set by the state - whatever those were. I'm pretty sure our teacher wasn't even particularly into art, it just seemed like something she fell into after her own post-secondary education fell through.
>>7402542You’re surrounded by numbers your whole life you need math
yeah good luck with that.
>>7402295My high school art teacher did by making us create compositions with objects then draw those objects
>>7402310thisobservational drawing is more of a trade anyway. It's not something which might actually intellectually enrich you. A lot of things taught in school aren't "useful" but they at least make you a more sophisticated person (like history of art and literature). Observational drawing is just a trade that actual children and retards can learn, it's a waste of time if you're not interested in creating art.
>>7402295Visual processing is actively undermined in education, particularly in the West.
>>7402295We should begin in the West by teaching Kanji imo.
>>7402473>Drawing is not a necessary life skill.except for 1.7 billion east Asians.
>>7402295you guys weren't assigned self portraits or timed poses or still life arrangements? my rural art education wasn't the best but we mostly did that and random mixed media crafts until I was in college credit art courses
>The distinction between the liberal arts and philosophy thus contains in germ the distinction between what we now mean by gymnasial and university education. It is of course true that the liberal arts were not always spoken of consistently, and that the practice of Greek writers may be compared in general with the varying modern use of the word “education,” but it is no less true that to the Greeks the liberal arts primarily meant the circle of school studies.In fact they are often identical with school education itself, so that the saying of Pythagoras, “Education must come before philosophy,” meant to the Greeks that training in the liberal arts must precede the higher culture. Philosophy also, as the goal of the earlier studies, is not infrequently styled a liberal art, sometimes the only truly liberal art. Thus Aristotle affirms, “It alone of the sciences is liberal, because it exists solely for its own sake and is not to be pursued for any extraneous advantage.” The studies which came to be regarded as liberal arts were grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. It is not clearly known when each of these began to be considered as a school study, or how many of them were commonly so pursued, or that they were the only liberal arts. The Greeks did not formulate an unalterably fixed body of studies, seven in number. No list of seven arts nor any mention of seven as the number of liberal arts is to be found in the Greek writers. However there was an order which they were pursued, and the first three, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics, were preparatory studies which were generally pursued in the order stated. The other four disciplines usually came later, and it is probable that only a portion of those who had com- pleted their grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics passed on to the music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy
The notion of the liberal arts (from Latin liberalis 'free' and ars 'art or principled practice') have been a constant practice since classical antiquity. Attempting to separate the liberal arts from concepts of STEM is a very recent thing, traditionally they might be associated with the quadrivium, although engineering was associated with the mechanic arts in the 19th century. AI might be formally classified as part of the Artes mechanicae.Pier Paolo Vergerio said there were two liberal ways of life, one being contemplative, and the other being active and being concerned with present affairs. Drawing, Sculpture and Painting might be seen as a liberal corollary to the mechanical arts but even as a liberal art they are present-minded in the sense that they actively give contemplation form.>As a recent book about classical education put it: “The trivium and quadrivium are not discrete subjects. They are modes of learning. Nor are they ends in themselves. They are tools for learning.”In summary maybe the most important part of the curriculum would be to show various methods of using observational drawing as a learning tool, and then to show several more direct practical applications the way that Germans do today. Consider how different life would be today if the Greeks did not commit this skill to their education system!
>>7402295I might become an English Teacher in the future for Elementary schoolers and want to incorporate my art skills in my teaching too.
>>7405061wearing a miniskirt might be helpful
>>7404928For the average person you could learn everything necessary for everyday life 2 years of math classes, down to 1 year if teaching an adult through everyday private classes
>>7402295>People are visually illiterate>visually illiterateWhat does that mean?
>>7402295In theory, it’s a great ideaIn practice, Schools are so heavily dependent on kids scoring well on standardized testing that the school devotes almost all of its resources to helping students ace those standardized tests because that’s how they can secure the most funding for themselves.That means if it isn’t reading writing or arithmetic, and doesn’t actively make the school money like athletics programs do, Then it’s not happening
>>7402295>Public schools shouldshouldn't
>>7405087The term “visual literacy” was defined in 1969 by John Debes, the founder of the International Visual Literacy Association, as:>“Visual Literacy refers to a group of vision-competencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences. The development of these competencies is fundamental to normal human learning. When developed, they enable a visually literate person to discriminate and interpret the visible actions, objects, symbols, natural or man-made, that he encounters in his environment. Through the creative use of these competencies, he is able to communicate with others. Through the appreciative use of these competencies, he is able to comprehend and enjoy the masterworks of visual communication.” – John Debes, 1969Since this definition by Debes, researchers and practitioners have re-defined ever more complex definitions that reflect the breadth of its applications. The term itself takes on different meanings in different contexts and you will therefore encounter new ideas in education, science, graphic design, art, technology, philosophy and so on.
>>7402295If you were in a public school it’s over before it began.
>>7405096It's application in Common Core seems to be more of a sub-set of Rhetoric than a distinct part of the Liberal Arts.https://www.edutopia.org/blog/ccia-10-visual-literacy-strategies-todd-finleyTeachers might pose the 4W's to their students in order to stimulate understanding and engagement.
>>7402295I've read a number of art instruction books from the 18th and 19th centuries that argue for drawing being a part of the grade school curriculum. The points made in favor of this include that drawing allows for clearer communication of ideas than writing alone; drawing is important in many trades that involve design and manufacture of objects; drawing can be a lifelong pastime that brings enjoyment and satisfaction. John Gadsby Chapman (picrel is from his "American Drawing Book") states that basic drawing skills are akin to handwriting skills, and if a student can learn one he can also learn the other.The problem today (in the USA, at least) is that schools are bureaucracies that cost more every year and deliver worse results every year. Some big city schools have close to 100% failure rates in math and very high rates of illiteracy among students. Often, the teachers, despite having acquired the necessary degrees and certifications, are in fact woefully unqualified in the subjects they teach. We have teachers who can't spell or put together a coherent sentence. The bureaucracy responds to this incredible failure by lowering standards. Math is dumbed down, as are language skills. Many schools no longer teach cursive writing. Cheating on tests is not only tolerated but encouraged and facilitated by teachers.Adding drawing into this mix wouldn't help. You would most likely have the least qualified people in charge, the ones who can't draw well and would tell kids to "express their feelings" by doing whatever they want.
You remind me of that lady from Mr.Bean who tells him to just observe.
>>7402310>>7402471learning geometry, linear algebra, physics are easier if you can draw. Many concepts are easier to grasp if you are able to visually understand instead of verbally explain them.
>>7405104>Many schools no longer teach cursive writing.Sadly, lot of people below the age of about 74 struggle with cursive... the cheaper ballpoints that rolled out in the 1950's clearly have a lot to do with it. It's worth getting a decent fountain pen and learning that if you want to write serious longhand notations or letters.
>>7405104>Any one can make something on paper to look like a tree, a cottage, a road, a brook, or a mountain but Art goes farther, and, as if to compensate for what it falls short of, invests the whole with a charm more impressive than the reality, even to the most simple-minded cow-boy, who may have gone that road or waded that brook a thousand times, unconscious of the beauty that surrounded him, until it was developed by the hand of Art.
>>7405116>want to write serious longhand notations or letters.Who the fuck still does this? I mean it’s one thing to write a personal letter to your dear old aunt Sally, you know, if she isn’t on Facebook and doesn’t know how to read a DM or email. But it’s like teaching drafting: why would you do that when programs like AutoCAD exists that can do the work that used to require a team of draftsmen? Is this any different from Isaac Asimov bemoaning the rise of digital time keepers and the demise of reading a clock?I can see the merits of a drawing program and students learning how to express themselves visually, and learning how to separate perception from reality, but I’m not sold on forcing children to memorize obsolete systems for the sole purpose of historical convention
>>7405126The benefits of writing by hand have been demonstrated in scientific studies. Because of its tactile nature, writing something down activates different parts of the brain than typing. As for cursive specifically, it is just a more fluid and elegant way of writing that is worth learning if you are going to write by hand at all.You are right about drafting; practically, it's useless for most people. However, the people who design and program CAD software have to understand all the principles that go into drafting, so that knowledge is still important to specialists.
>>7405118Bros...I think he's talking about...APPEAL.
>>7405126That's an interesting example you've given by quoting Asimov but I don't think these techniques are the equivalent to reading (or being able to produce) an antique clock. Handwriting gives you the ability to fill out a journal or notebook with complete, regular and legible paragraphs that can be used to store information physically, allowing you to check back on it much faster on sight. AI, being part of the mechanic arts, doesn't and cannot replace the liberal arts, even for a lot of business purposes which may be your main concern. Drawing and handwriting haven't been obsolesced because their uses are as various as these newer technologies. I don't know if I would force children to memorize the systems of drawing, but it would be pathetic if they couldn't learn handwriting. What's essential at the grade school level is just to appreciate the basic technique of handwriting and drawing, and understanding its general use throughout history. To leave Basic Drawing off the curriculum is to deny it its proper role as a liberal art and craft, and not just a vague mode of 'expression'. To leave Advanced Drawing out of higher education is really to say that it's been obsolesced by the mechanic arts (namely AI), which is a fundamentally dangerous untruth.
>>7405139>It opens to all inexhaustible sources of utility, as well as pleasure, practises the eye to observe, and the hand to record, the ever-varying beauty with which nature abounds, and spreads a charm around every object of God’s beautiful creation, unfelt and unknown to those who have failed or neglected its cultivation. It does more : it gives strength to the arm of the mechanic, and taste and skill to the producer, not only of the embellishments, but actual necessities of life. From the anvil of the smith and the workbench of the joiner, to the manufacturer of the most costly productions of ornamental art, it is ever at hand with its powerful aid, in strengthening invention and execution, and qualifying the mind and hand to design and produce whatever the wants or the tastes of society may require.
>>7405160>Shortcuts and easy roads to knowledge give but little real aid to him who has a long and arduous journey to pursue ; though it is scarcely worth while to hazard an experiment, by which the spirit may be broken down with toil, in a path into which we occasionally diverge, as a recreation, or an accessory to other pursuits. From the delight, as well as profit, that awaits them, all may be safely invited and tempted to the study of Drawing. They may find difficulties ; but they will find pleasures, also, of the richest kind. They will find flowers blooming along their way, and wonders opening before them at every step>To those who have in view more than mere pleasure and amusement in the pursuit of the art of Drawing, may be fairly promised advantages that they will surely realize ; and a portion of this work will be devoted especially to those who look to the application of the art to its most practical purposes. Most of the difficulties constantly felt by artificers in the execution of their handiwork, will be obviated, when the same hand that executes can design. Let our mechanics have their apprentices instructed in Drawing, and the effects will be soon evident in their workshops. They will no longer depend upon foreign inventions, that are, after all, little adapted to the wants, tastes, and habits of our people. Let these wants be supplied by articles, at once more useful and equally ornamental, of home production. Let them learn to use their own strength, and their reward will follow.
>>7405168>All the capital, energy, and strength, the superiority in material and mechanical facilities of England, could not contend against the higher excellence of her [industrial art's] foreign rivals. As the voice of one man, her mechanics and manufacturers confessed the truth, and demanded protection from the government — not by tariffs, but by education. Her legislators saw the evil, and at once applied the remedy, by the establishment of Government Schools of Design. These have been attended with such beneficial results, that there is now scarcely a manufacturing town m England that has not claimed, and shared, the advantages of provincial branches. Our mechanics can, and must, do for themselves what our own state and general governments have, hitherto, shown such indifference in undertaking for them. To no other cause than ignorance can this indifference be attributed. Were the rulers of our land, themselves, properly educated, they would not only feel the necessity of teaching Drawing in our public schools, but would be capable advisers and promoters of efficient means of carrying it into effect. He who writes himself, and has been endorsed, ‘‘ Master of Arts,” by our colleges, should at Ieast know something about them whereas, in most cases, the arts are subjects on which, above all others, he is utterly ignorant. While foreign arts and manufactures have inundated our markets, to the detriment of our own enterprising mechanics, and politicians have convulsed the land with schemes, and plans, and measures of protection, all seem to have lost sight of one of the great and primary causes of the evil — the want of artistical education among our workmen. They are taught to read and write, to hammer and to saw but to design — the first motive, the very genius of all arts — is utterly neglected.
>The author may be here pardoned a personal indulgence, in reverting to his own schoolboy days, if on no other score than that of expressing his grateful recollection of his writingmaster. In the thoughtlessness of boyhood, and the unconsciousness of the extent of the benefit then bestowed, bis very name has been obliterated from his memory 5 but too often, in later years, has the influence of his lessons been felt to suffer his grateful recollection to pass away. He came to our village-school, unheralded and unknown — if I mistake not, on foot — a silent, sad, and unassuming man, who, for a pittance, offered to instruct a class in writing. He showed no unmeaning, ffourished specimens, but wrote a line upon our teacher’s desk, with an ease, and grace, and precision, that gained his engagement. Whether it was his gentleness of manners, his kind encouragement, the winning of his ways, or the magic influence of his system of instruction, writing became at once a delight, rather than a task ; for we aU set to work, with an earnestness that made us forgetful of the hour of playtime and recreation. He stayed but a few weeks and went as he came, bearing with him many a boy’s heartfelt blessing and farewell. He could not draw, perhaps, in the common acceptation of the term ; and yet he taught, by a method well worth the imitation of teachers, the first principles of drawing.
>>7405138>>7405146But is it specifically writing that offers the most benefit, or could a general drawing class get the same effect and offer students a much broader palette of skills upon which to express themselves by hand?I agree that it’s important for specialists to know fundamentals but when it comes to kids what’s really important is understand how to learn and self teach so kids know where and how to look to develop the fundamentals of whatever skillset they find themselves drawn towards
>>7402295>Trusting public schools to do anything rightThese fuckers can barely teach kids basic math and reading. We need a Stalin like purge of the entre education system. All incompetent teachers and principles are to be kicked out if more than half of the students fail to pass the most basics courses such as math, language(reading and writing) and fitness.
>>7405301 The whole thing that got us into this mess was the standardized testing that they use to track and measure that sort of stuff. School staff just focuses on getting kids to rote memorize the test answers and regurgitate them for the tests
>>7402295>Public schools...Are a joke, and will continue to be a joke until there are widespread education reforms to make the public schooling system more than a glorified daycare for minorities and general problem children who would otherwise be out breaking shit and robbing people. Put the horse before the cart, OP.Of course our social betters all send their kids to private schools anyways, so they couldn't give less of a shit about the school system.
>>7407298>Of course our social bettersand I should add that it's in their best interests to have the general population be brain-dead products of the public school system, so as to preserve their advantage and wealth from potential challengers. Education has historically been one of the ways in which people of a lower station raise their lot in life, so it's natural they would prefer it to be ineffective. This is just the 21st century version of beating slaves who tried to learn how to read.
>>7405116It's actually funny, here in Brazil we were all taught in cursive, and I saw on my own eyes the shift to block in my region.
>>7407307that's fascinating to me, did you witness a difference in the way that people who wrote in block letters communicated or wrote, specifically in the particular quality of their writing?
>>7402295drawing actually is a very common activity for students during lessons. like after they write something then they need to draw it of course they don't know how to draw so its little more than a time wasterbut being able to visualize and draw your thought is pretty useful for learning. so yeah they should learn to draw in some basic wayseven if learning to draw is boring, actually learning is a good lesson in the importance of discipline and reiteration. these lessons might have been integrated into western education if it wasn't for muh feels modern art poisoning art and its education in the west forever
