MSU LIBRARIES RETURNING MATERIALS: Place in book drop to remove this checkout from your record. FINES wil] be charged if book is returned after the date stamped below. SOCIAL CLASS AND THE MEANING OF ART: ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF A PREDOMINANTLY WORKING CLA$ SECONDARY SCHOOL By Helen Joldersma Bonzelaar A DISSERTATION IN ART EDUCATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY College of Education 1984 ii @ Copyright by HELEN JOLDERSMA BONZELAAR 1984 ABSTRACT SOCIAL CLASS AND THE MEANING OF ART: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF A PREDOMINANTLY WORKING CLASS SECONDARY SCHOOL By Helen J oldersma Bonzelaar The primary contribution of this study is to identify what art meant to students from a predominantly working class, junior and senior high school, and to identify the unique characteristics of a specific classroom. The ethnographic research mode employed participant observation notes, records of interviews, tape recordings, photographs, and school documents as resources for discovering how the process of schooling related to students' presuppositions, aims, and uses of art. The description points to elements of the out-of-school societal milieu which enculturated students and influenced the meaning students gave to art. Findings Show that working-class students preferred mimetic art, while a few created expro-ive art and reflectively began to recognize it as such. Students from social classes having little experience with verbal expressiveness created art which relied heavily on subject and was not visually expressive. Students who were open to art as expression were especially encouraged by the the teacher. The art curriculum generally fulfilled the students' and their families' expectations by including formulas for drawing and design. Many assignments and some pedagogy foreshadowed students' lower- and working-class occupational ' h Helen Joldersma Bonzelaar aspirations. The drawing of outlines and filling in the spaces and some student- teacher interaction also fit this perspective; however, the teacher asked students who she designated as "artists" to assume responsibility for their own decisions. Volitional art created out of class used elements from students' everyday world and was more reflective of meaning in students' lives than was assigned art. Much of this art depended on popular images for its origin. The findings suggest that in order to develop an appropriate art program, curriculum designers must understand the range of experience with art among students and their communities and in order to adopt a fitting pedagogy, art teachers ought to know their society's vernacular art. If art teachers plan to transmit or counter that culture, they Should be familiar with popular and high art forms so that they can help students both understand and create art. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A special thanks is well deserved by people who have helped develop this dissertation: Wes Bonzelaar, my husband Dr. James Buschman, research advisor Others on the dissertation committee Dr. Charles Blackman Dr. Benjamin Bohnhorst Professor Nancy Stackhouse Diane Vander Pol, Sue Ebels, and Nola Nielsen, typists Gordon Bordewyk, editor Dorothy Ver Geer, reader. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LISTOFTABLESANDFIGURES ............. ..... ...... ..viii Chapter I. INTRODUCTIONI TheProblem4 1‘11er 8 ModeofResearch................................................9 Research Questionsll TheBackground.................................................12 Limitations and Delimitations.....................................14 DefinitionofTerms 15 Overview 20 II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE .......... ....... ..21 TheScienceofCultural Description 21 Assumptions22 Assumptions about Reality 22 Assumptions about the Inquirer-Subject Relationship . . . . . . . . .23 Views of Reality 23 SubjectObjectDualism 23 Generalizability.........................................24 PosturesinlnquiryProcess 24 MethodSOfData Gathering...................................26 Participant Observer 27 InterviewsandQuestionnaires.............................27 Keylnformants 27 Photography............................................28 Record Keepmg28 Interviewingwith Photographs 29 Series 29 StudentS'Art ..... 29 Analysis............................ ................... ....30 Triangulation...........................................30 KeyLinkages ..... 31 Cultural Descriptionat Kettle 32 DataCollection..... ..... 32 Analysis 33 iv Concepts ofArt35 The Mimetic Orientation.....................................36 The Pragmatic Orientation ......... .....36 TheExpressive Orientation...... ...... 39 The Objectivist Orientation...................................40 Concepts ofExpression .43 Social Considerations............................................45 Occupational Capital 46 HumanCapital..............................................48 Cultural Capital 49 m. THECOMMUNHYANDMPEOPLE 00........OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSO TheOut-Of-School Commumty51 The KettleSchoolNeighborhood...............................51 SocialCharacteristics 54 The Clan55 Marriage57 Communication.........................................59 Schooling 61 Leisure 65 Evidences ofArtintheCommunity............................66 Parents'Ideas about Art67 In Homes70 Students'Clothmg73 Art-RelatedActivities...................................75 TheIn-SchOO1C0mmunity .76 TheSchoolBuilding..........................................77 InGeneral77 SeniorHighSchoo178 Junior HighSchool 84 The Art Room 85 TheStudents 88 Expressweness88 Lack ofInterestinAcademics 92 Comparison to Area Non-Public School Students.............95 InArt Classes 96 Student Factions98 Talk aboutArt.........................................100 TheArtTeacher 101 TheFaculty andAdministration..............................104 Teachers'Factions 104 Faculty Use ofArt 106 Faculty and Administration's Ideas about Art...............109 IV. MAKINGART,THEPROCESS............... ................. ...112 TheArt Curriculum ..... ........114 Art Heritage 115 The UnitonPicasso ..... ........115 Pointilism............ ..... ......... . ...... ........116 StudioArt.................................................117 Mimetic .......... 121 Pragmatic. ......... .. ......... . ............... ........123 Expressive 124 Form Oriented.........................................124 GeometricShapeAssignment............. ..... ......125 CollageAssignment 126 The Null Curriculum”? TheArtTeacher'sInfluence 128 Her Response to theDilemma................................128 Her Background........................................129 KeepingHerJobandDoingBattle........................l30 HerlnfluenceasaPerson 132 Rulesl34 Dictatedinmignmmts 00.000.00.00.0.0.0.0000000000000136 EncouragedExpression..................................l38 Individualized Assignments 144 Inspirational MethodsandMaterials.......................l45 Imposmonsl48 TimeOut 149 HerArtinSchool .150 Students' Responses to the Dilemma 151 Work 152 AttendingBehaviors Analyzed 153 Mrs.Bo's Response 15? Compared with Non-PublicSchools 160 Students Argue 161 StudentsSuggestAssignments................................163 Students' Responses toAssignments...........................163 v. THE PRODUCT: THE JUDGMENTIIOOOOO ........ O ....... 00.0.000166 Art Out-of-Classl67 ArtatHome...............................................167 Art atSch001168 ComaglGB choolinthe Comics 170 Craig‘s Dependence on Popular Culture.................l70 Halloween176 Mimetic Artl78 Illustrations 180 Craig's Art182 Students'Judgments....................................185 Pragmaticart ....... ..........188 Stationery.............................................189 Expressive Artl92 Assignments...........................................192 Student'sIllustrations...................................194 vi VI. Students' Art like Picasso's ..... . ............ . ........ . . .196 Students'Judgments....................................198 Objective Art ........... 199 Assignments ..... . .......... . .............. ............199 Students'Art 201 TheExam..... ..... . ............................ ......203 ASSERTIONS, REFLECTIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205 Assertion3205 Reflections................................................209 AboutStudents 210 About Curriculum 214 AboutArtTeachers 217 AboutCurriculum Makers 218 Implications...............................................218 ForTeachers 219 ForPolicy Maker3222 Recommendations forFurther Research.......................223 Content...............................................223 ModeofResearch......................................224 Conclusions ..... 225 Appendix A. PPS“? SELECTED PAGES FROM MAGAZINES...........................226 MAPOF ART ROOM ...........................................236 DISTINGUISHEDSERVICE AWARD...............................237 ARTEXAM ........ ...... ..... .. ...... ..... .....238 QUESTIONNAIRE.................... ..... . ....... .............24l INTELLECTUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY....... ...... ..... ....243 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION OF METHODOLOGY... ....... . .. ....... ...247 REFERENCES ..OOIOIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0.0.00.000000000248 vii Table 1. LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Page Advancedartstudents byfaction..................................99 Art asignmentsbyclass and kind 119 Aphotorecord ofthelastnine minutesin class 156 Illustrations byart orientation 180 Students' written evaluations of each others' stationery. . . . . . . . . . . . . .189 South oftheBorder83 Aimsofassignments by weeks .120 Gene's illustration............................ ......... .........l4l Students'attendingbehaviors 154 Craig's comicstrip 170 Theinfluence ofscience fiction.......... ....... 183 Lorraine's form-oriented illustration..............................203 Selected pages from magazines 226 MaPOftheartmm 00.00.00...0.0.0.0......OOOOOOOOOOOO00......236 viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION "Hey, boss," is the label Gene uses to address his teacher who was trying to encourage him to put meaning or "spirit" into his art, "I know what it [my art] is telling me . . . It ain't saying nothing . . . I would look at it and say, neat; look at that; and put it on the wall" (M 9).1 Gene sees his picture of a skull and flames as fulfilling its purpose-visible for its own sake or for entertainment. Art relates to life in no other way. "But it's not making any kind of statement," is Jean Bo's retort (M 2). Paradoxically, Mrs. Bo, the art teacher, sees herself encouraging Gene to new learning—art can also can be expressive of emotions and ideas. But her view contradicted most people's understanding of art in the schools where she taught. Most of the faculties, students, and families associated with the school preferred "realistic" art which said nothing beyond the identity of the image. To have Mrs. Bo say that art could be more than his imitative picture was a personal attack for Gene. Otherwise this almost inaudible, cooperative student would not have responded so defensively-as if he were personally wounded. Gene would likely have revealed that he was more aware of the rebellious sketch he scribbled after this encounter with Mrs. Bo about the nature of art. This defensive response symbolizes the lower-taste public's notion that lUppercase letters and numerals enclosed in parentheses refer to locations of evidence in research notes. 2 "modern artists" try to dupe the public with their non-representational art and that upper-class-taste publics use art for snob appeal. Taste cultures, as used in the study, function to entertain, inform, and beautify life, and as that which expresses values and standards of taste and aesthetics. Forms expressing these values not only include the fine arts: art, music, drama, cinema, literature, architecture and dance, but also mass media: magazines, newspapers, records, packaging, and furnishingbhigh art and popular art (Gans, 1966, p. 550-551). Socioeconomic classes alone do not necessarily determine taste although they generally represent the same people. Bell states that gross categories like middle class do not necessarily fit taste cultures in America. High-taste—culture artists may earn little and live as the lower or middle class. Yet they are taste- makers (1973). Especially conceptual artists, who do not always make permanent art which is for sale, must support themselves with other income. In this study, however, taste cultures studied parallel social classes. Gem has defined five lay taste cultures and publics: high culture, upper- middle culture, lower-middle culture, low culture, and quasi-folk low culture (1974). Germane to the Kettle community are the lower-middle and low cultures. Lower-middle taste culture or public, according to Gans, includes people who have all but the lowest-level white-collar jobs and some younger people who have graduated from colleges or universities. This group dislikes abstract art and enjoys the work of artists like Norman Rockwell (1974). "Form must serve to make substance more intelligible" (Gans, 1974, p. 85). Gans describes the maintenance of law and order and clear resolution as characteristic of arts the lower-middle taste public prefer. Popular novels, television shows, and magazines like Reader's Digest and women's housekeeping magazines attract this group (197 4). 3 "Romantic and representational (art), shunning harsh naturalism as well as abstraction" describe the lower-middle public's taste in visual arts. Still, judging by the many stores offering quickly painted and inexpensive originals which have sprung up in the last decade, lower—middle publics are not only more willing to buy art than they were in the past, but also ready to accept popular adaptaions of nonrepresentational high and upper-middle culture art: imitations of cubists like Feininger . . . and op art . . . . Reproductions of the work of high culture artists can be also found in lower- middle-class outlets: for example, the landscapes of Cezanne and Van Gogh, the dancers of Degas, and the skyscrapers of Buffet (Gans, 1974, pp. 87, 88). This culture is in transition and is sometimes difficult to describe because of changes. Low culture is composed basically of skilled and semi-skilled factory and service workers; members of this group generally obtain non-academic high school education. ”Low culture publics are still likely to reject 'culture' . . . and find it . . . dull, effeminate, immoral and sacrilegious . . ." (Gans, 1974, p. 89). The low culture public has been decreasing, according to Gans, because of extended schooling and expanded exposure to television and mass media. "The aesthetic standards of low culture stress substance, form being totally subservient, and there is no explicit concern with abstract ideas or even with fictional forms of contemporary social problems and issues. People like representational art" (Gans, 1974, pp. 90-93). Home furnishings of members of low-culture were in the early 19703 likely to be overstuffed, with bright floral or colorful slipcovers. While high- and upper- middle class publics value starkness and simplicity, lower-culture prefers ornateness—either in traditional, almost rococo forms, or in the contemporary style often described as "Hollywood modern" (Gans, 1966, p. 593). The marked difference in what Gene and Mrs. Bo meant by the word art repeats the disparity evident in people’s conception of art historically. This culturally transmitted understanding of art varies among national cultures and subcultures (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Evidence at Kettle School, the research site, exemplifies this. The so'cietal enculturation which led Kettle Junior and 4 Senior High School students to admire and exhibit their gold spray-painted papier mache' sphinx contrasts with students' ideas of art in neighboring, middle-class Covenant Christian High School. There students engaged in mark-making exercises, reported on leading American art critics' views, and one of the student artworks won an award in adult competitions—an, important symbol of success to these students. The marked differences in what people mean when they use the term "art" form barriers which lead to misunderstandings in communication with students and confusion about art curriculum among educators. If what educators mean by the term "art'? and the instruction to be expressive through art are not comprehended by students, schools may be facing a colossal waste. It is significant, therefore, that students and teachers look at the cultural phenomena surrounding their use of the term "art." THE PROBLEM Art educators need to know their society because it reveals what has meaning, to members of society—not only on a broad cultural level, but also in terms of the subcultures to which people belong (Chalmers, 1981; Chapman, 1978; McFee 6c Degge, 1977). Art critics may demand that everyone adapt their ‘ standards and embrace high culture, but this demand is not justified in a democratic and pluralistic society. The assumption by any group that its standards of taste alone are universally desirable could interfere with the goals of a minority (Gans, 1974). The social function of art requires understanding that art is a personal, introspective, and individualized part of human expression. "We need to develop the capacity to use art as a humanizing force in improving the quality of life on this earth" (McFee, 1974, p. 11). 5 Even students intuit cultural differences, as exemplified by Todd, a junior high student. He recognized Kettle Schools as different from other schools. Sandy, a classmate, had referred to something as "gorgeous." To this Todd tartly retorted, "You must have learned that word at another school. We don't use words like that at Kettle School (P 5)." If students sense cultural differences, teachers likely do too. Yet, because of familiarity, teachers often overlook clear definition of the subtle differences that teachers are required to know. Todd succinctly supported what Schwab advanced as essential components for developing curriculum, knowing the learners and their milieu. It Should include intimate knowledge of children under consideration- knowledge achieved by direct contact with them. This is required in order to know the ways in which this unique group of children depart from generalities about similar children of the same age. [It] will also include knowledge of attitudes, competencies, and propensities not taken into account by gatherers of general knowledge about children (1973, p. 502). Among the five bodies of experience Schwab claimed as required to develop curriculum, are two to which educators in the past have given little heed. One is a range of knowledge of the learners. This should include some probabilities about their future economic status and function: what leisure they will enjoy; what adult aspirations and attitudes they, their friends, and neighbors are likely to have: what roles which they play in the family, their political community, their ethnic or religious community (1973, p. 502). The second component impacting curriculum decisions is "the milieus in which a child's learning will take place . . . Important are students' relationships to each other, groups in which the student functions, and their power roles: the status of teachers as they relate to each other, students, and to what they teach" (1973, p. 502-503). Relevant milieus include also the family, class, aspirations, and attitudes toward education. This component in art education includes knowledge of a particular subculture's vernacular in art. In order to understand and appreciate the 6 importance of art, teachers and students must study the artifacts of their own subculture. Kaeppler labels this an anthropological activity, asserting that to understand (rather than just appreciate) art as human behavior, art styles, or aesthetic systems, it is essential to comprehend the principles on which such conceptualizations are based as perceived by the social group which holds them. This underlying organization or metastructure is as important for understanding art in society as an analysis of the content of the item itself. Only if we understand the principles of organization can we decide whether a creation conforms to the standards recognized by the society in which it was made. Such standards cannot by used cross-culturally, for members of different cultures simply do not react in the same way to the same stimuli. This is well recognized in most social and cultural domains, but art is still too often regarded as a "universal language" (1976, p. 21). This cultural influence is obvious in young people. When typical junior or senior high school students are asked to express a preference for or make an aesthetic judgment on works of art, their choices are likely to agree with those of their parents, teachers, and the shaping subculture (Coleman, 1966). Students of Covenant Christian High School, a private, middle-class, parent-supported school, often echoed their teacher's standards when they judged ceramic pots by classical qualities (Bonzelaar, 1982). These neighboring students, studied earlier by the researcher, provided one of many points of comparison. They reflected their teacher's objectives for the class project by using criteria a judge might employ. In contrast to that study, students at Kettle High School regularly judged art on the basis of its mimetic qualities. Realistic art in the students' homes, the teacher's me of space in school environments, her self-made curriculum, the attention paid to art in school, are all reflected in students' understanding of art. Schwab's third component is the discipline, here it is the varied standards in schools' art curricula. Several phenomena contribute to this dilemma. First, the nature of art is vague. Several modes of symbolizing life avail themselves to artists. Conventional symbols, those known to a particular population, are arbitrary. Representative symbols imitate almost literally the empirical aspects 7 of reality. Connotative symbols are a more abstract mode of symbolizing reality. These symbols result from distorting representational symbols in order to convey a particular quality of expression. Qualitative symbols are an organization of qualities designed to represent some feeling, idea, or image the artist wishes to convey but which have neither objective reference in the observable world nor arbitrary assigned meaning. Symbols, their syntax, and media are forms artists use in various ways for expression. Second, the elements are principles of art act as guidelines for design rather than specific grammatical rules. Vagueness in application results from the simultaneous, contextual nature of art. Third, the definition of art itself has been debated for centuries. Fourth, the role of popular art, often uncelebrated by connoisseurs of high art, receives varied attention from art educators. Fifth, the role of creativity varies among cultures. The contemporary search for individuality and originality is reversed in tribal societies where rigid adherence to established styles predominates. Similarly, traditional Eastern art conformed to conventional symbols and techniques. As a result of these various perspectives on art and the vague definitions of art and its guidelines, art curricula vary widely in secondary schools where few textbooks direct teachers to develop content. Curricular issues are frequently guided by teachers' personal, previous experiences with art. Many authors have called for research in society as it relates to art curriculum. Amdursky states it this way: " . . . there have been precious few opportunities to express constructively 1191 life feels, 1vh_at_ life's special meanings are, and 1'21 life is different for me than for you. We need an art education curriculum that will help children to understand art in varied lifestyles and thus to wisely shape their own" (1983, p. 4). Downs supports this view, listing education and aesthetics as being among ten top priorities for social research, because of the effect mass media has 8 on social change (1976). Sherman echoes this in a call for reassessment of our conceptualizations of art and emotion, which have been pervasively influenced by images from the mass media (1980). THE PURPOSES Instead of offering a prescription, this study suggests an alternative way of viewing art in schools. The discipline entitled "art" encompasses more than picture-making and sculpting: it names a world of gt_ifacts and visual effects which enrich life. The intent of this study—to uncover the understanding of art by one group of students-may lead to new insights and raise questions regarding the teachers' and students' roles, the instructional process and curriculum in a particular setting for adaption and application in Other settings. Furthermore, what is the purpose of educating a person to create art, to use art, or to study the history of art if it is not related to his life and society in a "causal-functional" way? The perspective of this study is that art curricula ought to demonstrate that art can reveal what it means to be human—what it means to be a member of society-and it can call for renewal in social order. Art can lead to unification or dissension. It can also be merely decoration without understanding. If the content of art in education is to be relevant, it anticipates an understanding of who the specific students are. Chalmers points out that to fulfill its total function, art has to achieve communication with its audience. If art has no communicative role, then it cannot maintain, or change cultures or even be said to be enhancing. If we, as art educators, are to produce either artists or art consumers who can see art's function in society, then we need to consider the cultural foundations of art (1981, p. 7). MODE OF RESEARCH Quantitative research methods are inappropriate for a study seeking information about the 395113 of students' understanding of art. A mode of research was necessary that would provide access to the kind of knowledge that comes not only through measurable statistics but through artistic experience, one which made greater use of the analogic processes such as correspondence and metaphor. Many researchers in art education have supported ethnographic research desigrs and encouraged their use because of the potential for investigating personal views formed in unique life styles (Beittel, 1982; Eisner, 1972; Morris at Stuckhardt, 1975). The ethnographic model provided a tool for discovering how the process of schooling related to the students' presuppositions, aims, and attitudes toward art. Participant observation, interviews, and analysis of tape recordings, photographs, and school documents permitted use of a research method based on art and science relating students to their social world-a reflexive relationship. Ethnography is based in phenomenological philosophy which recognizes that there are many points of view from which something can be known. The knowledge sought is situational, and one attempts to learn the ground structure or the deep structure of a phenomenon. The aim is to understand or perceive the phenomenon from a base which may include the subjective and leads to verstehen, the common sense reality of every day life. Verstehen recognizes different ways of feeling and being. It is permeated by our understanding of peoples' subjective meanings. Using the ethnographic research mode permits the investigator to understand what students think of art in a way similar to the way in which they understand themselves—to step into their shoes. 10 Several authors guide "ethnomethodological" investigation or production practices—the "doings which constitute social order" (Garfinkle, 1967). This type of research calls for collecting rich, narrative description in field notes and interview to generate working hypotheses to be revised in a process of "testing theory against real data" (Wilson, 8., 1977, p. 251). Glaser and Strauss expand on this "constant comparative method" or "discovering grounded theory" (1967). Theory comes from what is found in what is seen. Validity is established by discovery of patterns in types of data and their frequency which support or fail to support the emerging hypotheses. Looking at findings in this way leads to surprises, unique to the situation, not possible to know M. Awareness of discordant information, particularly as it relates to the given context, also permits probing into the reason why a previously established theory cannot account for what is observed. It makes sense then to me this qualitative data collection and constant comparative mode of codification and analysis to systematically codify and generate plausible hypotheses operationalized for further testing in future research. Typical qualitative data collection techniques included participant observation, informal conversations, informant's observations, interviews, and artifacts. Research notes, audio tapes, and photographs of the site, when compared with each other and local norms, become data which form materials for analysis. Probably the most fundamental analytical operation in the ethnographic design is discovering "significant classes" and "properties" of people who held particular attitudes (Schatzman 6r Strauss, 1973). As classes emerge they "link" with one another until propositions fall into sets. Linkage of major groups of ideas and attitudes mean that there is a scheme or pattern in their relationships, and relationships contribute to emerging hypotheses (Schatzman 6c Strauss, 1973). l 1 This transports the findings from the superficial to the differentiated and multilayered levels which outsiders do not always observe (Geertz, 1973). Studying many socioeconomic groups, finding likenesses and differences from multiple perspectives, checking observations with other authorities in the field, and sorting for relationships in photographs and students' art lead to finding patterns which more completely assess the nature of the subject studied. The review of the literature in Chapter II provides theoretical bases for the issues examined, and support for methodology used to collect descriptive evidence and perceptions from the field. RESEARCH QUESTIONS Although no single method typifies ethnographic research, this inquiry aims to describe a case study where no hypothesis existed M (Dean, Eickhorn, 6: Dean, 1967). Woven into the study are the following questions: I. How do students' verbal and behavioral statements about art class and the range of their artistic expressions reflect their socioeconomic class and taste public? 2. What is the function of an art class in shaping students' definitions of art? 3. What do teachers and students do and say in- and out-of-school that contributes to students' attitudes toward art? a. Both in- and out-of-school, what are students', teachers', and community members' range of expressions in or about: 1) art content? 2) art activities? 3) their roles as artists or art consumers? 4) the roles of other participants? 12 b. How are participants' implicit assumptions reflected in: I) classroom interaction? 2) activities outside the classroom? 3) the art produced and consumed? 4) the evaluation of the art? 5) the fate of the art? These kincb of questions suggest that this study of art will take a conceptual approach, a social perspective. Art and responses to art will be studied using perspectives and methods broad enough to include an analysis of the causal- function relationship that art may have with the social order. As Kaeppler notes: "Discovering the structure and content of such forms, processes and philosophies from the indigenous point of view is preeminently an ethnographic task . . . " (1976, p. 21). THE BACKGROUND During the early nineteenth century two major perspectives on art in education were dominant. One perspective was held by the upper class and the other by the middle and lower classes. To the upper class the purpose of art in education was to teach students an appreciation for the finer thirgs in life. Art as a mark of refinement was a social nicety. For example, art symbolized cultural accomplishment for girls in private schools where figure drawing, fancy stitching, and painting composed the curriculum. With the growth of industrialization in the middle 18003 figure drawing was replaced by the study of geometric pattern and decoration (Efland, 1983). This change occurred because trained designers were needed in American industry. To compete with European products Americans had to educate l3 . craftpersons and designers. In 1864 drawing became a required subject in Boston Public Schools. The aim was to train the eye to follow the hand, a skill useful and remunerative in occupations according to an 1874 United States Bureau of Education Bulletin. Walter Smith, a European teacher of industrial arts, came to the United States in 1871 to develop a program based on his philosophy that drawing was similar to writing. Both have an alphabet of straight and curved lines; both then were taught in sequence from the simple to the complex. The Objective of drawing was the acquisition of a vocational skill. Methods were simple and prescribed. Art was a matter of training and Skill, not talent and expression. Although today the division between the upper-class aim to teach art for social prestige and the lower-class view of art as useful for industrial production is less distinct, vestiges nevertheless still exist. The Objective of this investigation is to describe students' conceptions of art in a middle-, working-, and lower-class school. The intervening influences of other movements somewhat affect current practices. For example, the early 1900's picture-study movement familiarized students with "masterpieces" of the world's best-known artists so that students could "know the joy that comes frOm such an appreciation and so that their ideals may be influenced by patriotism, the sympathy, the courage, the piety, and the beauty which the great artists of different ages have given to the world" (Neale, 1927, preface; cited in Eisner & Ecker, 1976, p. 17). Of interest is the fact that until recently in art classes the artworks studied were not created by contemporary artists, but by the old masters. Art education until as late as the middle of the twentieth century was more a reflection of lay artistic tastes than it was a leader in shaping their tastes and enabling students to experience the work on the frontiers of their day (Eisner & Ecker, 1970, p. 17). l4 LIMITATIONS AND DELIMITATIONS There are two major limitations of this study. First, a level of inactivity was present that contrasted with Kettle School three years earlier when the students went to New York City and the school employed two art teachers, one for the junior high and another for the senior high school. The following seemingly superficial reasons emerged to explain why this year was different from three years earlier, but no one reason clearly explained the issue. The faculty felt alienated from the school board and administration during this semester because contracts were being negotiated. The threat of a teachers' strike resulted in gloom. The superintendent was seeking employment elsewhere: therefore, teachers felt he was free to reject the art grant which had been awarded to the school. These left the art teacher feeling let down and unsupported. The decline in enrollment and academic recession of the early 19803 also influenced teachers' depressed feelings toward education even beyond the research period. Second, both the art teacher and art students knew the researcher as a professor of art in a nearby college. Some students, therefore, viewed her as a teacher and were less willing to share their Opinions with her, although others found this a fascination and shared confidential feelings they had about the art teacher. Moreover, the art teacher, Mrs. BO, cast the investigator into the role of art critic, teacher, and confidant. While this had an inhibiting effect on some students, it also made available some of the teacher's personal views. There are two major delimitations in this study. First, because the observations occurred during one semester in three art classes, observations and data covered only a portion of what occun'ed; many events went unobserved. Second, the selection of one school district is a delimitation; the observations and conclusions relate only to Kettle Schools. It is true that Kettle School represents 15 what might be found in other schools which serve similar social classes, but with two noteworthy qualifications. First, Kettle was a junior and senior high school under one roof. Each school had its own administrator and school office although faculty members taught at both levels. Second, there was no racial conflict to have an effect on art because there was no racial structure to stimulate ethnic consciousness often raised in art. It was not an issue at Kettle School. As Cusick says, "There is a generalizability to be had from these one-of- a-kind studies, but it rests not on the promise of proposition like laws, but on the general sociological assumption that since behavior is bound up with structure, then behavior that occurs in a particular setting may also occur in a similar setting" (1983, p. 134). Through cultural description this study attempts to present the situation at the Kettle Schools in sufficiently rich detail to provide the reader with information to determine the generalizability of the implications and conclusions drawn. DEFINITION OF TERMS The following definitions focus on general forms of art and on relationships between art preferences and social class. Orientations to art and concepts of art expression are discussed in chapter II (p. 35-45). The scope of art comidered in this study includes high art, pOpular art, and ethnological art. Broadly defined, a visual artwork is a product of one of the fine arts. It is a human product rather than a natural wonder. As used in this study it may or may not have aesthetic goodness, that is, the fittingness of "the aesthetic character those objects bear to qualities which those objects express" (Wolterstorff, 1980, p. 112). It may, but need not be for aesthetic contemplation, and may, but need not be intentionally created. 16 The category of High art designates the fine arts like painting, drawing, and sculpting, those entities made or presented to serve as objects of aesthetic contemplation for the sake of aesthetic satisfaction. The institution of high art originated during the eighteenth century "when the city-dwelling elite-the court, the nobility, the priesthood, the merchants—who had time, education, and resources for entertainment and art were able to subsidize a small number of people to create culture for them (Gans, 1974, p. 52). Even today high art is created for and used by an elite public, those who visit galleries. Works of a foreign land made for functional purposes, but which another society selects and exhibits for non-functional purposes, also stimulate contemplation and can be called high art, though not used as the artist intended. "Aesthetics have primarily been concerned with the nature and perception Of beauty and the beautiful isolated from its cultural setting" (Crowley, 1958, p. 187). High art is often cloistered in museums or housed in churches and libraries, removing it from daily life. "American society is unique in that our 'cultural elite' is open, in the sense that membership neither depends on heredity, wealth, nor occupation." To gain ”membership in our cultural elite one attends college. Never ’3 the cultural elite totally cut off artistically from the non-elite" (Wolterstorff, 1980, p. 23). To know ngular art, on the other hand, requires little formal education (it relies on mimetic and pragmatic art primarily). Instead people learn it informally from the mass media. When (in the eighteenth century) economic and technological changes forced the peasants into cities and gave them free time and disposable income for their own art and entertainment, they shed their rural-based folk culture and became customers for a commercial popular culture that soon outnumbered in quantity the products and creators of high culture, and eventually destroyed its monopoly position as the only public and visible art (Gans, 1974, p. 53). The technical and design prOpertieS of popular art may or may not fit standards followed in high art. Lack of originality and lack of content for raising consciousness distinguish popular art from fine art most dramatically. l7 Sentimentality, pleasing subjects and themes, and immediacy of message characterize the appeal of popular art particularly to low and lower-middle taste publics (Gans, 1974). Popular culture must be profitable and appeal to the masses in contrast with the appeal of high art to a relatively smaller audience. . Both popular and high art may be used in ways not relative to their intended use. Wolterstorff suggests that a Mozart work played for contemplation may also be played by Muzak for general auditory background (1980). Thus, a work of high art is not necessarily only high art. Philosophical debate surrounds the claims of high art which exist to communicate .an experience of "significant form," that is pure form viewed as independent of questions of representational adequacy. Bell states, "The value of the greatest (high) art consists not in its power of becoming a part of common existence but in its power of taking us out of it" (1958, p. 175). In rebuttal, the meaning of art is not always immediately clear, but revealed. The act of creating art and its results are themselves enlightening. Graff points out that high art itself speaks its concern of man's alienation "from a community . . . . from the elementary sources of clarification of his situation, so that his humanity itself is called into question . . . . Aestheticist art is a reflection of widespread social crisis in which man is estranged from social, intellectual, and personal coherence, and unreality increasingly intrudes into all aspects of life" (1973, p. 331-332). Works of the tribe contrast with art in other categories in that these works are used by the elite or non-elite in ways intended by the artist. "A3 artifacts the arts can be considered as being involved with the production of goods and services, as having to do with social networks or interaction, and as intentional expressions" (Chalmers, 1981, p. 6). Ethnoggical art is an alternative term used here to denote tribal art. This anthropological definition of art explains art as visual symbols that transmit l8 ideas, and express emotions: art is used to connote rank, function, or status. It may also function to celebrate a person, an object, a group of people, or part of the environment. In this sense the visual aspects of mass media—television, magazines, fashion design, architectural interiors, and advertising as well as high art—become part of contemporary society worthy of investigation. For purposes of this study art products refer to those works produced in the art room, at least in part, by the students. Although clear distinctions among taste publics are blurred, some traits characterize them. The lower-middle-taste culture (public), according to Gans, includes middle- and lower-middle class people. They prefer art which is representational and romantic, not abstract. Some of the group are beginning to participate in "cultural institutions" and purchase popular reproductions of art masterpieces (1974, p. 86). The low-culture (public) is Often but not always the "working class" or "blue collar workers." These people prefer art which is didactic, and in which form serves substance or subject. The group rejects high culture. Mass media content relates particularly to the lower-middle and lower-taste culture (Gals, 1976). Social class, in contrast to taste publies and taste culture, is defined as aggregates of people who hold similar positions on the scale of prestige, particularly related to parents' occupational position (Kohn, 1976: Otto, 1975). Sociologists customarily use four or five classes. Warner, who originated class labels, discovered Six major social classes in one American geographical area and five classes in another area because of heterogeneity of classes. Four relatively general categories function as models of social stratification in scholarly inquiry: a "lower class" of manual workers, a "working class" of manual semiskilled and skilled occupations (blue-collar workers), a "middle class" (also "professional 19 class") of white-collar workers and professionals, and an "elite, upper class" differentiated from the middle class not so much by occupations as wealth and lineage. In this study, for simplicity and because of similar taste, the lower and working classes are considered as one and are labeled "working class." The class to which workers belong, manual and non-manual, affects the rearing of children (Kohn, 1976). The other class considered is the "middle class." References to class follow the current American sociological practice of makixg no distinction between social class and social stratification. The phenomena which deal with the hierarchical distribution of power, privilege, and prestige here relate to the term "class." One important dimension of stratification relative to the study is occupational position, particularly the distinction between manual and non-manual occupations (Kohn, 1976: Otto, 1975). Actually, characteristies of social classes blur. For research purposes, however, they here are considered homogeneous. New cultures regularly emerge among the youth in society: none of these is ever entirely new and many have origins in avant garde high culture. An example is Dada—the rejection of pretty art through nihilistic satire. Gans defines several forms of ”nth culture beginning with the bohemian of the 19503 and the beat and hip cultures of the 19603. Lower-taste cultures have newly adopted the "wide array of cultural fare" associated with the radical values of such "youth cultures." 9w Chapter I has presented the background of the study, the problem, purpose, research questions, limitations and delimitations, and definitions of terms used in the study. 20 Chapter II presents pertinent research and literature relating to the form and substance of the study. Chapter III looks at the participants in the study, characteristics of the community out-of—school and in-school. Chapter IV describes the process surrounding students making art-the curriculum and participants' behavior. Chapter V analyzes the kinds and fate of students' art products. Chapter VI closes with a summary of the study, appropriate conclusions, and implications for future research. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE Two bodies of knowledge provide a basis for this study. First, scholars support the use of ethnography to view phenomena from multiple, contextual perspectives. A brief review of its history and rationale validate the naturalistic research mode as it applies to this investigation. Second, throughout the ages man has defined art from various orientations. An examination of these orientations then becomes useful. THE SCIENCE OF CULTURAL DESCRIPTION The ethnographic method has its roots in anthropology; phenomenological philosophy is its basis. As such it is more than a method of data gathering or analysis alone. As early as the 19203 the naturalistic research tool was developed to capture the quality of life by the British anthropologist Malinowski (1950). When trapped on a South Pacific island because of World War II, Malinowski lived with villagers and there discovered the meaning of native societies. His descriptions of the social anatomy include those events and relationships so familiar to the native inhabitants that they became blind to the condition and were likely not to talk about these to a stranger. These figments of life, transparent to natives, become "imponderabilia," as Malinowski labels them. When these pieces of life are observed in context by outsiders they reveal the 21 22 natural participants' point of view, corpus inscriptionem. Since Malinowski's time, several researchers have employed his research method of participant observation (Firth, 1966; Garfinkle, 1967; Geertz, 1971; Malinowski, 1950; McCall 6: Simmons, 1969; Pelto dc Pelto, 1973; Schwartz, 1962: and Zelditch, 1962). Guba and Lincoln in Effective Evaluation describe thoroughly the advantages of scientific and naturalistic modes of inquiry (1982). Their rationale for naturalistic research supports and describes the descriptive mode of research used in this study. Guba and Lincoln become the model for this defense. Assumptions Basic assumptions about reality direct the investigation to determine the method used to search for truth. Through the scientific mode we discover entities in the world which are singular, convergent, and fragmentable, with independent and dependent variables. Through naturalistic methods we uncover truth as multiple, divergent, and interrelated relationships (Guba 6: Lincoln, 1982). Each of these empirical paradigms has its assumptions. Choice of method depends upon the phenomenon being studied. Assumptions about Reality Ethnography, a naturalistic method, has advantages for studying social behavior. Guba and Lincoln compare its multiple realities to the multiple layers of an onion which nest within or complement each other (1982). Each layer presents a different perspective of reality and none can be considered more "true" than any other. Phenomena do not converge into a single form, a Single "truth", but diverge into many forms, multiple "truths." Moreover, the layers cannot be described or understood in terms of separate, independent and dependent 23 variables: rather they are intricately interrelated to form a pattern of "truth." The ethnographer searches for typologies that form patterns; comprehension of the patterns leads to verstehen or understanding of common meaning. Assumptions About the Inquirer-Subject Relationsgip To pretend that the inquirer does not affect the subject or that the inquirer does not affect the interpretation of information is "problematic" (Guba 6: Lincoln, 1982). While scientific inquirers attempt to control for these occurrences, the ethnographer recognizes the interrelatedness of all interactivity, and takes it into account. The Intellectual Autobiography states the researcher's role as "data-collector" (Appendix F). Moreover, thick, narrative description of phenomena replaces the scientific researcher's generalizations (Geertz, 197 3). As Guba and Lincoln note: Differences rather than similarities characterize different contexts: if one derives description or interpretations of one situation and wishes to know the extent to which they hold in a second situation, it is necessary to have a great deal of information about both (that is, thick descriptions of each situation or arson or even to determine whether a sufficient basis for transfer exists) 1982, pp. 58-59). Ethnographic inquiry often focuses on "an ideographic information base." Views of Reality Various people view reality from different perspectives. To assume that all subjects view it alike would be absurd. "Social reality is experientially not singular, convergent, or fragmentable" (Guba 6: Lincoln, 1982, p. 59). Ethnography is the mode which can best describe these divergent views. Subject-Object Dualism Investigating peOple necessarily produces a reaction; human beings are not like test tubes and chemicals which do not interact with the investigator. 24 Some obvious effects occur between people being investigated and the investigator; ethnographers obviously describe phenomena from multiple points of view. Even the interpretation of questionnaires is influenced by an investigator's perspectives. When subjects in an interview or casual conversation do not interpret questions, the field worker can rephrase the question or return to it at a later time to determine what was meant. The researcher also notes several responses from subjects in various settings which give opportunity to triangulate data. Inquiry which uses a scientific research mode makes such collection impossible. Generalizability Cronbach asserts that generalizability fails often, even in scientific research (1957). Guba and Lincoln quote his examples taken from the natural and behavioral sciences: The failure of DDT to control mosquitoes as genetic transformations have made them resistant to that pesticide. The shifting of stars in their courses so as to render star maps obsolete. Bronfenbrenner's conclusion that class differences in parentiig observed in the 19503 were) just the reverse of those in 1930 (Cronbach in Guba 6: Lincoln, 1952, p. 61 . Exceptions in human behavior occur as people respond to their specific context. Generalizability is not an appropriate test in naturalistic research. Postures in the Inquiry Process When something is to be verified, it is likely that the entity can be hypothesized _a_ priori, but when a concept is not discovered before an investigation, it follows that a precisely measured statement cannot exist as it does in scientific research. The investigator asks broad research questions which 25 lead to discovery, not verification. Ethnography promotes the potential for uncovering truth, relating the student to his social world—a reflexive relationship. Although not exclusive to ethnography, qualitative methods most appropriately "fit" and are preferred when attempting to analyze cultures. Essentially such a study begins to reveal the quality of life and its meaning to native subjects. Typical of the ethnographic research mode, the investigator attempts to set aside personal preconceptions to truly observe the setting—its participants, items in the environment, and their interactions. When viewing life from a phenomenological perspective one is required to attend to the experience first as it primarily and immediately appears. "To describe phenomena phenomenologically, rather than M them, amounts to selecting a domain for inclusion and a domain for exclusion" (Idhe, 1979, p. 34). Idhe also suggests horizontalizing all immediate phenomena, a "suspension of belief," at this point to equalize all initial hierarchy of "realities" (1979, p. 36). One N required to horizontalize, that is, to view all facets of the scene equally without prior ordering. Idhe suggests that mg in phenomenology calls for "abstention from certain kinds of belief. M requires that looking precede qument and that judgment of what is 'real' or 'most real' be suspended until after all the evidence (or at least sufficient evidence) is in" (1979, p. 36). It is more important to look for "structural invariant features of phenomena," these patterns which always repeated themselves (Idhe, 1979, p. 39). This more active level of interpretation prevents the inquirer from jumping to unfounded conclusions. For example, it is necessary to collect sufficient examples of structural variants, phenomena which do not remain constant, and to arrive at invariants, those phenomena which never change. Glaser and Strauss apply the method to ethnographic research and call it a "constant comparative 26 method" or "grounded theory" (1967). Grounded theories meet two criteria—"fit" to empirical situations and meaningful communication with both professionals (the etic) and laymen involved (emic, defined below). To understand the society in its own terms after starting analysis with no _a_pr_ipri_ hypotheses requires one to have a foreshadowed question in mind. Meaning emerges fro-m discovering "key linkages" among structures, and only then do additional significant questions appear and generate working hypotheses which needed constant revision in the process of "testing theory against real data" (8. Wilson, 1977, p. 215). Interaction with participants helps one to maintain and develop relationships with the subjects which ensured the flow of data. Relevant theories and knowledge lead to assessment and refinement of what is significant of what is learned. Methods of Data Gathering Data gathering for ethnography assumes several forms: records of what a participant observer sees and hears, interviews, questionnaires, collections of artifacts and photographs. Each of these is appropriate as a method available to ethnographers. Photography as an analytical tool, a collecting device, interview stimulus, and record keeping technique is uniquely appropriate for this study; therefore, a more extensive defense of its use follows. ’ When the natural participants provide the data categorization system, the categories are referred to as "emic" (from phonggig). When the researcher brings the categories into the situation, it is referred to as "etic" (from phon_e_t_i_c_:_) (Pelto 6c Pelto, 1978). Pike makes a useful distinction between "etic," what is externally apparent and measureable, that known to professionals as viewed from a broad context, and "emic," the phenomena considered as they are functionally 27 relevant to the participants (1967). Outsiders grasp the logic of insiders' configurations although the insiders may not realize their existence because of familiarity. To native participants, items may have become transparent or overlooked becasue of familiarity or "imponderabilia," as Malinowski labeled it (1950). Participant Observer The role of participant observer differs from three other levels of role- taking available to a field observer in that the informant and subjects are aware that research is taking place (Gold, 1969). Participant observation is the best source for gathering incidents and histories (Zelditch, 1969). lpterviews and Questionnaires Interviews are "often but not always, inadequate" for procuring information about frequency distribution, "adequate with precautions and efficient for learning incidents and histories;" and "most efficient and hence the best form" for learning "institutional norms and statuses" (Zelditch, 1969). Questionnaires and samples of student works, artifacts, and photographs provide the best sources for frequency distributions, while both participant observation and informant interviewing are either inadequate, inefficient, or both (Zelditch, 1969). Key Informants Particularly helpful in ethnography are informants who report information about others or events outside their own actions. Many ethnographic researchers have involved teachers in the field research process. Teachers are known to provide information which is "pertinent and useful" to teachers (Florio, 1980). 28 Photography Photographs play a unique role in studies of visual phenomena by serving multiple functions; they aid data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Through the dynamics of photography one is able to identify participants and to analyze the details of interpersonal relationships. Photography facilitates decoding "kinesics"—a person's stance, posture, facial expressions, arm and hand gestures—and "proxemics"—the spacing between people and body orientation which reveal within a culture's perimeters how people reflect paceptions of inferiority or superiority, group acceptance, cliques, and invasion of privacy (Hall, 1966). From photographs, Byers abstracts information illustrating certain basic patterns of group dynamics observed at a conference of American and foreign Fulbright scholars. The pattern of behaviors varies considerably among cultures and time frames (Byers, 1967). He notes "proxemics" in the dispersion of furniture, the ways clothing was worn, how coffee cups were placed, and the number of people in groups and their "kinesics." Record Keeping. Another advantage photography offers is the records it provides of art. The analysis of design qualities, use of media, style, and content is best accomplished by collecting actual artworks: however, this is often difficult to accomplish without raising participants' curiosity or even opposition, since each artwork marks new learning'and represents months of labor. When collecting art is impossible, photographs of the work substitute. Furthermore, series of photographs of an artwork in process are an effective way to reveal the artist's method and approach. For example, to maintain unity of mood and to integrate consistently the elements within an artwork, an artist usually develops basic colors or values as underlays in large areas of painting or drawing, and then 29 develops various areas of the artwork together—rather than completely finishing one area to its desired finished state. Beginning artists, not sensing the importance of unity in art, frequently ignore this process unless a mentor provides direction. Photographic evidence of this is convincing. Sometimes student-artists destroy or rework portions of a developing work. Photography permitted the investigator to record these revising actions, providing graphic evidence of the learning process. Moreover, not all art is characteristically made for preservation. The temporal nature of costumes, for example, dramatizes the unique facility of the camera for preserving an artifact planned for a short duration. Interviewingwith Photographs. Photography aids in interviewing when a field worker reviews informal photographs with subjects. They often respond with some new information about themselves, their environments, or their art. Photographs sharpen memory and sometimes stimulate reflective comments with the casual mention of material not usually shared in conversation. The wordless probe provides a valuable opener because it seems less like prying for data. M. Photographic sweeps of a room every thirty seconds or every minute for a series of minutes provides a view of changing or static movement. Photographs of individuals participating in a particular activity or doing nothing provides clues to the amount of attention participants pay to an object, role expectancy, and social structure. Students' Art The subject's art itself is a form of expression which extends and sharpens insight. The process of continually growing understanding occurs through observing the subject's process in creating art, the object itself, and the audience's 30 response or feedback to the art. The self-realization procem occurs both in formal and informal evaluations of art. Analysis Analysis follows two tracks. First, data is validated through triangulation, that is, viewing related informationn gathered from various sources and substantiating it through comparison. Second, from thE information types and categories become apparent and provide opportunity for pinpointing conclusions. 'I‘r' tion Contextual elements discovered repeatedly from several data sources provide opportunities to triangulate information and thereby validate generalizations. Just as triangulation occurs in data gathering, it also occurs in data processing. Information provides the possibility for enumeration and sampling (photographs, art collected, and questionnaires), introspection and participation, and respondent and informant interviews. Triangulated analysis of thb chta then requires several substudies to provide a holistic perspective. Analysis of event interaction, conversation and interview analysis, and ethnomethodological analysis leads to series of classes or properties which characterized them (Sevigny, 1978). Other plausible interpretations from different participant perspectives are weighed which, at the same time, allow for cross-validation measurement operations, including the mesh of quantitative and quantified reports (Glaser and Straus, 1967). Photographs of equipment, tools, and supplies, where they are kept, and how they are used, help the researcher interpret the cultural inventory. 31 Key Linkages Analysis depends upon the "key incidents" approach which generally has proved effective for classroom analysis in the history of ethnography in school environments (Cusick, 197 3; Erickson, Florio a Buschman, 1980; Erickson 6c Mohatt, 1982; Morris, 1975; Peshkin, 1978). Analysis of the qualitative data helps one discover typologies of things, persons, events, and properties which characterize them (Schatzman 6: Strauss, 1973). These analytic units in turn guide discovery of causality and understanding of complex interrelationships (Guba 5: Lincoln, 1982). A "key linkage" is a "metaphor, model, general scheme, overriding pattern, or 'story line” which can be related to selected, relevant classes, thereby "linking with other classes" (Schatzman and Strauss, 1973). Analysis depends on coding recurring patterns in data and making memos regarding compar'son of observations about incidences in one category with those in another category. The "constant comparative theory" as Glaser defines it, leads to the generation of theories (1969). "Key linkage," the term used to describe the persistent threads which tie others together, provides clues to significance and meaning (Schatzman 6c Strauss, 1973). An inspection of material culture may contribute insights into character structure and reveal emotional qualities. Product analysis entailed examining utilitarian constructions . . . to determine the value they embodied as revealed, for example, in the careless or perfectionistic construction. The proportion of non-utilitarian objects to utilitarian objects in a culture may also be meaningful. Type and number of possessions may reveal drives and aspirations in a class structured community (Honigmann, 1954, p. 134). The selection of objects and how they are arranged may not always reveal people's desires, but they do indicate ways in which people adapt to fit the demands of their lives. For example, a building and the space it encloses are in some ways representative of people who live in it. "This is particularly true of interiors, where the nature and arrangement of pomessions say a great deal about their owners' views of existence" (Rulsch 6c Kees, 1956, p. 132). 32 CULTURAL DESCRIPTION AT KETTLE Ethnographic approaches to education in general have been developed recently; this type of research is particularly appropriate for studying educational systems and surrounding characteristics (Anyon, 1981; Cusick, 197 3; Erickson, Florio, dc Buschman, 1980; Gearing 6: Epstein, 1982; Peshkin, 1978; Spindler a: Spindler, 1982; S. Wilson, 1977; and Wolcott, 1973). Recently ethnography has been applied to research in art education by researchers who sense that traditional, experimental modes of research leave untouched a number of areas for study in art education (Beittel, 1982; Chalmers, 1978, 1981; Morris, 1975; Morris and Stuckhardt, 1977; and Sevigny, 1978). The ethnographic process employed in this investigation was naturalistic, observational, descriptive, contextual, open-ended, and detailed. Data-gathering tools included participant observation, interviewing, using key informants, questionnaires, transcripts of audiotapes, and photography. The goal of ethnography as employed here was to give the outsider an opportunity to feel the quality of the Kettle School art room and to understand the participants there from a sociocultural perspective. Data Collection The researcher's role as participant observer permitted access to the confidence of selected individuals within a relatively short time making possible extensive observation without distrust on the part of students. Difficulties appeared, as Gold predicts, in the researcher's being regarded as a teacher or colleague, particularly when wanting to keep opinions private (1969). Trade-offs 33 occurred. For example, the researcher empathized more completely with the teacher when student Nora began to twist into imperatives the researcher's questions which were meant to stimulate independent thinking—the same thing Nora did to Mrs. Bo earlier. Typically, investigators find their subjects reactive and also find themselves changed by the quality of their interaction with subjects (Guba 6: Lincoln, 1982). It was necessary to collect sufficient examples of structural variants- such as the time when a student collected art materials in preparation for leaving the art room—or as the time students usually picked up their materials when the bell rang indicating the time for students to leave. As a native of the area and with her relationships to the Kettle School students, Mrs. Bo‘s role became the teacher as informant; she shed light on the "local norm", that which made this community unique (Florio, 1980). She became the single most important key informant. Information gleaned from her and other staff members gave insight into institutional norms and regulations. Tootsie, an advanced art student, emerged as an informant of students' opinions of people and school functions. Sonja, a junior high student, led her classmates in describing their home environments. The researcher also gleaned information by overhearing informal discussions among students and by occasionally inserting a leading question. Teachers of homebound students provided information about some of the art in the Kettle community homes. Analysis In attempting to assume the Kettle subject's mind, the field worker repeatedly wrote descriptions of a single observation—each time from a different person's point of view. These gave clues about what made people tick. Why did 34 they do the type of art they did? What did it mean to them? Obvious answers proved too easy, superficial, and incomplete. The familiar began to appear strange when the researcher noted what others seemed to take for granted. The question became why one thing occurred and not something else, as Erickson says (197 3). Patterns of art dbplayed in Kettle Schools, supported by what teachers and students said about art, stimulated hypotheses about what they thought of art. Gans' theory provided a measuring stick for learning that had taken place. Further, the Mickey Mouse images advertising the Halloween Dance, the prominence of sports trophies, the absence of reproductions of high art masterpieces, and the infrequency with which students used library books relating to the heritage of art consistently revealed that the participants belonged to lower-middle- and lower-taste culture. Mrs. Bo's token concern for high art masterpieces as inspiration and the predominance of her classroom books relating to technique, not expression, evidenced her recognition of the local norm. The photographic record of Kettle Junior and Senior High School offered a rich resource of data—some for triangulation. The subject-content focus, preference for traditional or progressive style, and reflections of aesthetic judgment were evidence of who people were and what they deemed important. Coded patterns of analytic units fell into schemes. New relationships became apparent when the lists of middle-class students linked more often with expressive art than they did the art made by working-class students. Groups of students interacted among themselves and paid little attention to students in another group. A majority of students representing a different social class dominated each group. These selections of groups and how the groups related revealed ways students adapt to fit the demands of their lives. 35 Photography also provided a model of triangulated analysis used to conform to the concept of scientific comparability. Photographs of every student's response to one assignment, for example, created a longitudinal study of space filled or unfilled in their art. This level of analysis involved effects of unseen pressures, sociometric dimensions, order of occurrences, or changes in spatial contents and relationships-for instance, the comparison of the teacher's stated requirements with the students' lack of attention to work. Series of photographs or single pictures were correlated with verbal data simultaneously, though recorded and gathered at a different time. Th'n network of data supported the conclusions reached. Observational notes made in the private and parochial schools in Kettle District and in the greater Midtown metropolitan area of which Kettle was only a part provided latitude for studying similar and different socioeconomic groups of students. As noted earlier, research in Covenant Christian High School also school supplied an extensive base for comparison (Bonzelaar, 1982). CONCEPTS OF ART Four commonly accepted orientations of high art classified by Efland include the mimetic, pragmatic, expressive, and objective theories (1979). These categories provide a base for analyzing findings in this study. Each category assumes that art is expressive of the human condition. Abrams, in The Mirror and the Lamp, categorizes what he and other writers on aesthetics refer to as four major traditions in art theory. In roughly historical order these views are: l) mimetic, 2) pragmatic, 3) expressive, and 4) objective. Each concept is explored here because no one concept has completely replaced the others, and because each orientation is evident in art classrooms and art criticism today. 36 The Mimetic Orientation Art as an representation of nature, the mimetic theory, is found in education when students are expected to learn through imitation. The theory claims that copying pictures made by another, peers, and teachers leads students to comprehend rules. The accuracy of the product is the criterion for success. The history of this oldest academic tradition began informally when man first represented an object with an image and began formally in the Renaissance in the French Academy. This mechanistic way of expressing human emotions exploited conventional, external manifestations of internal states. For example, Descartes wrote an essay on the "passions of the soul." He cited visual symbols like a flush of redness which can be interpreted through "certain psychological changes that occur in a person having a given emotion" (Efland, 1979, p. 25). Most popular art is mimetic. Although in contemporary education this method of teaching has generally met with disapproval, many students teach themselves through copying. Wilson and Wilson conclude repeatedly in their research findings that children learn from imitating peers, siblings, and comics (1976, 1977). Contemporary evaluations of art using the mimetic criterion abound. When someone says a portrait looks just like the person pictured or that a picture is too sexually explicit, the reference is to the imitative quality of the work. The Pramatic Orientation The pragmatic premise is that works of art can be known and judged through the effects they have on audiences. This cognitively based process 37 utilizes conventional images as symbols. It presupposes that the artist knows the character and values of the audience. With this in mind, the artist develops imagery and form with which the audience is familiar. Evaluation of art occurs when the viewer understands the artist's message. The failure to communicate leads the artist to pose reasons like, "My audience '3 too stupid to understand my picture," or "My picture lacks some quality, and I need to find out what that might be" (Korzenik, 197 2). The kinds of school activities exemplifying this philosophy are described in the journal Art Education Today. The 1943 issue subtitled "Art Education and the War" described such activities as poster making, the creation of booths to sell war bonds, and the design of stamps in support of the war effort (Efland, 1979, p. 25). Solving problems was also the function of art in the "core curriculum" or the integrated approach which followed World War 11. Students and teachers identified problems in the social milieu. Together they worked on these problems which formed the "core program." Barkan's early view of art in education illustrates a different perspective on the pragmatic approach in that he recognized artistic com munication as an instrument in helping individuals to come to know themselves. Even though he viewed expression as a goal in art education, some transactional concepts are evident in his view of child development: Children do not develop in a vacuum. They grow up within a culture and assimilate the variety of current cultural life patterns. To understand their educational needs is to see these children in terms of the ways of life that surround them. The first lesson of modern sociology is that the individual cannot understand his own experience or gauge his own faith without locating himself within the trends of his epoch . . . . (Barkan, 1955, p. 19). Art serves as a vehicle of communication according to Barkan. "An individual's communications are social actions which he performs by expressing himself 38 through language. When a person makes a gesture, or a comment, he evokes a response from those who see or hear him" (1955, p. 156). Similarly art as a symbol system is described by Perkins and Leondar: In the arts, not only everyday knowledge of the world but also specialized knowledge of history, genre, and style inform the apprehension of particular works. Again in art as well as life, emotional reactions depend upon how a situation ‘s understood. Whether the rogue is hated, loved, or pitied depends crucially upon what kind of rogue he is taken to be . . . . . . most obviously through perception we find out how the world is. But the same is so of emotions as well . . . emotional reactions offer not simply personal highs and lows but ways of comprehending the situation "out there." To complicate this picture, discovery, insight, and similar cognitive achievements themselves carry strong emotions which enrich our experience of making and perceiving. This effect becomes both a manner and a product of knowing (Perkins and Leondar, 1977, p.2). This suggests that the structure of experience is not found in an organized body of knowlecge. More recently Efland has observed that "the current tendency to divide educational objectives along 'cognitive' and 'affective' lines is a horrendous mistake" (1979, p. 28). The pragmatic theory of art might be observed in teaching when a student, attempting to discern how viewers will respond to h’s art symbol, makes a prediction about his audience's response. Learning occurs when the student's expectations are proven right or wrong. Rules for art then emerge from a problem situation which is usually a social situation since the audience may play a role in the creation and presentation of art. Much of contemporary popular art is pragmatic. Pragmatic views of art abound in popular culture. A frequently quoted example is McLuhan's "the medium is the message." Conventional group symbols like religious symbols, movie stars, and advertising images speak to masses. 39 The Ewssive Orientation The expressive theory, along with the objective theory is a newer theory of art. It is the most pervasive tradition art educators currently profess to accept, begins from the premise that art is an expression of the artist's emotions. A work of art is intuition, or as Langer puts it, "a work of art is an expressive form created for our perception through sense or imagination, and what it expresses is human feeling" (1957 a, p. 13). The work of art is seen as a revelation of the artist's personality. While each category of high art permits aesthetic expression, this orientation aims particularly to expres human ideas and emotions. Cizek, an Austrian art educator of the nineteenth century, was among the first to initiate this method of teaching. His ideas, which were derived from Froebel and reflective of Kant, look to a child's natural development as it unfolds from within and is stimulated by play. Lowenfeld, father of American art education in the twentieth century, wrote the influential textbook Creative and Mental Growth, which calls for the inquiry method and little directive teaching, and forbids copying and rules because they hamper students' freedom and spontaneity (1947). Collingwood, the nineteenth century British aesthetician, states that all perception is emotional twinges or "sense." There are too many “sense" for a person to bring to consciousness (Collingwood, 1938). Those twinges or "sensations" to which we do attend become identified by response to them. By this process individuals form their own personal imagery which in turn gives meaning to symbols of language at the social and cognitive level. Maslow extends this theory in his statement that artistic pursuits are a means for an individual to satisfy the need to actualize his or her potential (1971). 40 Evaluation based on the expressionist theory of art is less objectively measured than it is in other views on art. Teachers using this concept look for the fittingness, appropriateness, or sincerity of an expression as it relates to the artist's ideas or emotions. A psychoanalyst or an expressionist critic would most likely view a work of art as an object that reveals the mind of the maker rather than studying it for its representation of nature (the mimetic) or the effect (the pragmatic standard of judgment). The Objectivist Orientation Objective theory or formal order in aesthetics looks at art as a self- sufficient, autonomons whole. A work of art is accessible to the viewer directly; it speaks for itself. One need not know the artist's intentions or the historical context from which the art developed. Art education arising from this philosophy directs students to perceive qualities in works of art that are objectively real. While such teaching may encourage discovery, it may also stimulate the learner to see beyond the obvious to qualities of art that are more subtle. Teaching may include teacher-devised situations which ask students to analyze, differentiate, synthesize, and integrate. Of importance to the teacher is the student's developmental abilities to perceive and discriminate. Formalism was part of the artistic, intellectual, and psychological climate of the early decades in the twentieth century. Artists like Cezanne, Picasso, and Mondrian emerged. Aestheticians like Bell and Fry advanced ideas that made it possible to look at art as an independent entity (1973). Gestalt psychology viewed behavior as holistic-parts find their meaning in wholes. Art could now be viewed apart from its cultural origins, morals, or the world of 41 appearances. Art elements and design principles provided teachers with tools for teaching art from a rational structure. Munro pointed out some essential difficulties with this highly rational system (1930). The system can not accommodate styles like post-impressionism, and the inflexible order of progress in teaching exercises is not relevant to the interests, needs, and developmental levels of young children. Munro found some art elements not fully integrated by the objectivists into art as a whole. Movements hostile to the academic traditions of the past brought a strong influence on twentieth century art and art education. Dadaism, Expressionism, Futurism, and Constructivism arose in the wake of World War I. The German Bauhaus, a radical new type of art school, brought with it bridges between the fine arts and crafts. The Expressionist Movement particularly inspired Dorner to lament the romantic artist who struggled alone in 'solation against academic tradition (1959). This concern led to new perspectives of art action . . . because it [the strtgglel had taken place isolated from life and its practical demands the creative geniuses of the 19th century and early 20th had to make their way in solitude. Nowhere were there any positive, clear suggestions for achieving a new productive cooperation between art and life, until the handful of people who made up the German efforts toward it, steering clear both of late academicism and the late Romantic Expressionism of their contemporaries (Dorner, 1959, p. 10). With the rise of the Bauhaus came a system of education influential in American art education today. The school's preliminary course, formulated by Johannes Itten, consisted of exerc'ses involving: 1. Detailed studies of nature, including both representation of materials and experiments with actual materials; 2. Plastic studies of composition with various materials; 3. Analyses of old masterpieces (Efland, 1979, p. 30). Formal organization of design elements, the exact depiction of materials, and their use in construction were objectives in these exercises. 42 The other major influence on contemporary art education was that of gestalt psychologists, particularly Arnheim, who with many instructors from the Bauhaus, came to the United States during World War II. Arnheim noted that individuals develop perceptual concepts. These are overall structural properties of a form grasped in vision. Efland gives an example. The overall property of the human head would be its circularity. A young child might represent this experience by drawing a circle, but in such a case, the child would not be "imitating" the head as such but would be providing the viewer with a structural equivalent for it. Structural equivalents are determined both by the pervasive form of the object giving rise to the experience and by the medium itself (1979, p. 31). In Arnheim's view Once the child has‘during the early explorations of the new medium, hit upon the idea that the things he is making can be used as pictures of other things, the circle serves to represent almost any object at all, such as a human figure, a house, a car . . . . It would be mistaken to say that a child neglects or misrepresents the shape of these objects, because only to the eyes of adults is he picturing them as round . . . . At the stage of the circle shape is not yet differentiated at all. The circle does not stand for roundness, but only for the more general quality of "thingness"—that is, for the compactness of the solid object, which is distinguished from the nondescript ground (1954, p. 170). In Arnheim's philosophy teachers would provide two kinds of experience for children: 1) perception building experiences tatght through discovery and 2) opportunities for children to symbolize their experiences and use art materials to do th’s. Many other authors also support teaching to encourage students to develop their perceptual powers (Broudy, 1981; Eisner, 1972, 1976). Evaluation based on Objectivist criteria would ask if the meaning of forms in a work of art are accessible directly; if the form is a good gestalt that expresses its inherent nature in the clearest, most economical way. Standards for judging forms include closure, simplicity, similarity and figure-ground relationships. Concepts from aesthetics have shaped practices in art education. The four orientations described—mimetic, pragmatic, expressive, and Objectivist- provide tools for analyzing Mrs. Bo's comments, instructions, and evaluations; students' responses in artworks and their evaluations; and community responses. 43 Typically, contemporary art curricula in the United States incorporate some elements of each of the four concepts presented, but an emphasis on one of the four orientations usually emerges (Efland, 1979). A predominance of the mimetic and the Objectivist perspectives appeared at Kettle Schools; however, making and selling stationery fit the pragmatic perspectives, and occasionally the teacher and a few advanced students spoke of art as being expressive of their feelings. CONCEPTS OF EXPRESSION The definition and role of expressiveness and intentionality in all art orientations have raised debate. Expression, as derived from the Latin egrim ere, means a squeezing out, to manifest, to give evidence of. Fry and Bell defend art for its own sake; a focus on the art itself for perceptual contemplation of the _f_o_n;_m and aesthetic qualities of a work rejects the notion of art as expression. "The emotion that the artist felt in his moment of inspiration he did not feel for objects seen as means, but for objects seen as pure forms-that is as ends in themselves" (Bell, 1965, p. 59). Emotions in life have no place in art, only aesthetic interest. Fry says, "It seems to me that this attempt to isolate the elnsive element of pure aesthetic reaction from compounds in which it occurs has been the most important advance of modern times in practical aesthetic" (1985, p. 203). Poet Robert Frost's and Objectivist op artist Josef Alber's views fit this philosophy. In opposition to this autonomy of art view is the most dominant expressionist view, advancing the theory that artists produce art for the purpose of expressing their emotions (Collingwood, 1938; Croce, 1978; Tolstoy, 1965). Croce's way of deve10ping the expression theory even led him to say that artworks are solely images of consciousness with no physical object. Yet, while Mozart said 44 he heard whole symphonies in his head, this theory is rejected by Wolterstorff (1980). The notion that states of consciousness are ideas f9; artworks is more acceptable for this inquiry, also. Tolstoy claims that art is intentional when he states, "Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feeling he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them" (1965, p. 750). Edgar Allan Poe's work exemplifies Tolstoy's theory. The result of art according to Tolstoy is the emotional unification among mankind. Collingwood speaks of "sensa" which lead one to a "helpless and oppressed condition . . . and he [the artisfl extricates himself by doing something which we cell expression. . . . It also has something to do with consciousness: the emotion expressed is an emotion of whose nature the person who feels it is no longer conscious" (1938, pp. 109-110). Collingwood then relates the feeling of relief for having expressed a feeling, "this sense of oppression has vanished" (1938, p. 110). This catharsis is what Langer labels "self-expression" or “symptom" and Broudy rejects as art (Langer, 1975b; Broudy, 1977). Instead Langer supports the notion that though ideas of our age are determined by many social causes, they are "shaped" by artists. The arts "objectify subjective reality" (1957a). Tolstoy and Collingwood both embrace a distinction between revelation and expression, yet one may fly "thank you" without being grateful. Revelation requires an observer; expression does not. Self revelation requires that the revealing act be good evidence of the revealed state of consciousness; this is not true of expression. John Cage's music expresses, but does not reveal John Cage. Expression, then, implies a knowingly or intentionally created act. Often a condition of succeeding to express an emotion or idea requires clarity about that emotion and that which is expressed (Wolterstorff, 1980). At the same time, this permits an artist to discover more about himself and the world through the act of 45 creating art. Wolterstorff explains man's vocation and creaturely end as one of responsible action in the world. This world behind an artwork, "that complex of the artist's beliefs and goals, convictions and concerns, which play a role in accounting for the existence and character of the work" then required some clarity about an emotion. An artist expresses when he or she struggles to find the right form; this in turn challenges the artist to find the right emotion preceding expression (Wolterstorff, 1980, p. 88-89). The artist is scarcely aware of this "way of seeing" which he had learned from his prior experience with art, according to Gombrich (1969). What 's the artist's role in being expressive through art? An artist's work will "invariably and inescapably" be expressive of one or another state of consciousness, says Wolterstorff. Furthermore, the work does not merely happen "to be expressive of some state of consciousness but if it is so by intent on the part of the artist, and if in addition the state of consciousness of which the work is by intent expressive is one of the artist's own states of consciousnes, then the artist has engaged in self-expression" (1980, p. 114). Often, then, the artist intends that there will be a close fittingness between the character of his work and things outside the work in its unity; nevertheless, the public may perceive and use that work in ways that artist had never intended. The meaning of art, however, is not always immediately clear even to the artist who discovers that through the act of creating, other qualities of fittingness occur. The study subscribes to Wolterstorff when he says, "Some of such fittingness is there by intent on the part of the artist, some not" (1980, p. 115). SOCIAL CONSIDERATIONS Research suggests that families and teachers socialize students differently relative to their conscious or unconscious perception of several 46 items. The family's and teacher's perception of work roles for which a student is thought to be destined, the social class and values as seen by the student's parents and teacher, and a teacher's notion of the student's intelligence and his cultural potential. Questions to be answered include what do teachers do that inculturates the student for adult roles? What constructs lead teachers to perceive a student's position? Q_cc_upational Capital During the past decade issues of social inequality have assumed an increasingly central role in discussions of social science theories, domestic policy debate, and perspectives on the role of society in life. Basic stratification categories such as "working class," "middle class," and "Middle America" have become staples which are difficult to define. The correspondence between the way the stratification system works in the real world and images of the stratification system portrayed in literature have become varied and problematic. Furthermore, the validity of stratification systems become unclear when the dynamics of society change and strata blend together. Particularly difficult are those areas in which the focus on family life style in relation to human values compares with economic issues. Bell argues that high culture is diffused throughout the working class, middle class, and upper class, and therefore, the terms no longer relate (197 3). Nonetheless, the distinctions between high culture and popular culture have not disappeared. Where a familial perspective on issues relates to conformity and independence, they affect art education and become important. Research demonstrates that socioeconomic status correlates with parent-child relationships as an instance of the more general problem of the effects of social structure upon behavior. According to Kohn, "Members of 47 different social classes, by virtue of enjoying (or suffering) different conditions of life, come to see the world differently—to develop different conceptions of social reality, different aspirations and hopes and fears, different conceptions of the desirable" (1963, p. 471; 1977 reaffirmed). Kohn's findings repeatedly establish "that working-class parents put far greater stress on obedience to parental commands than do middle-class parents . . . and that middle-class parents in turn value curiosity, happiness, consideration, and-most importantly—self control more highly than do working-class parents" (Kohn, 1963, p. 475; reaffirmed 1977). Kohn's conclusions have been supported by other studies (Bowles and Gintis, 1976). Of importance to educators are Kohn's characteristic clusters of value choice in the two social classes: working-class parents' values center on conformity to external prescriptions, middle-class parental values on _s_e_l_f-direction. To working-class parents it is the overt act that matters: the child should not transgress externally imposed rules; to middle-class parents, it is the child's motives and feeling that matter: the child should govern himself" (1963, p. 475; reaffirmed 1977). Kohn explains these value differences by comparing three respects in which middle-class occupations typically vary from working-class occupations. One is that middle-clas occupations deal more with the manipulation of interpersonal relations, ideas, and symbols, while working-class occupations deal more with the manipulation of things. The second is that middle-class occupations are more subject to self-direction, while working-class occupations are more subject to standardization and direct supervision. The third is that getting ahead in middle-class occupations is more dependent upon one's own actions, while in working-class occupations it is more dependent upon collective action, particularly in unionized industries. . . . Middle-class occupations require a greater degree of self-direction; working-class occupations, in larger measure, require that one follow explicit rules set down by someone in authority (Kohn, 1963, p. 476; reaffirmed, 1977). Educational differences reinforce parental values and opportunities for self-preservation in schools studied by Anyon. Schools working with middle-class, university-bound students attended to the child's internal dynamics. Children learned to deal with the subjective and ideational. By contrast, students in 48 schools dealing with the working class had teachers who replicated parental directives (Anyon, 1982). One would expect middle-class parents to be more supportive than working-class parents of their children in school, if only because of the parent's sensitivity to the child's internal dynamics. Furthermore, the economic security of most middle-class occupations and the status they provide allow parents the opportunity to focus the child's education. As a result, the middle-class child's out-of-school milieu may be more stable, which in turn allows the child opportunity to concentrate on the motives and feelings independently— substance for expression in art (Anyon, 1982). Of interest to the study dealing with a mixture of low, working, and middle-class students s which students were self-directed and able to express feeling through art and which students preferred to do assignments which were directed. Working behaviors and adherence to classroom rules require investigation. Human Cmital A widely accepted view of how schools prepare students for life and work roles is through working with cognitive skills. Becker shows that employers are willing to pay more for employees with greater amounts of "human capital" meaning "the capacity to learn," and certain technical skills (1967). This view supports the idea that the student with "human capital" is likely to achieve successful employment based on that for which the school has provided. Mrs. Bo designated several advanced art students as "the artists." Comparative analysis of her perception of their human capital and their performance become significant in what follows. What curricular development relates to individuals' human capital? 49 Cultural Cafltal Recently ethnographers have documented the impact of cultural styles on students' relationships with counselors and classroom instruction (Erickson, 197 5; McDermott, 1977). Erickson aserts that schools are places where status and culture matter and "particularistic leakages" occur. Cultural style that is only tangentially related to family background accounts for success in high school. Weber proposes that "status culture," groups of people having personal ties, common values, and conventions, appropriate and perpetuate their own distinctive traits, tastes, and styles. Status culture monopolizes the group's resources by providing a social network of comembership. Status and honor become associated with whatever the group deems valuable (Weber, 1968). A student's success based on cultural resources has been documented by Bourdieu who says that schools reward students on the basis of their "cultural capital." He defines the phrase as "instruments for the appropriation of symbolic wealth socially designated as worthy of being sought and possessed" (1977, p. 488- 489). Teachers are thought to attend to students having an "elite" status culture by giving particular attention, assistance, and by perceiving them as having more potential for learning. This status culture is usually transmitted from parent to child. If cultural capital determines special opportunities for learning, it is expected that the student, having this carte blanche is likely to attain more success than the student without it. How does cultural capital distinguish "the artists," the students who succeeded in art class, and their art work? Chapters III, IV and V describe how Mrs. Bo's responses relate to the coterie of "tough girls," the students for whom she claimed to "baby-sit until graduation," and their cultural capital. CHAPTER III THE COMMUNITY AND ITS PEOPLE Nearly all social scientists maintain that evidence of "taste" originates and develops in response to social conditions. The Coleman Report states that the social and educational status of students' families and that of their school peers influence students' conceptions regarding education (1966). This suggests that cultural class dictates a school's art program. Furthermore, the way people perceive and use visual symbols in everyday life affects the ways different subcultural groups perceive "works of art" (Chalmers, 1981). An examination of the physical and social characteristics of the Kettle school neighborhood, the homes, and the art in those homes revealed lower-middle and lower-taste cultures, as Gans defines them (1974). Occupational status ranged from lower to lower- middle class. Also, the art which people in the Kettle community made at home and their related activities revealed students' out-of-school cultural climate. The in-school community-including the non-art faculty, the school building, and visual interior environment—affected the place of art in both the formal curriculum and null curriculum (that curriculum which is not taught). A key determinate in school was the art teacher, Mrs. Jean Bo. Her personality, her philosophy of art in education, her socioeconomic background, and her art merited investigation. 51 THE OUT-OFnSCHOOL COMMUNITY Several of the school faculty referred to the school district as a middle- class and working-class community. Although blue-collar and white-collar distinctions have blurred in the fluctuating American society of the early 19803, the lines between the middle and lower classes remain at least partially intact, and some distinctions can be made. The Kettle School Neigh' borhood The main artery of the metropolitan area of Midtown runs past the high school of this small, Midwestern, suburban school district. The five-lane street which flanks Kettle High also runs through neighboring school districts which, like Kettle, evolved from small suburbs and have boundaries which were established by political negotiation and gerrymandering. The street cuts through the Kettle community and gives evidence of Kettle's lower-middle to lower-socioeconomic statns and taste cultures. Small businesses line the street: a Krazy Cone Shop, a wet and dry laundromat, a used car lot, and a transmission repair shop are neighbors to scattered residences- some of which have been transformed into small company offices and others welded to rambling, rectangular businesses. A recreation vehicle outlet is located across the street from the school and not far away is the Mexican fast-food restaurant which has played host to scores of truants. The houses near the school are all small, wooden clapboard structures. Most of the one or one and one-half story dwellings are thirty or forty year-old products of urban sprawl or prefabricated structures constructed after World War II. Nearby are mobile home villages. Some homes are well kept; their mowed 52 lawns and occasional window shutters suggest that the owners care, beyond function, about looks. Other homes have muddy driveways, peeling paint, and concrete—block props under leaning porches; many are strewn with children's toys, left as monuments to former fun. Cars in the neighborhood have a five-year history or more-leftovers from a time before the auto companies changed to fuel-efficient compact models. An occasional motorcycle is seen in the neighborhood. Large steel, utility derricks hoist huge powerlines that form a lane through backyards; the wire networks in turn lead to nearby factories. Within a mile of the school the metal-grid pedestrian overpasses, entrance ramps, and the large interstate thoroughfare serve the industrial and residential congestion. Constructed around these are a large refrigerator manufacturing plant, lumber supply warehouses, wire product companies, and their extensive parking lots. Parading rows of traffic lights signal action on the industrial boulevard leading to these hubs. At noon, sounds of a barking dog and recorded hymns chimed from a local chapel can be heard over the drone of vehicle motors coming from the main street. Not all the school district is characterized by these sights and sounds. A half mile beyong the expressway is a Catholic church and its elementary and junior high school, rectory buildings, and large cemetery. This neighborhood is . more quiet, middle-class, and affluent. It too has one orone and one-half story clapboard homes, but in contrast to the immediate Kettle School neighborhood, ill of these have imitation window shutters. A few brick fireplace chimneys and ornamental trees give further evidence of middle-class and lower-middle taste publics' decorations. Brick ranch-style homes in this area contrast with the dwellings surrounding the public secondary schools, yet both types of residences comprise the Kettle School District. 53 Kettle Christian School, a private parent-governed school, is located in a neighborhood similar to that of the Catholic school. Both schools serve students living in the Kettle School District and occasionally students transfer from one school to the other. Having a student teacher in both of these schools gave the field worker an opportunity to compare students representing the same geographic area. This study is focused on the public junior and senior high schools which for economic reasons have been housed together in one building. One day, two years before the investigation for this study, the roof on the neighboring, old junior high gym collapsed. The old building was demolished while this study was taking place. The combined junior and senior high schools fit into the senior high school building because of shrinking enrollment. The single building also facilitates sharing faculty, including Mrs. Bo, who teaches art to three high school and two junior high school classes. . No city boundaries coincide with those of the school district which lies in two suburbs—Zollo and Sentville. The suburbs flank Midtown, a Midwestern United States city with 200,000 inhabitants. (Each of these suburbs has its own larger school district and an art council.) Several times during recent years school officials have considered merging Kettle and the nearby Goldly Public Schools. Goldly district parallels the Kettle district socioeconomically; the major difference lies in the abundant industrial tax dollars which fund the Goldly Schools. Some have said that a merger never occurred because of strong, clannish loyalty to Kettle High School, a significant characteristic of the school. 54 Social Characteristics School personnel and students described the social milieu in which Kettle School students lived. The heterogeneous population represented two major American social classes and taste cultures. These two groups shared several characteristics which varied mostly in degree. Attitudes toward family, marriage, work, and leisure coincided with those of the lower-professional and working classes. The social milieu of Kettle School was mixed. Of the sixteen permanent students in the advanced art class, some students' parents belonged to the lower social class, others represented the working class, and a few had parentage in the middle class. Nora's family was representative of the lower-class family (here combined with the working class). Her father was a laid-off truck driver; her mother worked occasionally as a bartender. Nora also represented the lower-taste culture. She praised other students' realistic images and frequently said that she could not be an artist because she could not draw—implying that skillful imitation of nature is the epitome of art. Tootsie's family typified the working class. Both of her parents worked in a factory. They appreciated Tootsie's representational art and her mother sent one of Tootise's pieces to an art contest where Tootsie won recognition. This suggests that Tootsie's parents fit Gans' description of lower-taste public. Toni's background was typical of Gans' description of the middle social class and lower-middle taste culture. Her father sold insurance. Mrs. Bo referred to Toni as the "class fashion model" because she often wore color-coordinated 55 clothes which fit the current trend. Toni's parents demonstrated their lower- middle-taste culture by hanging drawings of classical Greek columns, by color- coordinating the furniture, and by displaying ceramic hobby crafts which Toni's mother made with pre-cast, purchased forms. Toni also mentioned that a small reproduction of an Impressionists painting hangs in her family's bathroom. Darlene, one of the class "artists," represented an unusual family and an exception at Kettle. Her father, a formally educated artist, created a successful business and national market for his sentimental, low-taste culture, greeting cards and related items—like cute figurines similar to Hummel figures. The flourishing business produced a line of goods known appropriately as "Precious Moments." The semi-religious character of the company was reflected in its name, "Davy and Goliath." The wealthy Sawyer family practiced a charismch religion and with pride had abandoned the material trappings of an affluent Midtown suburb in order to live in the Kettle School District. Though multi-talented, three of the Sawyer children dropped high school before graduation—Darlene included. Two were forming a rock band and planned to spend a year studying and playing in England. Darlene described one of her married brothers as a nudist who wore a pierced earring in his cheek. As could be expected, Darlene did not fit at Kettle School where she was a loner and often a center of other students' curiosity and respect (C8,D1,N2,02,U7,TT1). TheClan Even though Kettle School Public District lacked a single, politically- governed city, it remained a community according to the junior high school principal. Many families proudly claimed several generations who graduated from or attended the school. Miss Jacometti, the junior high principal, described a graduatewho supported the community: "One woman stopped me in the 56 supermarket with a comment about how well she learned English here. She now lives in Meadowdale, but still was shopping in the Kettle School neighborhood. Her heart is still in the area" (KK6). The principal explained the loyalty of families attending the schools: We administrators say there has to be something here. They [the parents] move out and they move back. They remember the school—whatever they may call us at different times—as [having] treated them as they are, humans, with dignity. Not that they don't have anger with us; but they come back. So we have had a father and his children and the father's father Iin this school systeml; part of the clan (KK6). This stability and school loyalty revealed itself in the tolerance that people in the school displayed toward racial, social and economic differences. The principals and teachers agreed that a spirit of cooperation was present among students from different backgrounds. Miss Jacometti described the prevailing attitudes toward race: "Kettle has always had black students in the school. Blacks are accepted without prejudice. They have been class president and whatever they were meant to be. Now in the junior high there are twelve black students" (KK 10). A small minority of blacks have been part of the Kettle School system for years. The black three percent of the junior high, for example, was comfortably integrated with the white population (KK ll, 26). No racial tensions became evident during the study. Asian immigrants at the school worked hard and succeeded. Mr. Tillroy, a junior high mathematics teacher and senior high business teacher, described one girl who worked from the minute she came in class until the end of it. She figured in her head instead of using a calculator, and she could write a better sentence in English than many of the American students, he said (KK 26). In many ways there seemed to be little surface-level distinction between haves and have-nets at Kettle Schools, although working-class students have a higher rate of absenteeism. "Parents are not insistent regarding students' 57 attendance," said Mr. Rushson, "and families are a student's key to success" (KK 11). Although students were tolerant, Miss Jacometti, the junior high principal; Mrs. La Fleur, the English teacher; and Mrs. Ducklace, the librarian, spoke of students' natural tracking because of the courses they select. Mrs. Jacometti reported it this way You know, it's really illegal to track students because it closes possibilities, but in high school, students track themselves . . . . Many [college prep] students never meet the students who cause problems in classrooms because those students don't take honors English or Chemistry (KK 5). The vague, clannish quality of the society supporting the Kettle Schools seemed to be reflected in school life. For reasons not clear there was a sense of unity. Connection with a Catholic church may suggest one unifying factor. Explanations are beyond the scope of this report. Some single parents, who found ‘ less expensive housing in this suburb, originally sent their children to parochial schools in Midtown (V 4, KK, ZZ). These parents, when finding cheaper housing outside the city, broke ties with their church-school, and they began sending their children to public schools. The old, staid families sometimes excluded the newly arrived "city slicker" types which formed clans unto themselves, according to the parish priest and diocesan archivist (22). Each of the principals and the school A superintendent had attended Catholic schools outside the Kettle area themselves at one time. Miss Jacometti said, "Most of the junior-high faculty are church people. That makes them a cut above other faculty. Several of the faculty are parochial or private school trained" (KK 10). She saw the discipline in those schools and their supporting families as the reason for her faculty's strength. Marri e When Toni mused aloud to her Kettle friends that in five years they would all have left school and be married, she expressed the expectation common 58 for students in American lower and working classes generally, and true among the Kettle milieu, too. Marriage is the portal to adulthood, according to Rubin, "the only way to move from girl to woman. Indeed, traditionally among girls of this class being grown up w being married" (1976, p. 41). Rubin quotes someone talking about a spouse: "We were seeing each other every day, and what else was there to do but to get married" and "By the time we graduated everyone just expected us to get married" (1976, p. 52). Teenagers typically seek privileges of adulthood. Working-class teenagers chafe under living conditions that they perceive as opprewive and parental authority which strongly upholds law and orda. "Marriage often is seen as the only escape—a route they take very early in their lives" (Rubin, 1976, p. 57). Married men are evaluated by their spouses differently in different social classes. For instance, a working-claw woman said of her husband: "He's a steady worker; he doesn't drink; he doesn't hit me"—-these are three attributes working-class women tick off most readily when asked what they value most in their husbands . . . . That this response is class related is evident from the fact that not one woman in the professional middle-claw families mentioned any of these qualities when answering the same question . . . .This suggests that professional working class people take financial security and protection for granted and emotional sustainment is a barometer of marriage :gnch becomes lew dominant in the working-claw families (Rubin, 1976, p. 93- Many Kettle School families were reorganized families. The senior high school principal guewed that more than one-half of the students represented single-parent families or those having experienced divorces and remarriages. The junior high school principal noted that 36 percent of the junior high students live with a single parent. One-half of the students in the advanced art claw came from divorced families; two students lived in foster families or in institutions during the study. The high school principal, Mr. Rushson, reported that single mothers in the past have had more difficulty controlling teenage boys than girls. Single 59 mothers however, now found it equally difficult to control teenage girls. He predicted that girls of twice-divorced mothers would be likely to divorce (KK 11). Married women in some of the working-claw homes were still subservient to their husbands. Miss Jacometti recalled the time when the school conducted a voter registration campaign. A half-dozen women would not register because their husbands would not permit them to, she said. When her friencs attempted to encourage a thirty-year old woman to defy her husband and register, she adamantly refused to do that. Men do not talk with their wives about polities and world affairs, said Miss Jacometti. "Although they might talk with me about those things because I am supposed to know something—wives are not supposed to know about such things" (NN 20). Communicgtion According to research, working-class families have fewer models for open communication; it is not required in their work, and the media used by these people do not contribute to openness, companionship, or communication in families (Gans, 1974). Among working-class people the demand for communication is new. Earlier family portraits illustrate separation between parents—the mother attends to her household role; the father comes home from work, has a beer, a repair project, and watches television. Intimacy and sharing have not beenn part of their dreams (Komarovsky, 1962). Research shows that some women admit to wanting more communication with their husbancs on an emotional level while men frequently reject this. People talk past, through, or around each other, not to or with each other. For example, a working-claw wife claimed, It don't make no difference to him where he lives or how people around him are feeling. I don't know how anybody can be like that. A lot of times I get frustrated. Ijust wish I could talk to him about things he could understand. If he had more feelings himself, maybe he'd understand more (Rubin, 1976, p. 124). 60 Her husband attests that he has problems handling feelings. "I'm pretty tight- lipped about most things most of the time, especially personal things. I don't exprew what I think or an . . . . I'm not thinking about anything" (Rubin, 1976, p. 124). Rubin also reports that working-claw women rarely talk even among themselves about their feelings, conflicts in life and marriage, things dreamed or wished for. One interviewee said, "You don't talk about things like that to friends I've got. They'd think I was another one of those crazy woman's libbers" (1976, p. 132). Banfield describes communication among people in the working claw as revealing a low level of conceptualization. These people are oriented toward communal rather than individual, toward concrete rather than the abstract, and toward the here and now rather than the future. Linguistic codes thus set limits on what a child will learn and how it will learn it. The lower claw uses only a "restricted" code, which is a language of largely implicit meanings; the speaker relies heavily upon gestures, intonations, and other nonverbal cues; his meaning is never abstract or complicated (1974, pp. 244-245). Hollingshead and Redlich reinforce this. Lower-claw people are not able to understand how thinking and talking can help them. They have not learned to verbalize and symbolize the same way higher claw persons have. Neither have they learned to sublimate present needs for the realization of future goals (1958, p. 348). A child's basic model of thinking and feeling as well as his desire and ability to learn are affected by this low level of thinking, according to Bernstein (1967). Although this study does not intend to study verbal communication, the nature of the working claw's talk suggests their kind of thinking and their likelihood to react rather than respond with reflectiveness. The nature of people's verbal communication also related to their level of visual expression. What impact this has on the art curricula at the Kettle Public Schools remains to be discovered. The expressive orientation of art suggests that one will express personal ideas and feelings through art in either a conscious or subconscious way. 61 These feelings concern not only interpersonal relationships but also larger societal issues such as liberty, politics, enjoyment, and life itself. Schooligg Although views of education varied, parents in the Kettle School community generally felt that education was a necessary vehicle to a vocation. Regardless of their level of education, parents saw a high school diploma as a requirement for acquiring a job. Education beyond high school depended on the nature of work students selected to pursue. Miss Jacometti put it this way. In our area I see more pressure brought to bear on children to go to college than there used to be. It tsed to be that you go to college because you're really bright. It used to be status. Now you go to college because then you can get a job. Although they are finding out that even with college some can't get a job. Also, I [the parent] want my child to have better than I did (KK 5). Parents usually reinforced teachers' goals and objectives according to a school social worker, but high school teachers interviewed did not support his position. They believed that the majority of parents were apathetic toward education. Entertainment was a more important concern than education, according to Dora and Jane. Parents of some interested students support quality education but these people are in the minority (KK 27). Lorna represented the larger group of students; this advanced art student regularly skipped clawes other than art, said Mrs. Bo. Her mother signed excuses for her. She failed her other clawes, but attended and pawed art claw. When she was there, however, Lorna rarely worked (L 8). Miss Jacometti saw schools going through a "back to the basics turnabout" which had captured her students' parents' attention. She noted: I found that a few years ago I couldn't interest many parents in many projects; I couldn't interest them if I called them. It was like [the parents saying] "Okay, they are there with you; they are in your charge; okay, take care of them. It's up to you." 62 Now I've probably had more phone calls from parents in the five or six weeks into school than I had in a whole school year [ten years ago]. [There is] an overprotective situation with parents where the parents are maybe more upset with children entering junior high than students are (KK 6). Jean Bo had both kinds of experiences with parents of students in her clawes. It was a mixture of parents supporting education and others wanting to hear of nothing their children's education might demand of them as parents. The teachers in working-claw neighborhood schools have been found to follow parents' expectations; to enforce obedience to adult authority, to be a tough disciplinarian is the task of a teacher who meets parents' ideals (Anyon, 1982, Wilcox, 1982). Children of working-claw parents are expected to awume jobs roughly similar to those of their parents, where obedience, not innovation, is required on the awembly line. On the other hand, middle- and upper-middle-claw parents wish to see their children encouraged to think independently, to use good judgment, to initiate and to develop personal responsibility (Kohn, 1963, 1976, 1977; Otto, 1975; Rubin, 1972). When describing students' relationship to authority, Wilcox demonstrates that a teacher in a working-claw school prepares students for jobs having external supervision through rules and controls; whereas a teacher in an upper-middle-class school socializes students for jobs by attempting to foster the internalization of norms. . . .an externalized interaction is one in which the teacher emphasizes that the child is to follow standard rules, procedures, and directions to be set up by the teacher and made salient by his or her authority and direct power. In general, an internal reaction was viewed as one in which the teacher treated the child as a self-directed person who was capable of handling a procew in an independent way and of choosing the consequences of his or her action. It is an activity in which the teacher places on the child responsibility to shape his or her activities in a manner that promotes or relies upon internalized values, self images, standards or goals (Wilcox, 1982, p. 287-288). In the lower socioeconomic school external control proved to be the overriding control mechanism used by Mrs. Jones. In fact, the single most common strategy in evidence at Smith School was the use of teacher commands. Mrs. Jones would simply order: "I want that done now" or "You have an awignment; 63 sit down and get busy" or some similar command . . . . Rule repetition was also common. "You cannot get a rat out until you've finished your work. Come in right after the bell rings. No fighting. Use quiet voices" (Wilcox, 1982, p. 288). The pattern reinforced at the upper-socioeconomic—level school was different even though the teacher's behavioral standards were higher than those at Smith School. The teacher's focus in an upper-middle-claw school was on academic implications of behavior: "If you are talking to your neighbor, you're probably not looking at clues and remembering what the answers are." "Jim, maybe it's because you're wiggling in your chair that you counted more?" (Wilcox, 1982, p. 289). Children were expected to use time wsely, pace themselves, make choices, and not interact with others, so that awignments could be finished. Responsibility was placed on the teacher in the working-claw school and on the student in the upper-middle-claw school. Gearing and Epstein describe the behaviors of members of a fourth-grade remedial reading group. The group seemed to be shaped by certain unstated awumptions about what, "beyond learning to read," the members of the group were up to when they read. The assumptions guiding this claw in an economically deprewed school, similar to Kettle School, "seemed to be the same as those shared tacitly by their parents and the fellows of their parents" when they meet each other (1982, p. 243). Learning to wait appeared to be the hidden curriculum item (one not easily recognzied or professed to be a directive in the curriculum). Learning to wait was preparing students for their lives as adults in the com munity. "Each day the children would enter the reading room, usually one at a time, and silently take their seats . . . . 'Greeting conversations' are rare; when they occur they are usually initiated by Mrs. Clark" (1982, p. 248). All games are structured so that each child waits his turn . . . the child reads the card and keeps it; then the next child on the left, who has been waiting more than participating, can take a turn . . . . The echoing patterns in the classroom suggested an item of the hidden curriculum, "learning to wait," which, although never verbalized in any systematic way by the teacher or 64 student, was somehow being taught and being learned in the course of the meetings of the small group (Gearing 6c Epstein, 1982, p. 250). Independent thinking was rewarded in an affluent, middle-claw neighborhood school; children were asked to "think things through," "think logically," and told "you can figure that out" (Anyon, 1982, p. 335). Teachers also encouraged students with positive words like "fantastic," "beautiful" and asked students to "verify" their work with another student (Wilcox, 1982). Anyon argues that schools help to reproduce the existing society by giving students from various socioeconomic clawes different socializing experiences and different curricula. Her study shows that the schoolwork of working-claw students' is routine and mechanical, whereas upper-claw students are awigned work that requires creativity and self-managem ent. Uppw-claw parents fear lew that their children will not learn to read and write (Kohn, 1963; Rubin, 1976). In the lower-claw schools work tasks did not usually request creativity. Serious attention is rarely given in school work to M the children develop or exprew their own feelings and ideas, either linguistically or in graphic form. On occasions when creativity or self-exprewion is requested, it is peripheral to the main activity or it is 'enrichment' or 'for fun' (Anyon, 1982, p. 329). These facts suggest that if art in school is defined in the twentieth century tradition—as Langer puts it, as "an exprewive form created for our perception through sense or imagination, and what it expresses is human feeling"- it follows that the creativity and innovation required, fit the professional, working-claw expectation for schooling (1957). If this philosophy does appear in a working-claw school it fails to match the kinds of demands and preferences of parents and the awociated taste public. This study attempts to describe how an art teacher dealing with students of working-claw and lower-profewional—claw families planned an art curriculum and how students responded. 65 Work Kettle people's employment ranged from a job at one of the local factories to parttime bartending, construction, cooking and sales. In contrast, three students referred to their fathers who were teachers and an uncle who was a college profewor. Significant was the fact that 115 of the 250 junior high school students qualified for either free or reduced cost school meals. This suggests that nearly one-half of'the junior high students came from families living near governmentally ranked poverty incomes (MM 5). Approximately one-half of the students lived with a single parent, many of whom were women. When mothers gained custody of their children, aid-to-dependent children was inevitable (LL 6). Research suggests that blue-collar jobs imply following other's directives and non-recognition. Terkel's findings confirm that workers feel humiliated because they are "being spied on." Parents expecting their children to acquire similar jobs recognize the dependent role their children will have to play. Innovation, independent thinking, and curiosity are not valued characteristics a working-claw parent nurtures (Terkel, 197 4; Kohn, 1977). Leisure After school activities for Kettle students included jobs, riding trail bikes, athletics, baby-sitting for siblings, roller skating, bowling, or viewing television. During art claw many students spoke of television programs they had seen the evening before. Their frequent conversations about television programs and their familiarity with television stars suggests that for Kettle students television was a popular pastime (E 28, P5, K 21, LL 6). Research regarding television among non-professionals supports findings that families too spent large 66 qtsntities of time watching television. Furthermore, the librarian's informal research demonstrates that little attention was paid to reading. A difficult question Rubin posed to the fifty families she interviewed was "could you describe a typical evening in your family now?" (1976, p. 185). Television appears to be the greatest consumer of leisure time, particularly among people in the working-claw. After the kids go to bed and things settle down, we're just here. Iguew we watch TV or something. (Angrily.) What am I saying? It's not "or something"; that: )what it is. It's the same every night; we're just here (Rubin, 1976, p. l 5 . The most common thing for men to do is to watch television and "just relax," which implies being entertained and not thinking. "I'm watching, that's all. I'm not thinking about things or anything like that. I sit down and I'm just watching.‘ That's what I do most nights. I come home and die in front of TV," said one man in response to the question "When you have free time in the evening what do you like best to do?" (Rubin, 1976, p. 191). For men who spend days at jobs which afford few personal satisfactions and little sense of mastery, projects after work that do call on skills, competencies, initiative, and judgment provide a sense of pride in workmanship and creativity (Rubin, 1976, p. 186). Watching television engages members of both sexes in the lower socioeconomic claw. For the profewional middle claw, television may well be an affirming experience; for the working claw, a disconfirming one since there are no programs that deal with their problems, their prospects, and their values in sympathetic and respectful ways (Gans, 1974; U.S. Department of Health, Education, 6: Welfare, 1973, and Chapter 4, note 4). Evidences of Art in the Communin As described above, representatives of the middle, working, and low clawes, Kettle students reflect in this case lower-middle and lower-taste cultures as Gans defines them. 67 Typical of lower-taste publics is their lack of feeling because of by their inability to participate in higher taste cultures. High culture as viewed from a lower-taste public becomes an object of scorn. At least in part, this probably reflects people's lack of education which prevents cultural mobility. A typical example was people's dislike of a local stabile by Alexander Calder. One teacher strongly repudiated it as art; students reported their family members had called it "dumb, stupid" (KK 35). Parents' Ideas; About Art Parents seemed to appreciate their children's art. They sometimes hung students' pictures on the walls; a few middle-claw students said their art was framed and displayed on the walls at home. "What does your family say about the art you bring home?" was a question asked students. One student reported that she did not take art home but said she threw it out. Another's mother said the work was "nice," but the girl doubted that her art really was nice. Rarely did middle-claw students refer to parents' appreciation of high art although middle- claw student Terri once went to the art museum with her mother (KK 13). Mr. Tillroy cited the times when a former junior high art teacher had invited parents to an exhibit of students' art. "Because it was bright and it was colorful," he said, "it was good. It encouraged the parents to see the things their kids did. The kids enjoyed showing their parents the stuff too" (KK 23). Mr. Tillroy reported that three or four years ago the previous art teacher put up displays on large refrigerator cardboard boxes in the basement of the junior high for parent teacher conferences and those always brought a lot of attention. The teacher would save things all year long. People would just flock to them [the displays. Kids would drag their parents to see where their thing was. That was a gig succew; it really was. That was a tremendous succew (KK 22). Parents wanted realistic images in their student's art; Donna told of her father "correcting" her art when she took it home. He showed her what was 68 "wrong" when her art failed to imitate nature. Miss Jacometti confirmed the families' desire for realism when she said that parents would have preferred a Vietnam War national memorial which pictured soldiers and a flag to the abstract wall with names engraved into it. She commented, "I think that's true of the people who live in the real world of every day" (KK 2). She also noted that she saw more community members wanting ethnological art. I know there is a reaching for something. And-oh—they want opportunity. They want to get into art, but that's again a lot of the artsy-craftsy. I see more [parents] now at the Calder Festival than I used to. So as I say, they're getting . . . out of their twelve block area. I also notice more that single parents . . . find things that are worthwhile but don't cost anything-to bring their kids to. So they go to the festival and other things at the malls or downtown. So there is a striving (KK 4-5). Several art students mentioned family members who make art. Again the reference was usually to a low-claw, popular art. An exception was one student's brother who was studying to be an architect. More typical were a sister and mother who drew and painted pictures of scenes or cute things they copied (KK l3). Implicitly, students defined images copied from other pictures as art. Another student's mother attended ceramics clawes where she worked on preformed clay figures. Lorna's mother thought enough of art to encourage Lorna to make art with an "auntie's father who is an artist" (KK 36). Another student's aunt shoots and develops her own photographs. Sufficient desire among some parents led them to support the arts in the community by joining the school- initiated fine arts group, the Bracers. Some members of this group supported Mrs. Bo when she complained about the superintendent's decision not to accept a $2,000 grant for art in the elementary schools. This suggests that some community people consciously felt a need for art and overtly acted on their conviction. Students spoke about their parents' attitudes toward home furnishings and their use of it. Mothers chose furniture, decided on decor, and selected 69 decorative items to purchase. Some teenage daughters claimed they shopped with their mothers and gave suggestions about purchases. Tootsie claimed she told her mother what to buy and where to place it. (KK 31-37). Students rarely referred to this as art or to the function of art in society. When students were asked what their parents thought of art in Midtown, especially the stabile Le Grande Vitesse by Alexander Calder, none responded positively to it. Some had not seen the sculpture; several thought it was worthlew; and one commented that hard-edge art at the annual city art festival "isn't much" (KK 14-15, 31-37, 81-4). "My parents haven't developed a liking for modern art," commented Lorraine, a representative of the lower-taste public. She thereby revealed her awumption that one 1.9312 to appreciate art (KK 31-37). In response to the question "Should artists make only pictures people can understand?" a small majority of art students said people don't have to know anything to understand art. "No, they'paint feelings," responded Christi, an advanced art student who represented lower-taste culture. Lew than half of the students questioned claimed that it is the artist's responsibility to com municate. Toni, sensitive to the role of education, said "People need to be educated if they don't know what is going on in a picture" (KK 14-15). Toni represented the lower- middle-taste public. She was the only student cognizant enongh to attempt self- consciously to exprew her ideas in a painting about adolescent independence and parental control. The question "What do your friends who are not in art clawes say about art?" was asked of students. "College preparatory students do not think art is important," said a bright, advanced art student. "They don't respect it." "What art do they like at festivals?" "The art they can understand." 70 "Is what they understand realism, abstraction, or non-objective art? Do they ever talk about art?" the investigator pursued. To this Darlene abruptly closed the interview. "No friends around here in Kettle talk about art" (S4). In Homes Teachers who visited homebound students described artifacts students displayed as art in their homes. Almost every home contained family photographs—especially baby pictures. Large, reproduced pictures usually depicted recognizable subject matter. Some styles imitated early twentieth- century artists. No original work was displayed except for a few items ch'awn by children. Decorations made by owners included paint-by-number pictures, macrame plant hangers, and occasionally, pre-molded ceramic items people made in Kettle Community Education programs, or hooked rugs made from prepared plans in kits. Typical in these lower-taste culture homes were large photographs of realistic scenes and "original" oil paintings on velvet. Some art was displayed in inexpensive frames and some was taped to the walls with exposed masking tape. In contrast with middle-class taste, only a few pictures were color- coordinated with their environments. Noticeably alike were artifacts purchased from sponsors of the currently faddish home-art parties. People invited friends into their homes to see and buy reproductions of art in a way similar to the way cosmetics or plastic containers are sold at home parties. These included items like ceramic pixies, framed pictures, and braw or plastic butterflies. Mrs. Bo noted that taste was shifting from paintings done on velvet to "cute" molded figurines produced in a Kettle family's business-"Precious Moments." The subject matter of these mimetic items ranged from mountains to water, ships, Chinese boats, a Monte Carlo-like shoreline, and owls. A half-nude 71 woman and bust of Christ are examples of subject paintings on velvet. A terrarium and aquarium, many healthy plants, pre-molded ceramics, a silk flower arrangement with dried weeds, and a handmade crow-stitch were displayed in an atypical home. All of these items were done in coordinated colors. Although crucifixes were frequently reported, one unusually decorated home added to a plastic crucifix a statue of Mary in a porcelain bathtub partially projecting from the ground. It was surrounded by green and red plastic flowers. Home furnishings did not always match in style and were described as "early Salvation Army" by visiting teachers (1974). Low-culture publics, as Gans describes them and as typical in Kettle, are mainly "skilled and semi-skilled factory and service workers, and semi-skilled white collar workers, the people who obtained nonacade mic high school diplomas and often dropped out after the tenth grade" (Gans, 1974, p. 89). These people are likely to reject high "culture." Their aesthetic standards strew substance over theme and form. Abstract ideas or fictional forms of contemporary social problems and issues lie beyond working-claw values. Interviews with art students also revealed this perspective on art in Kettle homes. Although these students had some experience with art as a creative, original procew, some students described art as paint-by—number pictures made by family members, handmade macrame plant holders, and pre— formed ceramic molds. Toni proudly described the ceramic Christmas tree which "lights up." Her family bought it from a friend who made it. The person had also made a big beer stein, a newly-made "old" water basin and pitche', and a "cat- lamp" for them. Toni was described as "the claw fashion model" by the art teacher. The art at Toni's house included a paint-by-number kitten—which she had painted—a picture of someone in a Roman toga, pictures of boats, and many of her mother's pre-formed ceramies. Lorraine represented the lower-taste public. In 72 her house there were paintings of a Spanish dancer and a bullfight and photographs of her family. Lorraine's bed was a mattress on the floor. Tootsie's portrait hung in their living room. It was drawn by an artist who exhibited her work in a local shopping mall (S l, KK 14-15, KK 31-37). A student who loved horses spoke of the horse images in everything in her house. Researcher: What kinds of things do you have on the walls at home? Lorna: All pictures of horses-posters of horses, pictures [photographs] of horses; Pegasus on silk and another rug-like picture of a horse. It's like going into a barn. [She laughed with enthusiast Researcher: Are your pictures framed? Lorna: Yeah (KK 32). Lorna's taste represented lower-middle-taste culture, although her lack of interest in education represents that of a lower-taste public. Some friends' or family members' own art merited positions of respect on the walls at home, according to Tootsie, who reminded Lorna of her clay sculpture. Tootsie: I still have that armadillo you made. Lorna: I didn't know what I was making and Tootsie said, "That looks like an armadillo"—so Mrs. Bo fired it and we didn't know she did. It didn't quite fit the assignment. Tootise: It's at home on our bookshelf (KK 32). Darlene Sawyer kept her father's abstract work in her bedroom, but not greeting cards designed for his corpoation. It was obvious from what she said and art which she and other siblings made in school that art played a major role in this exceptional family. Posters typify ethnological art collections junior high students had. Middle-claw Sonja worshipped Elvis Presley and bragged of having fifty of his posters taped to her bedroom wall. Some students decorated their lockers with collections of posters or collages of magazine images of heroes and heroines. 'Vliw Jacometti described the student's collections. "1 think that most of the students have posters of rock stars, girls have pictures of good looking men and boys vice- 73 versa. There would be some contradictions-[students] who have flower pictures or landscapes, but I don't think that's general of junior high age students" (KK l). Kettle students and families represented a working—claw and lower-taste public. Nora's family was without financial or educational support. She lived in a mobile home where there were few pictures on the wall. A mirror "the size of half the room" and last year's student-illustrated calendar was all that was art in the living room, she said. In contrast, Sonja represented a family with more money. Sonja spoke of eating crab legs and New York strip steak at Midtown's exclusive restaurants. She spoke of her brother's getting a computer and a stereo for Christmas. Although she represented a higher socioeconomic level, her taste was typical of the drug- and-music youth culture (Gans, 1976). Students' Clothigg Students' drew differed at Kettle Schools in several ways from schools in middle- and upper-middle-class schools. Sweaters (especially clawic, crew neck sweaters), dock siders, and loafers typified the clean look currently in style in middle-claw schools; while blue jeans, even designer-label jeans, were common in schools of both socioeconomic and taste culture subgroups. In both schools a bit of the punk hair style was evident in everyday drew. In contrast, T-shirts emblazoned with eye-catching messages appeared only at Kettle Schools. Images on T-shirts included current movie characters like E.T., astrological signs, rock stars, and slogans. "Hash" on Jeff's black T-shirt was the most blatant indication of the drug and rock music culture. "Tickle me Pink," dazzled in sparkling, iridescent letters and connoted nonsense, as did "I Know Karate and 18 Other Chinese Words." Also at Kettle School some of the "tough girls" wore black leather jackets which Mrs. Bo said led to the image of being hard. It was 74 reminiscent of the motorcycle gang youth culture and drugs. Mrs. Bo complained of this when she said, "Candy, 1 wish you wouldn't wear that black jacket. When you get that leather jacket you act rough—tough. I like you better when you are soft and nice. When you wear your frilly blouses with your blond hair you are nicer" (O 6). Candy replied seriously, "Oh, I know." "Something is happening with her boy friend," explained the teacher, implying that clothes reveal emotions (O 6). Middle-claw Karen's high fashion clothing contrasted with the typical shirts and blouses especially when she and her friend decided to counter the trend and drew alike in wedge-shoes and longer skirts. This show of independence happened occasionally among female students. Middle-class Darlene, an individualist, regularly dreww in Army-type fatigues (derived from the political form of youth culture) and either a cotton blouse or T-shirt. Occasionally a student wore a single item such as a tam or cap which set him or her apart. Junior high schooler Carol wore clothes which frequently followed the fad. On her birthday she wore an amusing contrast, symbolic of adolescent vacillation between the life of a child and adult. She dressed formally, in a stylish, pin-striped adaptation of tuxedo slacks, a vest, and a frilly white, long-sleeved blouse. She also proudly carried with her a 16" tall, stuffed animal-a turquoise blue Smurf-a popular stuffed character. Cheerleaders wore short, navy skirts with orange and white checked blouses on days when a ballgame was scheduled. Capital-letter "K" uniform pins matched their costumes. Girls' use of makeup varied. More senior high girls wore cosmetics than junior high girls; those concerned with following fads and some of the black- leather-jacket set generally were heavy makeup. Some of the black-leather- jacket girls also used faddish dark-colored fingernail polish. 75 Art-Related Activities Out-of-school activities demonstrated a commitment to art which was likely more honest than what students said about art. Interviews with students revealed their involvement with high art-experiences at the art museum, attendance at the large annual arts festival in Midtown, and art-related activities outside of school. Of fourteen students asked if they had ever visited the Midtown Art Museum, one student confused it with the Public Museum (natural history). Only one, a female non-art student, had been to the newly-relocated and celebrated art museum, while thirteen had little idea of where the museum was. More students had been to the gala Midtown Arts Festival. Local artists entered their art in the competition. The annual festival provides emosure to forms of high art including the avant-garde. Recently, minimal art, Conceptual Art, and Photorealism displayed at the festival had stimulated some negative reaction in the local prew. Another body of juried work exhibited and sold at the Festival had included functional arts made with wood, fibers, metal, painting, clay, paper, and glaw. The ethnic food sales and performing arts were popular crowd-pleasers. Eight students were asked if they had ever attended the Festival; one had never been there, and seven said they had gone at least one time. The girls honestly stated they most liked to look at boys and eat food. Students' evaluative comments about art shown ranged from its being good to the conclusion that the art there "is really weird" (KK 37). More comments related to the functional arts on sale than to the art exhibited for contemplation only. During the study, Midtown celebrated the first anniversary of the grand opening of a museum in honor of a famous local son. The opening of a downtown 76 shopping complex and performances by nationally known celebrities coordinated with the anniversary celebration received extended coverage by the media. None of the students in Kettle art clawes said they attended the festivities. They seemed uninterested in these larger metropolitan area civic events. THE IN-SCHOOL COMMUNITY Since life outside the art room affects what occurs inside it, it is necessary to investigate the matrix within which students worked. Among the multiple realities one presented itself as the chief reality—the reality of everyday life (Berger 6n Luckman, 1966). The way students responded to the phenomena in their environment reflected the structure of reality in both the physical and social environment. "The reality of everyday life is shared with others . . . . The most important experience of others takes place in the face-to-face situation, which is the prototypical case of social interaction. All other cases are derivatives of it" (Berger 6n Lockmann, 1966, p.28). The physical characteristics of the building revealed some everyday life at Kettle. Significant were the art forms—high and popular art—displayed or absent from clawrooms, hallways, and offices. Art as it appeared or did not appear in the curriculum and in the artifacts of school life illustrated people's conscious and unconscious commitment or lack of commitment to visual art. Stated opinions about art indicated some affective relationships mostly to high art. 77 The School Building At the turn of the century the original Kettle High School had faced Division, the major Midtown artery which divided the east sector from the west sector. When the high school needed additional facilities, the junior high had moved into the former high school building and a new high school had been built. Since then, two additions to the high school had created a labyrinth of hallways connecting old sections with newly created spaces. Two years ago the gymnasium roof of the junior high building had collapsed, and the building was condemned and demolished. It held fond memories for many in the community, including the junior high principal, who mourned the low of a building separate from the high school. Now the two schools shared facilities. A portable accordian gate separated the age groups at noon, initially installed to direct junior high students to the cafeteria either through the gymnasium or outdoors. This traffic pattern was established to prevent the noise of junior high students at lunch from disturbing high school clawes (TT 1). In General The present two-story high school-junior high building had been built in 1935 perpendicular to Division Avenue. That portion now housed the junior high school. In 1956, a two-story addition provided more clawrooms, administrative offices, and the gym. A third addition had been constructed in 1970; it contained the art room, clawrooms, the library, school cafeteria, and metal and wood shops. Colliers describes a low-claw household as "mostly serviceable, but gracelew, utility more important than style, making do" (1967, p. 96). This description fit Kettle Schools. Even the most recent addition, built to connect 78 with the existing structure, formed a labyrinth. The building exhibited functional and visual disunity, even though many elements of the 1970 addition, when taken separately, had visual unity and variety. Senior High School The main entrance, difficult to distinguish from others, opened to a neatly arranged, Spartan, carpeted lobby. The hard glaw, metal doorcases, grid of ceramic wall tiles, and a touch of plywood paneling contrasted with the slightly warme- green-gold carpet. A row of fiberglaw chairs connected by a metal grid contributed to the institutional feeling. The glaw-enclosed display contained sports trophies which were arranged horizontally and vertically in a geometric way, reflective of the whole lobby. Immediately beyond the lobby was an imposing series of large, solid, wooden doors which opened to the gym. On either side of the entrance were offices—the main office on one side and the counseling office on the other. Thrift and neutrality had governed decisions about the architecture, surface materials, and the arrangement of furniture. The pale, neutral color tones and lack of value contrast only intensified a bland effect. On the left the lobby openned to a slightly landscaped, outdoor atrium in the newest addition. Here the affluence of the late 19603 and early 19708 was evident. Lighted showcases provided glaw-enclosed protection for displays which rarely were there. A small bulletin board covered with warm, burnt-orange, tweed vinyl was usually empty. Below were lines of anonymous student lockers. Deep vestibules leading to each classroom seemed to separate the hallways from the clawrooms. Doors to clawrooms were closed when school was in sewion with a few exceptions, the most notable being the art room door. It was often open because nobody had need to close it. Hallway noise did not affect noisily working art students. Art students' sound did not bother classes where lecture was more 79 typical, because the art room was somewhat removed from the other clawrooms which branched off from a more distant, perpendicular hallway. To the right of the lobby was the two story older addition with its gold carpet suggesting an attempt to visually and practically update it. The visual neutrality in color, the lack of value contrast, and the absence of artifacts representing the inhabitants' individuality created a sterile, institutional feeling in this area particularly. The hallways and bathrooms in Kettle High School, though Spartan, were usually neatly kept. Little graffiti appeared in the girls' bathrooms. If they did appear school personnel removed them immediately to dscourage other potential scribblers. Order and frugality were apparently prized. 1 Most of the graffiti appeared in the boys' bathroom near the gym. The availability of that bathroom to the general public, for outside and extra- curricular activities, may explain this. Evidence of attempts to paint over markings appeared here also. The remaining graffiti were primarily Obscenities, four-letter words, said Mike, an informant. He referred to a rhyming poem which talked of "shit in my pants" as related to a faculty member and another was a jest about an "out-of-it" upperclaw boy. Some items included portions added by various people. On one occasion, the junior high bathroom had been decorated by the perennial wet toilet paper which had been thrown on the ceiling. It was all over, said Mike. Apart from this all graffiti were verbal and none was pictoral. Little evidence of students' art spilled into corridors, with the notable exception of a floor-to-ceiling mural which Mrs. Bo's former students had once painted on an upstairs wall. The mural across from the science rooms was reminiscent of more education-focused days. Realistic images of scientists, science equipment, and objects for observation reflected the interests of people engaged in the sciences. 80 Some clawrooms contained posters or illustrations of material related to the subject taught, while other classrooms were sterile, void of visual grace or education through visual means. However, the library and the home economics room and an English classroom were notable examples of teaching through the eyes. Monthly exhibitions were changed in the library display case which had windows to both the hallway and library. The librarian's aide constructed displays that related to students' interests or to the seasons (C 23, E 2, E 23, F 3). The same person made exhibits on bulletin boards and in display cases outside the art room. These illustrated the paraprofessional's preoccupation with stereoptypic, trite images from popular culture—the kind Mrs. Bo forbade. Here, immediately outside the art room door, drawings of Mickey and Minnie Mouse symbolically represented the pepular art-high art struggle. The library display changed monthly. During November the Thanksgiving theme arrangement included a cornucopia with imitation fruits and vegetables spilling from it, surrounded by imitation pumpkins made of layers of tissue paper circles which had been folded alternately and glued together to create accordian- like spheres. On the wall at the side of the display was a series of flat, crayoned pumpkins. A large paper owl sat on a real tree branch above a wooden crate which housed a painted china dish. Oak leaves out from construction paper were repeated on the floor and a wall. Imitation fruit shapes were repeated on the china plate which also bore the images of fruit (PC 23).2 Similarly, the Christmas theme appeared in the form of paper angels, ornaments, and a commercially made creche (PE 2). Two displays were likely designed to capture students' interest: a collection of articles representing 2Uppercase "P" preceding letters and numerals enclosed in parentheses refers to photographs in. research notes. 81 hobbies and items from "South of the Border" (PF 4 and PE 36). Each suggested a philosophy of education aimed to reproduce the existing society. Few student-made signs appeared in the school, and few used visual images. One exception was the little yellow sign made by the library paraprofewional and student awistants, which advertised a Halloween dance. It was symmetrically balanced like the five dots on an elongated die. On the left side, letters lined in a curve; on the right side they made straight lines. The left side said, "THE KETTLE SOUNDS AND SIGHTS" in large block letters. The right side contained black, equal-sized letters in straight lines which read, "DANCE - OCTOBER 29, 1982/AFTER THE FOOTBALL GAME/COST $1.25." Spotlights were focused on the center image. Stereotypic records and musical notes, also in black, were scattered in the space where block lettering appeared. The design was aimed to be symmetrical. Its large negative space and equal spacing, which the maker found difficult to control, suggested a logical rather than sensory-based inspiration. A shimmering crystal ball of faceted silver-colored foil sparkled from the center where the words describing the lights became part of the reflections cast by the mirrors. Its sensory interpretation of an object maintained characteristics of the object shown. As a whole, the visual form accomplished its intended, pragmatic function-to communicate verbally. In a nearby display case, the large poster of Mickey and Minnie Mouse cartoons was also used to advertise the dance. This too typified the kind of immediately understood-unoriginal art which a low-taste—culture portion of Kettle participants saw as comfortable (PC 23, PC 13, PC 14). Characteristics common to each of these artifacts included didactic qualities, use of stereotypic imagery, and a self-conscious attempt to achieve good design without succewfully creating an interpretative exprewion, or (as a middle school student once put it) that which makes "you think again about something." 82 The library display entitled "South of the Border" suggested a middle- taste culture influenced by the inclusion of "airport art," the souvenirs people in a country made exprewly for foreign tourists. Here the selection represented Mexican souvenirs which Mrs. La Fleur and Mrs. Ducklace had brought from home and travels to Mexico (U0 1, Figure l). The art came from middle-claw rather than working- or low-claw Kettle people. Another evidence of either middle- taste culture or natural sensitivity to design appeared in the consideration the designer had given to form. Although the design of the exhibit differed from how a profewional museum curator would have used three-dimensional space, it did incorporate subtle repetition. The circular quality of the hats integrated the design along with the circles of the hot-pad holders, the maracas, dish, dolls heads, jewelry, and coins. Although overlapping objects created an interesting use of space, the space had been used in a two-dimensional rather than three- dimensional way. Objects were either fastened to the walls or lying on the floor of the three-dimensional display area (PE 33 and PE 36). A more sensitive designer would likely have used more of the negative volume such a display unit offers. Low-taste culture's preoccupation with subject contrasted with a more informed upper- and upper-middle-taste culture's concern for subject and form. 83 Figure 13 South of the Border The entire high school generally appeared plain. There was little evidence of thought given to the influence of visual form on inhabitants. The greens and golds of the older two portions of the building did not complement the burnt-orange tones of the newest addition. Signs near the high school offices were mostly advertisements sent to the school. The location of the physical education facilities directly acrow from the main entrance suggested the utilitarian goal of giving the community easy access to the gymnasium. This, the trophy case, and a bulletin board also represented the core place of sports in the curriculum. 3Colored photographs appear in original bound volume on file at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. 84 Although students might not support this-as shown by their lack of enthusiasm for pep-assemblies—the adult community at Kettle was strongly supportive of sports (KK 11). Since the walls of Kettle Schools had little or no art, Miss Jacometti decried the sterility of the building, saying it left people "with nothing to lift you up." She blamed that in part to the fact that "we are in contract now [still negotiating for terms of the current year's teacher's contract] and that means spirits are down" (KK 7 ). "It worries me that students aren't smelling flowers or [rejoicind in the sunset" (KK 8). Some students even wished aloud for more warmth (KK 16). Junior Higl_'n School The principal of the junior high said, "We had a more artistic sense of beauty in the old building. We [in the junior high] are an appendage here in the high school—a glossary. In the old building we even mounted things. I don't know if that's the elementary school influence coming out" (KK 10). This principal, Miss Jacometti, revealed some of her interest in students and art. She had hung a former student's seascape in the outer office. (PC 29). Mr. Tillroy spoke of the painting as representing a student who had a lot of talent (KK 26). Miss Jacometti used art in her office in a self-conscious way. First, she used a pen with a small bell at its end to attract students' attention. Second, at least a dozen owl images (curiously a classical symbol of wisdom) filled her office- owls in ceramic, owls of welded metal, owls painted on wood, and even owl- shaped candles. All of them fit the stereotypic owl images often found in souvenir shops or local art fairs. Miw Jacometti defined the owls as popular art when she described them as "artsy-craftsy." She explained how she used them to capture 85 students' attention. "Well, these owls really fascinate them [students] . They say to me, 'We have 'em at our house,’ or whatever." She disclosed her definition of these owls as art when she said, "I wouldn't have them in my house; owls aren't art to me—they're here in this office. I don't say that to students. Some were gifts. . . ." (KK 2). Aware of students' taste in art, Miss Jacometti used these immediately recognnizable images as a bait with students. The owls helped break the ice for conversations with the students; sentimenntal art became functional art. And also when students are in the deepest trouble over something at school and I'm the angriest with them, and say they are giving me the silent treatment, they bridge the gap by commenting, "You sure like owls, Miw J. My goodnew, you have thirteen to fourteen owls." Or if they have a buddy who is in trouble with them or whatever—they say "You like owls" (KK 2). The Art Room Today [the field worker] rolled up four window shades to let some sunshine into the room and to use another source of light for photography. Three of the four shades were rolled down again. Craig pulled shades; he liked the place better that way, he said (V 15). On the first day of school, the art room looked like this: desks and tables were in order, but boxes of art supplies—some delivered that morning~were stacked in front of padlocked cupboard doors. No art was on the walls, and a few new bottles of glaze stood on the long shelves above the cupboards which lined about two-thirds of the north wall (Appendix B). A loom, metal garbage pails, and four old metal mechanical drawing tables were isolated from the seating along the east wall. Windows on the south wall were covered by bamboo-like shades. Along the middle of that wall the teacher's desk and metal filing cabinets became a teaching station; although this was not always the spot from which Mrs. Bo spoke, she also talked from the chalkboard area next to the storage closet on the west wall. Two doors to the hallway flanked either end of the wooden cupboard, shelves, and two sinks on the north wall. 86 Five typical 7' x 3' tables provided work space for one-half a claw. The other half sat at the higher four wood-top sculpture tables that sat atop metal lockers in the center. Round, backless metal stools served as seating for these tables. The stools and soap dispensers had been decoratively painted by previous art students. Bright, hard-edge designs on the stools repeated the one-point- perspective designs which previous students had painted on the ceiling tile (A l). The abundance of metal objects had an industrial quality. The psychological order of the art room reflected the way Mrs. Bo and the students patterned their lives in claw. The maxim "A place for everything and everything in its place," connotes reaching an ideal, but the arrangement of the Kettle art room revealed "making do." Usually equipment in the art room was returned to its place; sometimes it was not. Of twenty-six pencils Mrs. Bo originally provided for students, only four were left by the third day of claw (B 7). Drawing boards were sometimes dumped in a pile (PB 10). Metal supply cabinets for art tools and equipment stood in the center of the room. The walk-in supply closet at the end of the room held many tools and supplies but was infrequently used. Most equipment in regular use was readily available. In general, the room appeared to be a workshop which had a relaxed, pragmatic atmosphere. Former students' prize-winning works had accumulated in piles and seemed to become monuments to their creators. Some stacks grew on empty garbage pails, on infrequently used desks, and on the unused potter's wheels. - These haphazard piles remained throughout the semester. Some of the students who had made these works of art were in clawes meeting currently; Jean could have returned these projects to their owners if she had chosen to. The eclectic style of furniture suggested a lack of long-range planning or as said before: making-do. Utility, not visual order, was important. 87 Few art masterpieces appeared on display in the art room. During the semester, posters advertising current art on exhibition was the only context in which high art was presented. Of those works, none represented contemporary art or works of art which entice reflection on the nature of art. Until recently, art of the old masters typified art curricula in the United States; art education "was more a reflection of lay artistic tastes than it was a leader in shaping their tastes and enabling students to experience work on the frontiers of their day (Eisener 6n Ecker, 1970, p. 17). The reliance on certified masterpieces still typifies practices in many schools, although the art curricula seem to be changing in a few middle-claw Midtown schools. Some Midtown schools have introduced Conceptual Art and Photorealism on art room walls, with bulletin boards containning Rineholt Visuals (a commercially available series of poster-size reproductions of art from all ages including the 19703). Works like Robert Smithson's SPIRAL JETTY (1970) and George Stever's UNTITLED (1972) typify reproductions of contemporary artworks on display. Conceptual artists like these attacked the cult of the "precious object" whenn it was created outside of an art gallery as a work which could not be bought or sold. SPIRAL JETTY, a sculpture, is a pile of earth and rocks jutting 1500 feet into the Great Salt Lake. This Conceptual Art called attention to the fact that art is experience before and after it is anything else (Preble, 1978). It's intention was to encourage viewers to think about the procew of its creation as well as art-as-idea. Artists use Photorealism to express the idea that representational images do not have to tell stories as most earlier representational artists did through realistic records of appearances. In contrast, subjects of Photorealist's art are often insignificant. Stever used images as a Photorealist when he painted blobs of gray paint and their shadows, not to say something about dabs of paint, but to comment on the nature of art. The incidental blobs appear to be painted on a 88 transparent surface suspended in front of the canvas of the painting. Subtly crafted shadows, made with an airbrush appear to be cast by the opaque, gray dabs. The message is that reality in art is not always what it seems to be. Both Conceptual Art and Photorealism demand the viewer's interaction with an art form beyond merely labeling images in it for their narrative. The Students Students at Kettle School represented both the working- annd middle- social clawes. They were also a mixture of lower- and lower—middle—taste publics, and the line between these classes sometimes blurred. Students in the lower groups sometimes shocked teachers with their franknew about taboo subjects. These students reacted rather than responded to the art teacher, and they quarreled with her. Many students lacked enthusiasm for learning, as shown by their willingnew to sit idly in art claw. Students in the advanced art claw divided into factions. The Eastenders sat on high stools at the higher sculpture tables. Although they were a mixture of socioeconomic clawes, most of them were of the working-claw and lower-taste publics. The Westenders sat on lower chairs, at lower tables and mostly represented the low- and working claw and the lower-taste public. Middle-claw students divided themselves-into the two factions (Appendix B). Exprewivenew "Students at Kettle Schools talk about anything and everything in the clawroom. Today it focused on both blackheads and whiteheads being zits [pimplesll" (KK 30). 89 Students openly communicated what seemed truthful to them. Mr. Tillroy reflected on this and said, "I think our kids are extremely honest; there is no pretense" (KK 24). What Mr. Tillroy called "honesty" related to the students' daring to say what they wished without fearing teachers' authority. This reflects the working claw reacting rather than responding (Hollingshead and Redlich, 1958). Some of the things students asked or said to teachers were considered inappropriate or too personal by middle-claw teachers. Students' opennew certainly revealed both their interests and their adolescence. A conversation with Christi exemplified the students' candor. Christi: "Are you married?" Researcher: "Yes." Christi: "Do you have any kids?" Researcher: "Well, they haven't come along in twenty-one years of marriage." Christi: "Huh?" Researcher: (repeats) Toni: ‘ "What do you mean; you've been married for twenty-one years and don't have any kids? Wow! I'd have twenty-one kids by now!" Students: Other students echo this sentiment in amazement (N 2). Christi revealed romantic perspective on life, and typical of adolescent idealism reflective of the working-claw pattern of early marriage (Rubin, 1976). Christi's comments revealed her freedom to speak with little consideration of another's feeling. To Christi the purpose of marriage was to have children. A childless marriage made little sense and was inconsistent with the conservative Baptist culture in which she had been reared. Teachers found this candor difficult to accept. Mrs. La Fleur and Mrs. Ducklace claimed that vulgarity was considered "cool," especially among girls, and that female students thought nothing of telling a teacher to "fuck-off." When Mrs. La Fleur encountered a group of girls celebrating, she asked why they were so jubilant. One girl, not completely free to be open with her teacher about some matters, explained in a note that the girls were excited because Molly was menstruating, thereby indicating that she was not pregnant. The fifty-year-old 90 teacher was appalled that students were open about this, even to the extent of telling a teacher (KK 28). A bald man with a sweat band around his forehead walked down the hall. One of the girls casually said to him, "Oh, what's that you have on your bald head?" CE 9). Students were frank! Sally made a picture which freely exprewed her feelings; the subject and treatment of the subject revealed Sally's preoccupation with sex and boys. Sally talked about these subjects regularly. Sally often came to school with "hickeys" on her face and neck. Sally's picture contained some obvious universal symbols (Jung, 1964). The highly sensuous drawing pictured sexy female legs, an arched foot to fit extremely high heels, a hose coming out of a vacuum cleaner which became a snake wrapped in a loose, almost rhythmic form around the legs. The snake's head projected from between the legs (N 1). The picture was hers. In spite of all the individual exprewion evident in her art, Sally complained about having to do what Jean told her. Students freely argued with Jean Bo; it seemed to be a fairly common thing for students to argue with adults at Kettle School, in the same way they might argue at home with a parent or a sibling. Mr. Tillroy believed that this brazen, agressive way of life was learned culture, typical of students who were strongly influenced by television. He was one of those teachers who wanted to avoid dealing with the radical youth culture as it appeared. The mushrooming and fragmented research of the effects of television on young people suggests the complex nature of the media influence and that further research is required to bring together conflicting findings before Mr. Tillroy's assertions can be confirmed (Ward 6: Robertson, 1970; Caron and Ward, 197 5; Robertson, 1979). Frazer observes the need for ethnographic studies to discover how television is a procew of acquiring social skills and cultural meanings of children's "exploiting" the medium (1981). Schramm, Lyle, and Parker awert that 91 "parents, friends, schools have it in their power to make a significant contribution to the healthfulnew of a child's use of television by giving him a warm and loving home, and helping him to normal and satisfying relationships with children his own age" (1961, pp. 11-12). Lieberman published findings that television negatively affects spoken and written language (1983). Perhaps it is an overnasty generalization that television and other electronic technology have also taken much of the blame for the decreased academic performance, but that claim is made. Postman says that television not only requires no skills but develops noskills. He decries the erosion of childhood when he claims children have little control over their impulses, particularly the impulse toward aggrewion and immediate gratification. "Shame is the mechanism by which barbarism is held at bay and much of its power comes from the mystery and awe that surround various acts" (1982, p. 86). No longer secret are subjects such as incest, homosexuality, and violence which have prevented shame from exerting as strong an influence in society. "As the media merge adulthood and childhood curiosity is replaced by cynicism, or even worse, arrogance" (1982, p. 90). Research into youths' lack of respect for authority and increased violence appears also in Lowery and De Fleur's review of the Report of the President's Commission on Causes and Prevention of Violence. From the report and surrounding research they conclude: 1. Television content is heavily saturated with violence. 2. Children and adults are spending more and more time exposed to violent 2. (633$; the evidence supports the hypothesis that the viewing of violent entertainment increases the likelihood of aggrewive behavior. The evidence is derived from both laboratory experiments which permit causal inference, £13 from surveys which provide evidence of real-life awociations in everyday events (1983). 92 Lack of Interest in Academics "Kettle students today aren't what they used to be. The majority of them are apathetic, uninterested in learning, and low achievers. They have lost enthusiasm for learning in the last ten years," reflected Mrs. Ducklace, the librarian. Her clawic, frequently heard comments represent the feelings of many faculty members. "Many students are thoughtless romantics," said Jean Bo, advancing the commonly accepted notion that teachers cannot do anything about these kinds of students. It's not true of all students, though. Many kids get married and move back to Kettleville. Some are encouraged to graduate and then, until recently, their parents have been getting jobs for them at General Motors. Material goods are the chief end in life. It's like a soap opera (C 8). When reflecting on student's alertnew to school activities, however, Jean laughed, "The students can't chew gum and walk in a straight line at the same time" (A 8). Rubin points out that profewional, middle-claw parents raise their childrenn for work which requires thinking and "sensitivity to others, and a well- developed set of interpersonal skills . . . ." By contrast, working-class parents do not endorse these skills. Their working conditions foster less mental and social development where "you're not paid to think!" (197 6, p. 128). The teachers felt that the situation was hopelew, because the only parents supportive of quality education were those whose children were already interested in education. These students and parents were in the minority. This clawic sentiment is symptomatic of an enduring dilemma in school and community relations. "Most parents aren't interested in education; entertainment is a primary goal," sighed Mrs. La Fleur (KK 28). School is not a "cool thing," said Mr. Tillroy (KK 23). 93 Teachers felt unnsupported by parents; nevertheless some attempted to maintain standards, and some gave homework daily. Students wanted a diploma but did not care to learn. Students were generally unconcerned when they received "0" for uncompleted homework. Prior to this time, a diploma had not been an absolute necewity because parents who worked at the large car or furniture companies got their children jobs in their factories (KK 28). Kinship has been a large factor in recruitment of several factories near Kettle schools. With this perception, people's general belief system excluded ranking education as highly valuable. Jean complained about the low scores of the introductory clawas. She had offered to answer any student's five questions before the exam and still some students responded incorrectly to nearly one-half of the questions. One student had twenty-seven out of fifty-eight answers wrong because, as he admitted, he had not studied. Students just do not care, Jean said. Ryan got the all-time record: forty-five wrong answers of fifty-eight powible answers. He was in no way embarrawed when he blatantly said he had not studied. Everyone knew what the exam would be, because Mrs. Bo had given the same questions on a pretest at the beginning of the year. She had also reviewed the questions with the clawes and given students a copy of the test preceding the examination (HH 1). Other teachers also complained about academic apathy; some attempted method changes to encourage students' attentionn. Mrs. La Fleur planned three different modes of presentation during one hour, including discuwion and visuals; regardlew, Cindy yawned and acted bored. Mrs. Ducklace subscribed to approximately 125 magazines for the library, two of which students read- Seventeen, a younger girls' fashion-etiquette magazine, and Hot Rod. It was discouraging, she said, to keep the library up to specifications and then to find few people caring about reading. Last semester Mrs. La Fleur had given no A's in 94 either her Senior Composition claw or another English claw. This fall she had consulted the principal and discovered he supported her efforts to maintain high standards. Mr. Cool, the history teacher, said he could not wait to finish teaching and get on the speaker's roster to tell the nation "how inferior lower education is." He reported grades for first semester as twenty-nine E's, thirty-one D's, thirty-four C's, twelve B's, and no A's. "Four of the B's and many D's were gifts," he despaired (KK 27). Mrs. Bo referred to many of her students as "tough" or apatlnetic. She recognized this in their irresponsibility regarding homework and claw attendance. When planning a day of critiques (group evaluations of each other's art), she told the students it would occur one day but conducted the evaluation sewion a day earlier so that students would not skip that claw. The best reflection of Jean's attitude toward many of her students was the saying she quoted more than once, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" (0 6). The proverb represented her hopelessnew and low expectation level. One way for a teacher to approach the problems of students with low academic performance is to investigate the cause for the problem and to seek alternative pedagogical techniques. Another way is to say it is the students' fault. If the teacher provides opportunity for learning and students fail to grasp it, then the student is deemed hopeless and the teacher becomes apathetic. Jean responded to the "artists" in her classes in the first way, and to the non-artists the second way. There were some exceptions to this apathy. An English teacher told of three students who supported each other by going to the neighboring Sailville Public Library to do investigation for a paper they were writing. These students were unusual (KK 27). Jean also spoke of a group whom she labeled "artists" in the advanced art claw. The "artists" demonstrated the potential to learn, "human 95 capital" as Becker labels it (1967). They were also students who talked about art influence in their families and had what Bordeau calls "cultural capital" (1977). Most students are only interested in babies and marriage, said Jean, referring to the clique of "tough girls" who always sat at the west tables during advanced art claw. These Westenders spent claw time exchanging gossip about unwed pregnant students and friends who had babies (C 2, C 3, C 4, K 10). Another faculty member confirmed this preoccupation with marriage and babies, labelling students as naive. "Young people do not realize that babies are living, breathing little creatures who strap parents to their homes. That's when fathers go out to bars and mothers are stuck and divorce results" (KK 2). Most of the students seem to have lost the joy of learning and would rather pursue their youthful entertainment, she concluded. However, as earlier recognized, Miw Jacometti saw evidence of some change. In our area I see more prewure brought to bear on children to go to college than there used to be. It used to be that you go to college because you're really bright. It used to be status. Now you go to college because then you can get a job; although they are finding out that even with college some can't get a job. Also, "I [the parent] want my child to have better than I did." We educators went all out as others did. We accepted shoddy work-just the fact that this child _q_id something was okay. Now the trend is going back again. You li__f__t students up to where they should be. We don't accept everything. I've lived through a cycle. I've really seen nothing new in education. What was in, is in again as with clothes (KK 5) Comparison to Area Non-Public School Students Contrasts between students in Kettle private and parochial schools cannot be easily drawn. Both non-public schools had a claw known as "difficult." The junior high students at Kettle Public School had art claw five days a week, compared with one claw weekly at the non-public schools. Respect for authority in the students' behavior seemed similar. Students' degree of attention to work appeared to be the biggest difference. Students at Kettle Public School entered . 96 the clawroom seemingly relaxed and unprewured after the first week of clawes. In the routine of daily life, art claw remained a time for friendly or hostile conversation, free movement within the clawroom, and little external prewure. For non-public junnior high students, in contrast, their once weekly art claw meant it was a break in routine, a special occasion, or a novelty. While ths both encouraged and discouraged intense participation in art activity, it did mean that non-public school teachers more often reminded students of time. This may account, in part, for the non-public school students' industriousnew. Cusick, however, provides a more defensible explanation for students' behavioral differences in parochial schools, claiming that the hierarchical authority model in the parochial schools determines some of students' responsivenew and accountability (1983). Regardless, when comparing Kettle High School students to students in upper socioeconomic clawes, the Kettle students' lack of devotion to task remained notable (Bonzelaar, 1982). Exceptional students in each setting worked on independent projects, yet the majority of students behaved differently as noted. In Art Clawes Jean despaired of students from the low claw. She referred to one of her classes as a "Zulu claw." It was the student with a "blue-collar attitude" whom Jean described when she said "In general the kids at the school are thonghtlew, mindlew and romantics" (C 8). On the other hand, Jean did not mean those five or six "artists" in her advanced claw. By "artists" she referred to those with the skills to render realistic images, although she never defined them directly in this way. Signnificantly, each of these students represented the middle claw and the lower-middle-taste public with one student from the working claw. 97 Darlene, as a representative of the "artists," had what Bourdieu calls "cultural capital" (1977). She knew art jargon and discuwed art knowledgeably with Mrs. Bo. She had worked with various art media outside of school, read her father's books on art, and brought some to school. She knew about famons artists and talked about them. Although the Sawyer family tried to live at a working- and middle-social-claw level, and they knew some lower-middle—claw perspectives on art-art can be exprewive, abstract, and non-objectve-yet in their businew they manufactured low-claw, sentimental art. Her knowledge about art, this "cultural capital," in addition to the "human capital" gave Darlene status in Mrs. Bo's eyes (Becker, 1967). Mrs. Bo's interest in art of course influenced the way she related to students and her expectations for their understanding art. About 125 students out of 525 high school students enrolled in an art course each year. About half of those voluntarily registered for a second or third year claw according to Mr. Rushson. A large percentage of students in art clawes was female. The groups were a mixture of academically high and low achievers—a mixture atypical in college preparation courses. This meant that students representing different social clawes and taste publics met in the art room. Mr. Rushson's opinion was that some students enrolled in art clawes because they thought these clawes were a way to obtain an easy credit. About forty percent of the junior high students chose to enroll in an art course. Of interest was the small choice students had in selecting an elective course. The two other optional courses included mechanical drawing or shop (KK 22). This limited selection explains the large number of art enrollees, in contrast to Orchard Way Middle Schools, a neighboring suburban system, where at least eight options each semester provided a wider selection (KK 22). 98 Student Factions As noted above, the students in the advanced art claw divided into three groups called the Westenders, Centers, and Eastenders for the study (See Appendix B). Seating patterns were voluntary. Curiously, the Westenders never walked to the east end except to get supplies from that side of the long, narrow classroom. Tables usually not used formed a barrier. The Eastenders entered the art room by the east door and the Westenders entered by the west door. Each group departed the same way. Two working claw boys, Centers, usually worked steadily. They occupied a center table and formed a divider between the Eastenders and the Westenders (Table 1). Although one of them occasionally conversed with people from both ends, they usually remained aloof from the two extremes, partly because they were underclawmen and sometimes the only males in the claw. They also seemed to prefer working to socializing. What, beyond geography, divided the factions? Leadership and open defiance appeared to be dividing features. More than half of the Westenders were lower-claw girls having a "blue-collar attitude" toward life. Nora, Winnnie, Candy, and Sonja formed a vocal nucleus of blue-collar students not interested in the academic world. The two middle-claw girls had more interest in education, but sat with the Westenders for reasons not quite clear. Both middle-claw girls occasionally left the group when they wanted to work and sat at the vacant table next to the center table. When Toni left the group, it was on days when she worked diligently on her art project or when she talked with nobody and people said she was in a bad mood. (Both Mrs. Bo and students referred to Toni's moods.) Karen left the Westenders occasionally to work on her art. Occasionally she could be overheard muttering a complaint under her breath about something Jean had said. 99 The Westenders demanded most of Jean's time. They challenged her critiques of their art and tried to circumvent school rules. They tried to leave claw early, painted their fingernails during claw, and disregarded notes from the school office (PB 20-37, C 4, C 8, V 18, W l, U 1, G6). The lower-claw girls were the ones who Jean thought would skip school when she planned critiques (formal evaluations of their art). Ultimately, these argumentative girls wanted things their way and preferred not to be told what to do (E 21-27, H 3, H 5). The Eastenders were not openly defiant of Mrs. Bo. Their drew, what Mrs. Bo said, and things the girls said suggested that most of these girls came from families with more income. Darlene, an individualist with independence in her art, was one of the Eastenders who quietly complained about Jean's suggestions. Ann was so quiet and shy that she sometimes waited until after claw to ask Jean a question about the art she was doing. Many of the other students were followers. In addition to the seven Eastenders were some transient students, who came and left during the research (See Appendix B). TABLE I ADVANCED ART STUDENTS BY FACTIONS Westenders Centers Eastenders Toni Gene Darlene Karen Tim Ann Nora Donna Candy Tootsie Sonja Vera Winnie Lorna Christi Lorraine Safly" Jeff‘" I"transient student 100 The Eastenders complained to the field worker but not to Jean, about her attending to the Westenders more than to them. They also grumbled that Jean "told them what to do" in their art. The working-claw students, who were predominantly quiet did not confront her as the Westenders did. Both groups frequently socialized without working and a few students in each group indicated by what they said and did that art could be more than representational. A further description and analysis of their ideas about art follows in chapter IV and V. Talk About Art What students said about art did not always match what they created. Students coming into art clawes in September answered a questionnaire (Appendix E). Students used current terms to describe art. Half of the students registered in advanced art and one-third of the students registered in the introductory claw said in one way or another that art is exprewion. When asked "What do you think art is?" students responded with statements like I think art is a way of expressing visually what may be difficult to communicate orally. I think also that art is a feeling and an outlet for feelings . . . . I think that art is making up of objects that you can see or imagine. It can also show what kind of person you are by the things you make and the way you exprew them. Art is a way to exprew your thoughts. Nearly one-half of the introductory art students claimed that art is drawings and paintings or sculpture. Nearly one-fifth claimed art is fun. Lew articulate V students replied Art is . . . how much you try. I don't know. Putting things together. 101 When asked "When do you use art in your life?" several answers revealed students thought art can be applied in everyday living. It is used when "painting a house," "getting a job," "interior decorating," "preparing food," "selecting clothes," and "in everyday looking." "Why are you taking this claw?" the questionnaire asked. Of the twenty- eight introductory art respondents, one-half said because art is fun, and one-third of the advanced art students claimed the same. Others said art claw fit their ' schedule or they "didn't know what else to take." Others answered "because it's a way to relax," "it's good for looking at nature," "because I like the teacher," "it's an easy credit," and one student said she enrolled in art claw because it was her major. Several students did not respond to the question. The Art Teacher In some ways Mrs. Bo belonged in the neighborhood where she taught; she had grown up and graduated from a high school in a neighboring suburb. Her Jewish mother had married a gentile, annd for a long time had owned a clothing store. Her brother had been married for a time to someone who Jean said had relatives of a student. Mrs. Bo had attended the metropolitan junior college and graduated with a major inn art education from a rural state university. During the research, she resided in the rural area of a nearby suburb. She had taught for nine years-all at Kettle Schools. This ennergetic, daring, sociable teacher took some of her students on a week-long field trip to New York City during her eighth teaching year. Her enthusiasm for that project was reflected in her description of the experience and what it had meant to her. If you want to go on an ego trip, go on a trip with kids. They thank you and tell you how wonderful you are and what a good teacher you make. Last year I 102 had a lew enthusiastic group of kids who didn't want to go to New York; yet they raised $600 which is in reserve for 1982-83 (CA 8). This year Jean planned contests to inspire students to sell note cards and stationery, designed by art students and sold to raise money for trips. To entice student involvement she offered a $100 reward toward the trip of the student who sold the most stationery. Jean referred proudly to her sales technniques when she said "You have to be a salewerson. My mother is Jewish" (A 8). Mrs. Bo led many organizations. She started "Arts Unification," a biweekly extracurricular activity for Kettle students. She had initiated the broader arts program in the out-of-school community, The Bracers. She had heard a representative of the arts to the State Board of Education talk, had come home that night, and had called her superintendent. He supported her efforts to found the Bracers Arts Council. During the year of this research Jean received the Kettle Education Awociation's sixth annual Distinguished Service to Education Award. This honored her contribution to the arts and its effect on her students (Appenndix C). Mrs. Bo regularly attended the week-long statewide handweavers' conference and was a committee chairperson in the local handweavers' guild. During the research she had also attended an additional weekend-long weaving workshop. In the past she had been a co-chairperson of the regional state art educators' association and presently was active in a two-county-wide art educators' league. Beyond these group activities, Mrs. Bo wove and sold her work at local art shows. She wanted to start making one-of-a-kind, wearable weavings to sell through exclusive clothing stores. She claimed to be overwhelmed by extracurricular activities and planned to withdraw from one-half of these the next year. Her businew and profewional activities, students' and parents' apathetic attitudes toward education, students' 103 feelings of hopelewnew, the deprewing environment, a threatened teachers' strike, and teaching without a contract, all had drained Mrs. Bo, as she herself noted (CC 2). Jean told me about a handweavers' meeting she attended last night. She had made a presentation about the convention the handweavers will hold. She was in charge of the demonstration and exhibition there. She had presented an idea which she was concerned about. She had been worried that some of the "big- wigs" in the organization (those people who have very high standards) might not accept her ideas, but in fact they had accepted them. It had been a late night and she felt tired and rewarded (E 8). Jean spoke of establishing her own textile businew-first as an adjunct to teaching and later as an independent way of living. She perceived herself as not having . "high standards," like "the big-wigs" of the handweavers' guild, but was able to market her wares (both high and popular art) at local artists' fairs. Although Jean had prepared many details for art teachers' conferences in past years, she was not a perfectionist and had not completely prepared for the new school year. New art supplies stood outside of cupboards when school began. Jean seemed less enthusiastic about school work this year. As the piles of former students' work which remained in the classroom for the entire semester indicated. The students' Art Unification meetings and the proposed trip to New York or Chicago had failed to become realities, Jean said, because the faculty co- sponsor was ill. In addition, the teachers' threatened strike, the school board's lengthy refusal to submit to teachers' demands, and the lack of parental support had all fed the nine-year-veteran teacher's weakenned sense of commitment. These all appear to be evidence of the pervasive, nation- and state-wide academic recewion which also influenced Kettle Schools. 104 The Faculty and Administration Junior and senior high faculty shared teaching responsibilities at both levels. Several prized former colleagues' tenures had been terminated in preceding years. Shared auxiliary facilities like the gym, library, and cafeteria solved some economic problems. Nevertheless, separate administrative units governed each school. Teachers' Factions Teachers at Kettle Schools divided into two Wme "Academics," who lounged in the library work room, and the "Regulars," who met in the distant teachers' lounge located beyond the gym and behind locked doors. The Academics (only high school teachers) discuwed political, social, educational, and aesthetic issues. The Regulars (including junior high faculty) more frequently talked about other subjects: hunting, vacationning, and entertainment. Both factions discuwed their families and students. The Regulars gave prime attention to their daily card game. Each noon teachers hurried to the lounge to play "Oh, Hell" with fervor. The Academics (mostly women) spoke English well, and drewed like typical middle-claw profewionals. The Regulars (mostly men) drewed with lew refinement-the menn inn sporty polyester knits and slacks, no suits; and women in smocks, loose shirts, or blouses of sythetic fabrics over slacks. In contrast to a few Academics, the Regulars did not wear the season's fads—tall boots, extreme hems, skirts with slits, or outstanding collars. Mrs. Bo appeared in both worlds and drewed with comfortable fashion which sometimes followed fads. She bridged the faculty factions, but rarely lounged with the Academies. 105 The Academics' makeshift, library "lounge" was housed in the newest addition to the high school. This media-center workroom, strewn with piles of books and records, lined with file cabinets and cupboards, became a makeshift faculty retreat. The room was always totally filled. People gathered around the large wooden table, shoved enough reading materials aside to make room for a cup of coffee or a tray of cafeteria food, and sat on wooden library chairs. No windows permitted the light of day into this inner sanctum. Coffee was made at a counter on one wall which also housed a sink, a twenty-four cup coffee urn, and a forest of jars containing freeze-dried coffee, instant hot chocolate mix, powdered cream, and sugar. Most cups were carefully stored in the cupboard above the sink. Some days Jane shook her diet concoction in a glass quart jar. In the adjacent media center storage room a Mr. Coffee maker dripped. Cooperation of these middle-claw instructors was evident; whoever got to school first in the morning made coffee. This room and the action it housed fit the community of Academics. The Regulars' room beyond the gym was the official teachers' lounge. It was tucked away in the middle addition to the present junior and senior high building. Reaching the isolated sanctuary from classrooms demanded persistence. When going through the halls, up the stairs, through the gym, and then down a hallway, one inevitably encountered at least one locked door. The sign on the opaque, panelled door designated it as the official teachers' lounge. Architecturally the room appeared to be an appendage, a symbol of the fact that teachers were not of immediate importance-almost an afterthought. (The same kind of out-of-the-way teachers' lounge had been in the former junior high building.) The revamped double classroom lounge was plain and bare, by middle- claw standards. Uniformly tall, rectangular, undecorated windows contrasted with a mixture of unmatched easy chairs, school chairs, a motley collection of 106 tables, and a couch. A typewriter and scattered copies of Sports Illustrated and Good Housekeeping suggested a mixture of life out of school brought into it. In back and around a partial room divider stood a refrigerator, a microwave oven, and a sink surrounded by bare cupboards and an occasional thermos bottle. No pictures or plants or fabric hangings softened the atmosphere symbolic of low- taste culture (Colliers, 1976; Gans, 1974). No coffee perked here, but a microwave oven provided fast heat for homemade sandwiches or leftover portions of last night's dinner. Faculty Use of Art It was obvious from the lack of art on the school walls that most teachers had little regard for high art or even for the impact of a visual environment, though some popular art softened the atmosphere. Exceptions were reproductions of high art loaned from the Midtown Art Museum and hung in the superintendent's office (not in the high school building) and in a district elementary school. The home economics teacher had arranged several plants in her clawroom, and the librarian, along with having several books on art masterpieces, oversaw earlier described displays of seasonal or topical artifacts all falling into the popular art category. Some visual learning aids hung on other clawroom bulletin boards. Miss Jacometti, the junior high principal, described the junior high faculty's use of art-both high and ethnological art especially noting differences which she attributed to the moving together of the junior and senior high schools. "We in the junior high had a more artistic sense of beauty in the old building. We are an appendage here in the high school, a glossary. In the old building we even mounted things. I don't know if that's the elementary school influence coming out. People didn't feel part of this here last year, the first year after the move." "You celebrated things more before the move?" 107 "We did much more for each other when we had our own building," the junior high principal claimed. "What do you do to compensate in this building?" "We used to have breakfasts and luncheons and celebrated with Christmas foods for three days before vacation," she replied, without answering the question (KK 10). Miss Jacometti's awarenew of the role of the arts in society illustrates her sensitivity to the influence art has on people and its' response to life. This led her to analyze art as artifact. When she decried the lack of faculty unity, she blamed it in part on the shared facilities but also on a teachers' strike three years ago and another one currently threatened. She spoke of the lack of art in classrooms and the hallways with sadnew and concern. There are no plants in the rooms and no pictures correlating with subjects studied, she said. She mused that it was grim that people did not care more about students' learning to be human through visuals. Few of the teachers even have a plant in their clawroom. They don't have anything visual to stimulate. I don't know if it's because it's not macho or manly. It worries me that students aren't smelling the flowers, or rejoicing in the sunset (KK 8). She seemed to say that it was an age of doldrums without art or reflection on culture in the school. In a brief conversation the principal referred to her taste in art, the superintendent's interest in it, and the students' disregard for art displayed in the hallways. It's like what our superintendent . . . has in his office. I always admire him. He has these paintings . . . that he changes once a month . . . . One day he had this atrocious thing, a blob, a beige and brown-anyway I thought it was terrible. He gets them from the art gallery or something. The elementary school has it—over in the office of the northwest school. You can rent the pictures and the museum sends some terrific things . . . . I'm scared to get them over here in case someone would deface them. I'd have to be by my desk all the time. If I would get those and put them in the teachers' rooms they would like it and they might even trade off then but . . . they wouldnn't do this by themselves (KK 8). 108 Miw Jacometti would like to see culture taught through art masterpieces, but was afraid that art on the wall would invite destruction. As a result, bare walls have "nothing to lift you up," she said. She also decried the effect of teachers' strikes and unions on faculty teamwork. She clearly recognized the relationship between depressing visual symbols and negative feeling when she appropriately described the outlined block letters on buttons some teachers wore. The buttons read, "W.W.C." and stood for "Working Without Contract." "Teachers wear those homely 'WWC buttons.' They are as visually deprewing as everyone must feel" (KK 10). Teachers made no comments to me about the bland quality wash of visual symbolism. "It used to be different," Miw Jacometti said about artifacts formerly used to celebrate. "Three years ago we had the strike—now there is more division; there are fewer luncheons we prepare for each other" (KK 7). She referred to times when she or her aide brought flowers or a plant for everyone and made breakfast for all, and sighed that it did not happen now. "Junior and sennior high now have no art of the walls. We used to be more unified, we were community . . . working together," Miw Jacometti declared (KK 7). "People didn't feel part of the high school here last year [the first year junior high moved into senior high building). Now we're angry with each other because of working without contracts." Now, she says she is seen as the principal, the bow, not a comrade, and the use of art reflects hard times (KK 10). Drawn window shades became symbolic of deprewed times. In many rooms window shades were down during the entire school day. One sunny day Mrs. Bo suggested that the students sit by the windows and look outdoors to draw what they saw outdoors. Curiously, only two of the six shades were raised to accomplish the awignment (G 1). Faculty members who lived this way claimed they kept their clawroom shades down because it was easier. When teachers forgot to pull down their 109 shades during the late 1970's fuel shortage, the administration had sent notes to offenders reprimanding them for wasting heat. It became easier to leave the window shades down all day than to remember to lower them each evening. Since then, the habit had persisted among some. The teachers who followed this pattern evidently preferred ease to a view of nature-even the art teacher belonged to this group. _Fgculty and Administrations' Ideas about Art Two of the art sipporters were the librarian and an English teacher. Their working spaces reflected their interest in art. The number of art books on the library shelves was comparable to the number of art books in other schools of equal size. Books fit two categories-the practical and fine arts. The librarian ordered many volumes of art history or books on particular artists. The English teacher's use of art appreciation in her clawes suggested her interest in art (C 6). These snggest an educational philosophy which aims at transmitting a traditional high culture. To Miss Jacometti, plastic flowers were shameful substitutes. She referred to an expensive bouquet of plastic flowers planned as a gift for her, which she refused. This and Miss Jacometti's refusal to have plastic flowers in school suggests her understanding of the integrity of art media and the influence of visual aesthetics on spaces for living (KK 8). Her comment about dance discloses her understanding of art as functional. "Pep awemblies are exhibitions of pomp, girls, and cheerleaders; they're not much about the team. It's our modern form of ballet" she cleverly reported (KK 9). Mr. Rushson, the high school principal, said he "enjoys a broad range of things-a choir concert as much as sports." This, he felt, contrasted with some faculty who enjoy sports only. He said he could "take an art show or leave it." He 1 10 claimed not to understand art but said he was thrilled to see what it does for other people. This to him was the importance of art in education (K 11). Mr. Tillroy, a businew and mathematics teacher, was visibly uncomfortable about being interviewed; art did not appear to be his high priority. He said to Jean that he did not know why he was interviewed; he claimed to know nothing about art. She awured him that such knowledge was not expected, but that information was wanted instead about what others think of art (K 21). He defined art as that which is realistic. "To me art is woods, mountains, a stream or something like that. I know what I like and I know what I don't like. I don't like the Calder [the sculpture La Grande Vitewe], for example. That's not art to me. That's not my cup of tea." He talked about the "illogical aspects of television commercials which have the potential to control, like the image of a woman cleaning the kitchen floor while drewed like she is fit to kill—high heels and well-groomed." He believed that people get away with things ("perversity" he called it) because they say it is a form of art (KK 25). Mr. Tillroy implied that he saw labeling or not labeling something as art asirrelevant to Kettle students. He declared that neither he nor students see television as an art form, from his point of view. Tillroy: I watch MTV sometimes. All they have on it now is sex and drtgs. Researcher: Do you see it as art or not? Tillroy: To me it isn't art . . . . When kids watch this they're not looking at it as being art—consciously or unconsciously (KK 24). When Miw Jacometti was asked how the faculty members at Kettle perceive art and its importance, she responded, ". . . because of the job market, people are really out to save their own skins. Art [class] is nice, but cut it before we cut my discipline" (KK 6). She continued with her own views supporting the arts, "I believe that people have innate appreciation but they have to have it refined." l l l Kettle Schools offered particular subjects for other than academic reasons. The school had dropped music in junior and senior high, but kept the band. Some said band was necewary because it performed at ballgames. Drama was no longer taught as a subject at Kettle Schools, although the students were preparing to put on a play as an extracurricular activity. Who the art teacher was and the quality of her relationships with students became considerations which led to the retention of art and the exclusion of music, according to Mr. Tillroy and Mr. Rushson (KK 26). Following the study the number of art courses offered was cut back because students preferred to schedule their cooperative work program or skill center vocational clawes which preempted their opportunity to take advanced art clawes. Without sufficient enrollment for a single claw time, advanced art was dropped. The faculty and students seemed divided into Gans' lower-middle and the lower-claw taste publics. Both groups cooperated, yet each represented its own perspectives. Of importance was the threatened teachers' strike during this study. Administrators rarely set foot in teachers' lounges—this, some said, resulted from the teachers' unionization. Its effects, plus the economic and academic recewion of early 1980's, did little more than deplete teachers' ideals. Lack of parents' reinforcement in some situations left teachers feeling hopeless. Furthermore, the superintendent confirmed faculty members' suspicions that he was seeking employment elsewhere. This may have related to his lesser commitment to accepting a state grant for the art program and his receding support for the Bracers. According to Mrs. Bo he failed to complete tasks awigned to him for Bracers. It was little wonder that few visual signs of celebration or new life appeared. CHAPTER IV MAKING ART, THE PROCESS Art education at Kettle Schools was designed for low-taste-culture students and lower-middle-taste-culture students. Students' motivations and the forces behind their actions help to explain the meaning that art held for students participating in the Kettle Schools' art program. Interaction among students and between students and the teacher also affected the art produced and students' evaluation of it. Kettle faculty members represented both culture groups. Lortie notes that many teachers come from an agrarian or working claw. Those coming from the low-taste culture and working claw operated from a stimulation to develop beyond their use of culture (1975). Teachers also reflected and responded to the socioeconomic and taste levels of their students and their students' families. In several ways, the art teacher straddled both worlds. Her higher education and awociations with some of the mper-middle—taste culture made her want to teach art as exprewion, but being a product of the lower-middle-taste public helped her understand that her students, their parents, and the school's faculties would not respond to high art. As in many American schools, teachers' power was in jeopardy at Kettle Schools. Teachers in public schools were forced by law to deal with difficult students by law. Dismissing a student would create insurmountable obstacles for teachers and administrators. Cusick described attendance and order in high 112 l 13 schools as high priorities. The obligation of schools "to take, retain, and instruct" all powible adolescents inn the hope of teaching them how to participate in the life of our society on a relatively equal basis, led schools to seek high attendance and order as primary goals (Cusick, 1983). The issue is further complicated by the fact that many students do not appreciate being instructed in terms of positive abstract knowledge (Cusick, 1983, p. 109). The current of anti-intellectualism runs deep in our history and in our society. It comprises a resentment and suspicion both of the mind itself and of those who represent it. Intellect is regarded as a form of privilege and power. It is resented as a kind of excellence, a claim to distinction that challenges the egalitarianism of America. For the American belief in maw education does not stem from a dedication to the development of the mind, but rather from the perceived political and economic benefits of education (Bantam, 1983). One measure of a school's art program appears in the clawroom. Furthermore, "What happens in the classrooms is generally established by what is acceptable to the school's support community" (Peshkin, 1978, p. 100). In unveiling the mystery of how Kettle participants understood art, vignettes of the art curriculum, the teacher's and students' behavior are presented below. Transcriptions of taped conversations, observational notes, and photographs provide a useful picture of what went on at Kettle Junior and Senior High School's art room. The advanced art claw provided particular focus; the introductory art claw and two junior high clawes supplied supportive information, however. Their artworks revealed the students' notions of their rights and responsibilities. Students' views of their role and the teacher's role influenced the final art products. Only through examining the procew of creating art can the work of art be completely understood. 114 THE ART CURRICULUM Fine art study can be divided into two categories, studio work and examining another's art; production and appreciation. Broudy distinguishes between activities requiring skills of exprewion and skills of imprewion (1977). The Kettle Schools' art curriculum concentrated on the skills of exprewion; students came to art claw expecting to make things. Two projects completed during the research correlated with master artists' technique or style; these activities did not investigate the artists' purpose. It was not Mrs. Bo's objective to help students understand their art heritage or comtemplate universal life ssues. This influenced students to awume that art claw was a time for making things, preferably the concrete rather than the abstract. The high arts elude this public. Mrs. Bo had experienced high art in her education, yet felt she could only begin to expose her students to it. The curriculum from the semester during which research was conducted reflects faculty low morale in Kettle Schools' history because of financial cuts, unsettled teacher contracts, and the low of respected colleagues due to declining enrollment. One noticeable effect on the art curriculum revealed itself in the awignments. Some awignments from earlier and later semesters were more imaginative. The people in the advanced art claw during this semester were described by Jean Bo as being unusually low. This too affected the art curriculum. Studio art, the major area of curricular concentration, followed one of the four orientations of art: 1) art to imitate nature and narrate it, 2) art to communicate a message with maw appeal, 3) art to exprew a feeling or emotion, 4) art for the form itself-the design or technique. Awignments were preoccupied with form, but students were enthusiastic about mimetic or representational art. 115 Art Heritgge Studies in art heritage include knowledge about artists and the art created in the past. Very little activity in Kettle Schools instructed students in their art heritage or the functional art of the day. A junior high school art awignment asked students to employ the Imprewionists' pointilist technique. The advanced art claw attempted to create in Picawo's style. Posters and a newspaper article advertising local and distant art exhibitions remained on the bulletin board all semester. Some well-designed posters of past exhibits functioned as teaching aids. School library books, on longterm loan to the art room, contained reproductions of art masterpieces, but most books contained technical information. Books rarely became a student's source of information about art content; rather, they provided models for form or subject. The Unit on Picawo A filmstrip about Picawo introduced an advanced art claw unit which integrated a study of the master with studio work. The students responded to questions on a study sheet which gave an overview of Picawo's work. Mrs. Bo commented that some students did not like Picawo's work, but by learning about him they could gain appreciation. Students' attempts to answer questions during the filmstrip and audio-cawette tape presentation were thwarted by the fact that the audio-visual material moved too quickly. Several students failed to look at the filmstrip when they simultaneously tried to write answers to the quiz. Because of the precise answers required by the quiz, Mrs. Bo also provided students with a booklet that contained the verbal portion of the filmstrip (P). 1 16 The second awignment in the unit required students to look at pictures in one of three books on Picasso and list the titles of Picawo's works. Each student listed works on the left or right side of the book; then each wrote which one picture he or she liked and why. The third awignment of the unit asked students to do a piece of artwork in Picawo's style. Form, according to Mrs. Bo, was the major learning objective—a skill-oriented objective. Jean said, "You know why I have students do these awignments? To learn to recognize Picawo's work, not his styles" (P 4 - P 5). The project seemed not to emphasize m Picawo created as he did either as a person or as a member of society or to recognize what in society today might have motivated Picasso to paint social commentary comparable to GUERNICA. To educate in this way would have emphasized art content-its exprewion. As it was, the awignment aimed to teach recognition of Picawo's styles—its form. Several months after introducing the unit on Picawo Jean revealed her major objective for students for the unit. Christi was still excited about Picawo, said Jean. When asked if Christi understood Picawo's motives and purposes, Jean abruptly retorted "That is not the question. The innportant thing is that when Christi is forty years old and a mother, she will read an article in the newspaper about Picawo and call her children's attention to it" (00 1). This revealed Jean's awumption that she could do nothing to change Christi's attitude toward understanding high art and Picawo; she could merely stimulate Christi to know that Picasso was important so that in turn she could endow her children with the inspiration to investigate Picawo further. Pointilism One other awignment directly involved art history. It asked junior high students to make "dot pictures" (pointilism) of their favorite things—food, l 17 television programs, or a favorite color. The students enjoyed this awignment in which they could relate an artistic style to their personal lives. Optical color mixing, a scientific approach to mixing color by placement, occurred when students viewed their products from a distance. Little discuwion of the phenomenon, however, extended students' understanding of pointilism. Jean commented briefly that a reproduction of pointilism hung in an advertisement on the bulletin board. The reproduction was part of a poster advertising an art exhibition. No further discuwion ensued of the Imprewionists who explored the pointilist technique. Kettle students' exposure to art heritage differed from that in neighboring schools representing other socioeconomic clawes. Inn one high school art students were required to write two critiques on art they saw either at the Midtown Art Museum, local college art exhibitions, or one of their art teacher's shows at a local art gallery. Occasionally these students volunteered information about attending art openings. Upper-middle-claw Oakview High School students wrote research papers on the phenomena of color perception—some related them to art in history. Upper elementary and junior high school students in the private school in the Kettle community went on a school field trip to an art exhibit at the Midtown Public Museum and the same students also visited the school-wide exhibition of students' art in the private high school. It should be added that before the recewion and school fund cutbacks, Kettle High School students, too, had taken trips to the art museum. Studio Art Studio awignments composed all but two hours of the formal presentation of Picawo's art in the three clawes analyzed. Informally, the 118 awignment to draw a pointilistic picture and the awignment to "painnt like Picawo" provided opportunities for students to explore what had been done by famous artists, but no other presentation of art in history was made to the claw as a whole. Thus, skills of form and exprewion in making art became the main focus for this analysis. When making art, the creator also focuses on one of the four major orientations for art: I) mimetic, 2) pragmatic, 3) exprewive, or 4) formal. The largest proportion of awignments aimed to teach art as form in junior high and in the introductory art claw (see Table 2 and Figure 2). Although media and design are important to every artwork, these elements of form were not important objectives in the advanced art claw awignm ents. Many awignments could be clawified under more than one of the four major art orientations. Sometimes the main objective was unclear. In Figure 2 and Table 2 these awignments are divided and ascribed to two or more major divisions. Clawification of the teacher-devised curriculum with some student modification and insertions appear in Table 2 and Figure 2. Art in junior high school had the greatest balance. The junior high students in this survey course gained experience in mimetic, pragmatic, exprewive, and formal art with an emphasis on form-ten of eighteen weeks. 119 TABLE 2 ART ASSIGNMENTS BY CLASS AM) KINDS Junior High Art I Art In, Advanced Art Week Kind Description Kind chription Kind Description I E Deeds e chaocter M Sketdnbooks P Stationery F Nanee In pasctive M One-point respective M Sketchbooks 2 F New. In persective M t-Iollweys in perwectlve P Stetioncy Geometric enig- M Shetcttooks 3 F Geemaric ddgns F Geometric desig- P Critiwe Stetiennuy t F Geometric dodge F Geometric design P Stationary 5 F Geometric “we F Geometric designs P Stationery 6 F Geometric desi F Color wheel M Drawings tor F,EJ-l Fointilien llhnstrotions 7 F,E)'l Pointman F Color whed M lllustrctlm 8 F ,EJ-l Pointillun F Cola wheel M "mm 9 F.E.H Pointillsn F Color wheel M llkutrotias F,E Lockers 10 F ,E Lockers M Drawing sateen-r M llhnstretiem m M Sketcl'tooks l I F,E Locke: M Memory Drawing M iihnstrotiens F Galleon Tie static-try I2 F ,E Lockers M Drawing \ E Illustrotlons l3 F,E Lockets F Collogm E "lunatic. It F,E Lodsers F Colleg— E llhnstrctions IS M,P Grim m F Drew inoes F ilknstretiens l6 M,P Christan. mm M Art Gran F Illustrations F Ratings (7 F3 Lockers F Designs booed on F Illustrations drawings H Picasso filmstrip l8 P,F Visual Chaos. F Designs. Collag- H Picasso books F ,5 Finish the wove Finish the drove l9 Ewan, pcty Ewan Esau SOURCES:KIndsotIessonsw-'eeitherstotedbyJeanBoorobeerved instudmts‘ortworks. 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I J.H. I J.H. I J.H. I III J.H. I III 3.3-4. 2 Junior High: l 3 Art I; III 2 Art III Necks are calendar weeks and not aiways five schooI days. Figure 2 Aims of Assigmnts by Weeks 121 Significantly, the first high school art class, Art I, concentrated on art as form. The course considered form in art for approximately thirteen and one—half weeks out of eighteen weeks. Many of the assignments were similar to those assigned other years. In contrast, some Art III assignments varied each year. Division of Art III, the advanced art class, by art orientation was more difficult to chart because the illustration assignment was open for students' direction. The difficulty was compounded by the fact that some students' products did not clearly fit mimetic, expressive, or formal art. These products can best be described as fantasy. In some artworks it was obvious that drawing skills were sufficiently developed so that the fantasy could be seen as deliberately intended. In other art it was evident that the student wanted realism but used fantasy to cover deficient drawing skills. To make a comparison to other art classes a total of students spending class time on each of three kinds of art '3 translated into weeks. By finding the proportion of students workirg on a kind of art and dividing total time spent into the same proportiom, equivalent times related to time spent on specific kinds of art in other classes. Analysis then shows that advanced art students spent six and one-half weeks on art as mimetic, four weeks on art as pragmatic, three weeks on art as expression, two and one-half weeks on art as form, and one week on art heritage. The illustration assignment became student-directed, whereas the stationery and Picasso units were teacher-directed. The Picasso unit continued into the next semester. Mimetic To comply with students' desire to prove to themselves that they could draw, Jean assigned the first year high school students the mechanical exercise of drawing the school hallway in perspective. She recognized students' desire to 122 draw realistically. The project, she claimed, involved no creativity but followed a formula. The finished form presented convergent lines, drawn to a vanishing point, which presented the illusion of objects diminishing in size. The project gave students a sure way to draw "realistically" (KK 35). Concentration on f_ogm_ and the exclusion of expression was evident in part of Mrs. Bo's repetition of specific instruction on the second day of the assignment to draw the hallways, before students dispersed into them with their drawing boards. We all know what the vanishing point is and we all know how to get these doors. You know how to do that back wall. The biggest problem seems to be getting anything to go on the sides. Again, you put the vanishing point at the corner of your ruler, hold it up horizontally, close one eye and measure over to where you see it. If it's a doorway or a closet or whatever, you measure to where that first line goes; mark it; measure it where the second line goes; mark it; measure up to see how tall it is; mark it; go back to the vanishing point; and make the top of it. Any line, whether it's a brick line, a top of a door, a top of a showcase, a bulletin board, a closet-I don't care—any line that's going along the wall that looks like it would be horizontal, you go back to your vanishing point to get it (E 1). Students liked the formula-following properties of the lesson. Because the resulting image looked like the hallway, students enjoyed the assignment. Products of this annual assignment hung on walls in some Kettle homes for years (KK 35). The formula for drawing a successful product was clearly dictated, and students' intensity suggested that they seemed to enjoy it (D, 13). Drawing sensory perceptions, memory drawing, and still-life drawing typify asignments in many first-year high school art courses. These activities were designed to stimulate students' visual awareness. These projects led students to develop technical skill and to satisfy their desire to imitate nature. In both Art land Art 111 Jean assigned sketchbooks as homework. The objective was to encourage students to observe and imitate objects they selected. The weekly assignments had to be submitted every Friday. Jean graded and commented on sketchbooks only during the first weeks of school, and then both students and teacher seemed to forget about sketchbooks until the end of the 123 semester, when Jean briefly revived the assignments. Representation of realistic images was admired and recognized as hard to accomplish. The representational quality of objects Art III students drew in the illustration assignment began as an invigorated activity. Prior to the assignment, students had clamored to make their own decisions about what they would do. The extended duration of the assignment, ten weeks of the nineteen- week semester, resulted from the large size of the illustrations. Colored pencils filled the eighteen by twenty-four inch picture very slowly. Students' initial enthusiasm for freedom to draw what they preferred soon dwindled after they made a thumbnail sketch, transposed it onto larger paper, and then transferred it to illustration board through an off-set process similar to making a carbon copy. The spontaneity of the project was thus eliminated. Neverthelem, it can be concluded that the Opportunity to create mimetic and expressive art captured students' interest. Pragmatic Junior high students made eight-foot-high murals of stereotypic Christmas images for a local nursing home. The murals were pragmatic in that they were intended to communicate an easily understood message. This project, too, gave students the opportunity to select images and imitate nature. It took about two weeks to complete (see Table 2). The Art 111 stationery was the most obviously functional art created. When students designed stationery to sell and had it mechanically printed, Jean's desire was to create an image appropriately functional for stationery which pleased the buying public. Creating functional images comprised the second largest amount of the Art 111 students' assignments (see Figure 2 and Table 2). 124 Expressive The teacher assigned four expressive projects to junior high students (see Table 2). The first assignment, drawing a doodle and making it into a character, required imaginative thinking. Next, students were required to draw a story using lines expressively. Both the pointilism and locker assignments contained potential for individual personal expression. The pointilist assignment, as previously noted, sought images of students' favorite things—colors, food, television programs, and activities. The imaginative locker assignment asked students to create clay images of things which they would like to take with them in their lockers if they were to fly to another planet. Expression in the Pointilism assignment was superseded by the technical requirements, but expression remained an integral part of the locker assignment. No Art 1 lessons dealt with expression specifically. The Art in assignment to create an illustration provided room for expression, and three students created images which they referred to as expressive of feeling—though some mentioned this only after Mrs. Bo pointed to it in their art. The unit on Picasso had the potential of stimulating an emotional response, even though this was not the teacher's stated attempt. The major process of making this art, however, was outside of the duration of the research. Form Oriented The bulk of Mrs. Bo's assignments was concerned with form. Of these, most of the lessons were design-oriented rather than aimed at exploring and developing technical proficiency with an art medium. The junior high assignments ranged from asking students to design their names in one-point perspective to trying the pointilist technique. Included also 125 were a clay and papier mache locker, and painted geometric designs. Sometimes Jean said, "Just follow directions" (K 2). Because the materials were stipulated, the projects did not inspire learning about media. The pointilism project for example, aimed toward mixing colors and exploring a style. Geometric shape assignment. Art I students were instructed to develop form in non-objective, geometric designs, color-wheel projects, and texture rubbings. The geometric designs based on overlapping squares or octagom became routine after students selected a monochromatic, warm and cool, or complementary color scheme (PD 32). In these designs students seemed unaware of the importance of value in relationships. Many of the students' geometric design lacked value contrast. Only a few colors had normal light values—yellow, yellow-green, or yellow-orange. Many light values were neutral values, those made by the addition of white (T l). Filling shapes with paint took little advantage of the unique properties of paint. The assignment became a chore when acrylic paints were used thickly and shapes to be filled were tiny. Nevertheless, observation notes revealed the following: 8:11 Students seem mesmerized by the painting process. They are merely filling in outlined spaces. 8:15 All students are on task. They seem involved with the mechanics of filling spaces (H l). The tasks resembled assembly-line work. Kohn's research suggests that this type of activity fit the working-class characterization of parental values. Curiosity provides a particularly interesting example of how closely parents' values are related to their circumstances of life and expectations: the proportion of mothers who value curiosity rises very slowly from status level to status level until we reach the wives of professionals and the more highly educated businessmen; then it jumps suddenly. The value is given priority in precisely that portion of the middle class where it is most appropriate and where its importance for the child's future is most apparent (Kohn, 1959). 126 Anyon supports the notion that tasks in working-class schools do not usually require creativity. "Serious attention is rarely given in school to M the children develop or express their own feelings and ideas, either linguistically or in graphic form" (1982, p. 329). Of consequence is the fact that students were concentrating on the activity already at 8:11 a.m. Usually it took students at least ten minutes after the 8:00 a.m. bell to find their seats, gather for a presentation, or settle at work. On this day, however, students had quickly gathered materials and were soon absorbed in the project. Students were comfortable with the activity. They followed the directions and had to do little creative thinking. In this way the repetitious painting and staying in the boundaries was anesthesizing. The assignm ent appeared particularly appropriate at Kettle School, where it paralleled the factory work performed by many of their parents. 00% assimmen . In the collage assignment Mrs. Bo asked students to do the following: 1. Draw an object realistically thirty times. Put it on an 18" x 14" piece of newsprint which has been folded two times horizontally and two times vertically, thereby demarkating thirty-two rectangles using two sides of the paper. 2. Select save: of the designs which you like best. 3. Fold the same size paper one time in each direction; making four rectangles. Draw the object abstracted. One drawing must fit into part of three of the four rectangles. 4. Fill in shapes of #3, which have been transferred to poster board, with materials that have texture (V 12). These directions controlled the design by ensuring that something in each design was dominant and that repetition occurred because the same subject and materials were repeated. Some major design decisions were made for students but they did, however, have opportunity to use materials creatively. They bad choice of color, subject, texture and shape. The preliminary drawing exercises of the project stimulated students' visual perception. That part of the assignment asked students to look closely at 127 an object, to put the object out of sight, and to draw it from memory; to look at the object and draw it a second time; and then to draw it a third time from memory. Similar assignments required students to make visual images illustrating stimuli received through other senses—taste, sound, and touch. Contour drawing activities also required students' close observation. Apart from this cluster of assignments the project that asked students to copy a graph also called attention to close observation of form. Filling in the lines, often with solid, flat planes, characterized a significant number of assignments (see Figure 2). Art 1 students spent twelve weeks of nineteen dong th's. This type of activity required few choices after the lines were established. Students settled into working easily, and occasionally became bored. Their conversations drifted aimlessly. It is unclear how this type of project helped students understand art as form with meanitg. The Null Curriculum Art curricula as prescribed by leading art educators include three major concerns: 1) personal expression, 2) art in society, and 3) art heritage (Chapman, 1978; Feldman, 1970; McFee d: Degge, 1977). Art in society and art heritage were at Kettle Schools the "null curriculum," that curriculum intentionally not taught. Little consideration was given to the function of high art or popular forms in society, past or present. Little concern was given to the function of visual products in the environment. In fact, there was no examination of how cultural and social forces influence the creation of artifacts. Rarely Mrs. Bo consider how peoples' purchase of artifacts is influenced by cultural values. The ability to perceive and understand the art heritage in high art is cultivated by teaching students to search for expressive meaning in visual forms. 128 Basic information, regarding a creative and critical response to visual forms, could have introduced students to artistic heritage as a source for discovering meaning in art. THE ART TEACHER'S INFLUENCE Mrs. Bo's ambition was to keep her job as a successful teacher. She realized the insecurity of the teachixg profession and the importance of pleasing the public. Jean's perspectives on art in education and how she dealt with the dilemma of servirg several publics became obvious in her activities with students. Some students were willing to contemplate art as personal expression; others wanted to make realistic images; still others were apathetic about learning or unwilling to invest themselves in the educational program. Her Response to the Dilem mfia Jean faced the difficulty of balancing teaching that responded to the lower-taste public and lower-middle-taste public. During the research tenure her dilemma was, of course, complicated by the threatened teachers' strike and the. economic depression. The state government withdrew some funding from schools due to economic distress in the state. Not all parents supported the teachers. One parent, for example, told Jean not to bother him about hb son's behavior in school; he was busy trying to control his son outside of school. Other parents, however, attended parent-teacher conferences regularly and supported Jean. The Kettle School Board did not agree with the teachers' demands this year, and a teachers' strike ensued. As a result, the administration and teachers 129 found themselves on opposing sides, leaving teachers with no one but themselves .for support. Teachers legalistically followed contract provisions which sometimes detracted from students' education. A neighboring school principal complained that because of union regulations none of her teachers would answer a phone call ten minutes after school dismissed (KK 1-10, KK 21-27, KK 37). Jean had been teaching for nine years and was highly regarded by her colleagues. She said that she would be ready for a year's leave of absence in two years and would enjoy doing more of her own weaving. She seemed to be tired at this point of low morale among faculty members; yet she wanted to keep her teaching job. Although she had written a school approved curriculum, Jean did not visibly refer to it. Art teachers are often left with little support from their schools or nationally recognized curriculum writers to devise a course of study. Her Bagkgound Jean graduated from college with a degree in art education, which suggests that she had at least the minimum of art history courses. She rarely spoke of going to art museums or reading art history and art criticism. But she was enthusiastic about a book on Picasso she had been given for her birthday; it was a token of her knowledge of art history. Jean was a weaver, as stated previously. She visited craft shows in museums, attended workshops on weekends, and was active in a craft organization. At the time Jean attended college, art education tended to overlook aesthetic perception and criticism. Her own emergence from a lower-class-taste culture suggests that Jean likely had little exposure to high art. At this point she did little to advance her knowledge of art history and criticism. Art history and 130 criticism did not appeal to the Kettle students. Art interpretation, furthermore, is open for divergent opinions and lower-class-taste publics prefer clear dictates, black and white answers, which suggests the difficulty in engaging Kettle students in analysis and criticism of art (Gans, 1974). ' m Her Job and Doing Battle Jean pointedly revealed her desire to maintain a positive relationship between the school and the supporting community when she talked with Winnie about her stationery design. Winnie, an Art III student, desimed stationery by puttirg her lipstick-loaded lips on the paper. Around some of the lips she drew ink lines and made sensuous-looking lips. Jean was fearful that the words "So Sweet It Is" would upset the public. But Winnie wanted to add them to her design. Winnie, a low-class Westender, brought her chair up to Jean's desk and they "did battle," as Jean labeled similar confrontations with other Westenders CB 7, B 9, E 21, K 4, N 7, TP 4). Mrs. Bo: I'm really concerned about what you're going to do on your stationery. I think the lips are really good, but the words you use could be mistaken as being really sensuous. Winnie: No, it isn't. Mrs. Bo: I agree, it may not be so sensuous, but think about this as a selling aspect. Suppose we're goitg to sell this to Mr. Massey. Do you know what his response would be? I'd like to have you do the design and then I'll present it to the principal and the superintendent and see what they say. If they okay it, then I'll go for it. We've got to be . . . I mean, give me a break . I want to stay here working for awhile. Winnie: Well, I don't think they would fire you (E 23) . . . . Mrs. Bo: No, but it could raise a hassle. In public schools you have to be careful. Winnie: But you told me . . . . Mrs. Bo: [interrupts] I know, but I went home and I thought about it some more and thought about it and I'm just not comfortable. I love 131 the lips idea. . . . You've got to be concerned about the conservative people who live in this community. . . . If I don't have it okayed by the higher-ups then I'm out there alone. Do you see where I'm coming from? (E 24) Finally Mrs. Bo sent Winnie to the principal's office to seek his approval for the design. Winnie in a very straightforward way told the whole story. Mr. Rushson responded, as Winnie reported He goes, "I don't know if that'll get the point across. If Mrs. Bo okays it, well that's alright." He goes, "I'm not objecting to it. If Mrs. Bo doesn't okay it then, well, I don't know" (E 25). The principal was not willing to make a commitment; he did not want to make a decision which disturbed people. Keeping peace was his intent. Then another student came to Winnie's defense and picked up the argument with Mrs. Bo. It continued for more than twenty-five minutes with Mrs. Bo repeatedly stating her concern for how people would interpret the message. The heat of the argument infected the whole class. They mumbled about it. The arguments almost led to a shouting match. The noteworthy issue concernixg the effect of the visual, versus the effect of the verbal in confrontation, arose. Mrs. Bo: Winnie: Mrs. Bo: Winnie: Mrs. Bo: Great, they [the public] can by looking at it . . . . mean that somebody's got a big mouth. I don't want them [the lipd to mean that. When you write the words on, that's leading the viewer to interpret it. [This suggests that the visual and verbal together inhibit free interpretationJ [angrily threatens to withdraw her design] I ain't even doing it. How's that? The lips leave you to your imagination—to let them be what you want them to be (E 26). Heated discussion criss-crossed throughout the art room; one comment melted into another. Mrs. Bo finally called a halt: Mrs. 80: Give me a break! Winnie Can't I think about things and look at them realistically a little bit? 132 Winnie: No, but . . . . that's what I want to do [leave the words in the design] . Mrs. Bo: You can do it. I'm saying, just leave the wording off (E 26). This episode seemed symbolic of the strained situation in which state schools find themselves—tied to property taxes for income. Anything that might upset the taxpayers meant lew revenue and fewer jobs. Students vied for power with the teacher. And so Mrs. Bo, too, tried to maintain order in her art room. Jean faced a grim situation in attemptirg to raise students' understanding of art. She first had to help some students unlearn the idea that "good" art only mirrors nature. Her statement one morning expressed her frustration: Yesterday was so hectic. It was just awful. We had a union meeting after school and we have a negotiating thing ton t. If I don't end up in the local psychiatric hospital I don't know what (E 10 . The imagery of battle occurred frequently in Mrs. Bo's description of events. She referred to "skirmishes" and claimed she could "kill" a student after difficult confrontations (K 3, N 7, TI' 4). These expressions symbolized the power struggle in which she was engaged with the students. Her Influence as a Person The art teacher influenced students' understanding of art in several significant ways. The curriculum, particularly the assignments, affected students and their understandixg of art. The assignments also revealed Jean Bo's philosophy of art and philosophy of education. Significant also were Jean's personal relationships with students, as revealed by her body language or spontaneous conversations about art. Evaluations of students' art revealed Mrs. Bo's integrity and seriousness. 133 Mrs. Bo had earned'the respect of the junior and senior high school administrators and the faculty. A principal stated, "Jean has a following because of her dedication and extracurricular activities. She enters students' art in the Youth Talent Show at the Metropolitan Museum and the state art education association show; that's why parents appreciate her work" (KK 7 ). The year of the research coincided with her honor in receiving the Kettle Education Association's Sixth Annual Distinguished Service to Education Award (Appendix C). As noted, students recognized Mrs. Bo as a leader who was on their side. One student confessed to taking the course because Mrs. Bo was teaching it. Many students accepted her as a counselor. Mrs. Bo had a keen memory for details about her students. She knew and described several students' lives outside of class. For example, she knew who was the youngest child in a family, who had two sets of parents, what fathers' occupations were, who was on drugs, who was heavily into sex, and where in the community some of the students lived (C 7, C 8, CC 3, 0, TT). "She is a mixed-up girl," said Jean of one student, "who needs counsellrg" (CC 3). Of another she said, "Candy is not an artist and is dumb. She wants to get married this summer. Her older sister was pregnant three times and is not married. Candy's boyfriend is Baptist. She wants her own home and to stay married" (C 6). Jean moved quickly around the room, answering students' individual questions during the initial period of a long project. For example, one morning Jean answered Shelly's question at 9:24 and then by 9:25 she was back to answer Shelly's next question. Jean was sometimes imprecise. When students corrected her misspelling she asked, "Which one of you can spell?" (B 11). An example of Mrs. Bo's lack of concern for detail came when she explained how to create the illusion of space. She selected the example of a railroad track. "Liz, . . . everybody . . . watch! 134 Railroad tracks get smaller when they are farther away" (B 11). Actually, railroad tracks only appear to diminish as they recede from the viewer; lines which converge at a vanishing point merely create the illusion of deep space. In another instance, Jean referred to a rectangle as a square. In an attempt to clear the confusion, someone asked if she meant to say rectangle. Her response was, "That is a detail—you know what I meant." W Jean's teaching strategy included use of the environment—the decorations, visual aids and lack of them, arrangement of furniture, artworks on display or lack of them, use of tools and supplies, and placement of students' completed art. Rules Mrs. Bo stated that one of her major goals was to teach responsibility (GG 113). "All you have to do to succeed in this class is to try," Jean explained at the beginning of the semester (A 3). She vacillated between giving students strong directions and giving them complete autonomy. She enforced some rules consistently and seemed to feel comfortable overlooking others. Generally, though, Mrs. Bo was fair. Students knew it and abided by the rules. The opening day of class included a summary of art room rules, including the rule regarditg punctuality. "Rules of the class go like this," said Mrs. Bo. "Tardies bug me; Ken, for example, has his one warning now. If he would be late again he would either have to come in [into detention] tonight or tomorrow morning. It's important to me that you are on time" (A 2). This typified the fervor with which Jean enforced this attendance. If she did not take roll call, her 135 student assistant did. She did not always prepare immediately her report of tardy or absent students, but if someone was late she noticed it and enforced the punishment. When Laurie was late, Mrs. Bo said, "For being late you will either have to come in after school or show up at 7:40 a.m. tomorrow" [that was twenty minutes before school] . Laurie accepted the reprimand and punishment as fair (H 1). In contrast, Jean did not insist that her students adhere to deadlines for assignments. Students were supposed to have submitted collages before Christmas vacation, for example, but some students were still working on them at the end of January. Jean said that she did believe in enforcing deadlines for students to submit their art (TT 6, DD). Another rule not enforced was the one forbidding students to study other disciplines during art class. "Everybody thinks this class is a study hall on government test days" (A 7, D 6, H 4, V). Although Jean asked that this not be done, she did not absolutely prohibit it. Infractions of the rule forbidding chewing or eating in class rarely occurred. Why this discrepancy? When describing students' relationship to authority, Wilcox demonstrates that a teacher in a working-class school prepares students for jobs having external supervision through rules and controls; a teacher in an upper-middle-class school socializes students for jobs motivated by internalized norms and by attempting to foster the internalization of them (1982). Here punctuality reflected the working-class norm, but persistent working in class and submitting art regardless of quality, to meet a deadline, did not fit Jean's upper-middle-class taste definition of making art. Instead, she promoted internal rather than external motivation and claimed she was teaching students responsibility. She spoke to students about this only at the beginning of the year. 136 If a student did not submit work by the end of the semester he or she would fail the class. Sometimes Jean allowed students freedom, and sometimes her power prevailed. Usually it was up to the student to work; it was their responsibility to work if they wanted to pass, said Jean. Where students sat and what they chose to do was usually their decision. If a student misbehaved, Jean found another seat for that student. Mrs. Bo reprimanded individual students for misbehavior with equal power. One day Candy and Winnie had left the class early even after Jean had told them not to. The next day she gave them an ultimatum, "If you try that stunt again you will be dismissed without another warning" (J 1). Jean was concerned that Winnie might just "blow and leave which would be too bad, because she is just. now doing the best work she has ever done" (P 1). Jean could be heard saying, "That is your decision" in response to a student's question about art; at other times she would tell students to paint red lines and where. What made the difference? Quite simply, when assisting students with their art, Jean had different rules for different people. If students belonged to the group which Jean considered to be artists she often encouraged them to be expressive. If they were non-artists in her perception, she either gave solutions or said nothing (see section below entitled "Encouraged Expression"). Dictates in Assigments Room for divergent thinking was granted in some, but not all, assignments. The Art I assignment to look at the hallways and draw them required following a formula. After students tried unsuccessfully to complete the assignment, Mrs. Bo called the students to the chalkboard area and reviewed the formula. Mark still had problems, and Jean directed him firmly and forcefully. 137 Mark responded as he might to a sibling or adult family member who was forcing him to do something against his wishes. His willingness to complain suggests some of the freedom which some students considered to be their right. Jean motivated these students with external supervision. In spite of Mark's whining, Mrs. Bo spoke with authority, "You do it over" (D 2). That same type of control was evident when Jean reviewed difficulties other students had with the lesson. She insisted that students watch this demonstration. She inserted students' names within the explanation to asure their attention. She also paused to check for the students' response (K 2). During the assignment Mrs. Bo moved from hallway to hallway and from floor to floor checking the progress of several students. She assertively evaluated some work by sitting in the student's chair, picking up a pencil and redrawing the incorrectly drawn areas. She felt that this project was an exercise. Later she mentioned to a student that she did not always draw on students' papers, but when it was just an "exercise" she felt free to work on students' papers. In these instances, sometimes, but not often, she asked a student's permission (E 9). She also drew on students' preliminary sketches (C 2). She generally refrained from working directly on "artist's" work and all students' final projects. Jean was forthright and honest with students and told them where their work was incorrect. "Now once you get that straightened out you'll be okay." "Now this is wrong," she would say (E 9). At the end of one class, when students had been drawing in the hallways, Jean returned to the art room and in a firm tone of voice said, Kim, sit down; Reggie, sit down; Mark, sit down; students, be quiet. Okay listen, people. We're having a real problem in the hallway. One, people in the room were misbehaving; two, people don't dare to let me alone; three, I heard you laughing and talking from a great distance. 138 (Independence is a problem here. Students are unsettled by the noise of a professional rock group practicing for the assembly planned for next hour, yet they find Mrs. Bo's behavior boundaries reinforced.) A lot of you are going to start over tomorrow. I plan to change your seating. O O O I get static from you because you don't listen. This is an assignment to do like you would if you were in the classroom. lam not going to have you doing like you did today. Think about it tonight. You don't have to take this class. Do you really want to be here? I'm not going to let the rest suffer for a few. Maybe you can still drop it and not get an "B." After next week that's what you would get. Pretty soonyouwill flunk. To flunkartclass isnoteasy(D 5). Jean established students' responsibilities; taking the class was their decision. But she simultaneously perpetuated the notion that art was an easy course. Jean made some decisions about students' work forthem. She decided which stationery designs to print in gray and which in black. She also decided which would be pads (8 1/2 x 11 inches) forty sheets each and which would be stationery (8 1/2 x 4 inches) ('1‘ l). Encougged Eggression Along with the highly teacher-controlled, form-oriented assignments which Jean gave the Art I students, she also encouraged some students to be expressive in their art. The "artists" had to abide by the regular class rules, but they seemed to receive special treatment. Each of the students had the ability to draw representationally. Furthermore, these students tended to work more seriously than did the non-artists. What Bourdieu says about "cultural capital" I applied to the Kettle "artists." Karen and Susan, daughter of a Kettle teacher, and Darlene, daughter of the successful artist-businessman, fit the special group. These girls brought items of high art to class and talked about items appealing to an art teacher (1977). Mrs. Bo recognized their interest and ability in art and asked questions about the theme and message in their art. She relied on the 139 "artists," moreover, when disagreements occurred during critiques, and she respected their artistic judgment (BE). Among the students whom Jean did not encourage to be expressive were the "tough girls," the Westenders. Do students with alien and non-cultural capital affect the teacher in a negative way? It seemed to be the case. Sonja and Candy dressed in black leather jackets, and had nothing more to discuss than motorcycles, make—up, marriage, and babies. Jean spent a great deal of time helping Sonja find pictures of palms as references for her illustration, but said nothing about their expressive qmlities in Sonja's art. Jean's talk with Christi about seeing the difference between water and rock in her seascape assisted Christi to make identifiable objects but not to affect the mood of the seascape. Jean also talked with Candy about perspective in her illustration, but not about the homey quality of the log cabin in the woods. The "non-artists" in Art II! had freedom to select themes and media for their art in some assignments, but Jean's evaluation of their artwork was based on the resemblance of the image to nature without concern for how the theme related to the form or content. The "non-artists" Westenders were so asertive that they often received more of Mrs. Bo‘s attention than the more quiet, reserved Eastenders. The Westenders included more low-class students. As noted, some Eastenders occasionally complained to the researcher about how often Mrs. Bo was on the westend (see Appendix B). In contrast Mrs. Bo spoke with Gene about meaning in art. Is art more than wall decoration? Gene, the student who called Mrs. Bo "Hey, Boss" and who was one of the artists, was an Art III student for whom Jean had high expectations. While he was developing his colored pencil illustration Jean confronted him with a question about what he was trying to express. "What is 140 your message? You have to have reason for doing art," she said (M 5). Art to Gene was merely something to "hang on the wall." The wooden figure of a man in a boat connected by a fishline to a separate wooden fish was the art which Gene had created at home. He saw art as representational of physical reality. When Mrs. Bo said, "There has to be spirit [feeling] in your art," Gene looked down in his retiring manner, appearing not to have heard her and spoke the quote opening this report. "You have done these pictures several times now. The hatchets look like they are floating. Gene, listen to what I'm saying." "Ya," says Gene pasively. "It's starting around here [pointing to the outside edge of flamed but it's go_t_ maki an kind of statement. . . . It's hard to know what your picture is about (M 2, PD 7‘, see Figure 5). Gene muttered something under his breath as Mrs. Bo walked away. Nora overheard this conversation and she prodded Gene to verbalize his feeling about the unimportance of making statements in art. Nora: WelLI like it [even if Mrs. Bo does nod. But does it always have to have something done with your axes? [Nora sounds like a mother scolding her child (M 8). Gene: Oh, get off my back. Nora: I know what it's telling me. I would look at it and say . . . . Gene: [interrupts her] It ain't sayin' nothin' . . . . [defensively] I'd say, neat; look at that; and put it on the wall. [He holds up h's picture as if to say here is and (M 2). Even though his art was expressive, to Gene, art was for the wall; art should speak for itself and require no interpretation, just as most Kettle students who preferred representational art whether or not it had expression. 141 Figure 3 Gene's Illustration Gene did recognize that originality is a quality to be sought in his expressive art. For example, he resisted Jean's attempt to encourage hinn to integrate other images from his sketchbook. Mrs. Bo: There's an obligation in what . . . you've started out with; that you have to keep it . . . . You have some ideas that you did in your sketch book that fit the kind of idea you have around the outside of this picture. Maybe if you combine the idea . . . you will have grown. . . . Gene: Oh, no. Mrs. Bo: Why not? We grow. Gene: It's not original. [Gene, has used the image previously and thinks he can not do it again and still be originalJ Nancy: That's okay. Researcher: Rembrandt drew the same images over and over and over again. Mrs. Bo: Gene: 142 My God, do you think Michelangelo just whipped the Sistine Chapel up? I'm not Rembrandt or Michelangelo. Jean continued to spar with Gene. She referred to herself as an artist in order to make a point. She revealed her personal art experience. Mrs. Bo: —you've got to grow. What if we all sat there and kept the same level and said, "Okay, I did something great in 1952, so I don't have to do anything great today?" Then I should take my whole experience from 1952 and throw it away and say, "Okay, I've experienced it and I'm not going to use it again." In my weavings alone—as an artist-I have a theme that I've been carrying out for the last six years. And boy, I look at the first art I did and I look at what I'm doing now and I think, God, I did that? I don't like to let people see what I did six years ago (M 4). In frustration from having Mrs. Bo challenge him with the idea that art is expression, Gene resorted to art as therapy—a revelation, a "symptom," rather than expression, a "symbol." As Langer describes it, this is the difference between self-expression—a reaction—and expression—the response (1957b). Gene drew a primitive sketch of children playing on a playground. These were Gene's reactions, symptoms of his frustration. Nora provided a running description of the identifiable objects that Gene drew. Gene: Nora: Gene: Nora: Gene: Nora: Gene: Nora: Gene: Do a playground [meaning he was drawing a playground] . What's this? A swing set? Ummmmm Oh, that's gag [meaning good] . . . that's a slide. Yep. That's a flying saucer. Ha. [Gene is pleased and stimulated to go on. He is successfully using art to communicate the subject he intended] Looks like a top; oh, neat. It's a playground [pauses while Gene draws more]. Ha—Ideal Park trees! [the name of an area park] (M 9) [secretly enjoying this] He's got to have the drinking fountain. 143 Nora: And he's got to have the club house with all the windows knocked out. Ha—Oh, you've got [inaudible] . . . . and a little boy behind a tree—Oh, there he is, he's got to go potty. [Gene continues to draw.] And then when you see the next picture he's on the other side. And this is the drinking fountain. Gene: That's a hose. Nora: He's supposed to be a little boy behind a tree going potty, but he's not home. Naughty, naughty. [Nora laughs.) Gene: See my different kind of art? [teasingly] Nora: [Laughs] Gene: It's pretty easy giving people a hard time (M 11). Gene's reactive drawing provided comic relief from the tension he had been under when confronted with a new idea. The playground scene was also a diversion from the heavy thought behind Gene's illustration of weapons, a skull, and globe; it was a symptom of Gene's anxiety, as Wolterstorff defines art (1980). Later Gene spoke of reading Animal Farm, in which, he said, people are compared to sheep and goats under one leader and government. "People start asking for too much now and will get even less," he said (M 11). Gene worried about greed leading to the collapse of the government. Gene, a student coming from a low-taste culture, contemplated serious thoughts—even painful thoughts. His mode of expression often assumed forms similar to those found in science fiction illustrations. Following this encounter he seemed to accept the idea of art as expression and completed his illustration to tell a story with feeling. He sought and received Jean's approval after this episode. Ann, like Gene, was a reserved person. Often she hesitated to ask questions during class. One day she waited until class was over to ask what she could do to make her picture more eerie. Mrs. Bo responded with questions. Mrs. Bo: Why are you doing what you are doing? What is the message you are trying to get across? Should the horse be bigger? Are the 144 trees or the forest supposed to be more important than the horse? Why are you doing this? That all is very important . . . N 4 . Ann: [softly, apologetically] I have no idea, I think I was sort of not thinking . . . about anything. Mrs. Bo: Okay, I guess you're not. And see you said, "How can I make it more eerie?" Right now it isn't [eerie. Jean's volume is softer than usual with timid AnnJ Ann: [interrupts with more confidence] That's what I want to do—make it more eerie (N 5). . Ann seemed to have a mood in mind; she had not at first recognized it as a theme or expression. Jean asked Ann to verbalize her message, hoping Ann would clarify it for herself. Jean rarely discussed expresiveness with the whole class. Some assignments limited free expression. When assignments permitted, however, Jean did confront selected students, "the artists," with questions about their intent or the character in their art. Individualized Assiggments Jean referred to a previous semester when she described an individualized assignment. This revealed Mrs. Bo's understanding of students' interests and personalities. She wrote each of her students in an advanced class a personal letter with an assignment tailored to fit that person. The girl who liked horses, and drew them often, had "to go home and sit for one hour to think about what it would be like to be a horse" (0 3). This kind of activity motivated expression. Winnie, who was known for her whining, had an open assignment to do whatever she wanted. This semester Jean had five advanced students (whose schedule prevented them from enrolling in the advanced art time slot. As has become typical of art teachers during this period of educational recession, Jean invited these five 145 students to enroll in the Art III classes on an independent basis. The students followed the usual Art 111 assignments, but attended class during other class periods. Several students even worked in the art room when Jean was supposed to have a "prep" hour and time away from class. Often she worked with these students, but occasionally she left the students alone to work in the art room. Craig, one of the "independent" students, found it difficult to follow the usual assignments because of his preoccupation with space-fantasy. Mrs. Bo asked Craig to design stationery, the regular Art Ill clas assignment, and then permitted him to do as he wished. She believed that Craig resisted coercion and that he might better learn what he could by following his own dictates. Craig then created _C_o_n_n_a_g, a comic magazine series. He and a friend sold copies of it to the student body. Inspirational Methods and Material Mrs. Bo initiated each class on the first day of school with a discussion of three rules for artwork—no plagiarism, nothing trite, and don't assume. In large letters she wrote these on the chalkboard, where "No Plagiarism" remained from August 30 until January 11 when a student erased the board. She explained the rules this way, I have three words on the board. One, "assume." Don't assume things to be true. Two, "trite." Don't be trite. Do you know what that means? I hate smilie faces and Garfield. Three, "Plagiarism." Don't copy. ldon't want to see Snoopies. We aren't going to make mothers' and fathers' day gifts (A 2, B 9 . Each of the terms used in Mrs. Bo's rules is relative. Learning occurs initially through imitation of the world around us. When is an image used too much and when is the same image original and fresh to an individual? This was not clear. But from Mrs. Bo's definition of these terms it can be assumed that she meant that students should not copy images from popular culture. 146 She expressed her high expectations for "artist" students' performance. Her revealed expectations though, never reached much beyond the students' socioeconomic levels. In class she never seriously suggested that students visit an art gallery or museum or look at the world in special ways to enhance their "sensory base" (Eisner, 1976). Jean showed Craig's proposal for stationery as inspiration to other students. She liked his picture of cars parked at a movie theater. Three cars were at the bottom of the stationery proposal, pointed toward the screen. The movie screen became the area in which a person would write a message (G 1). In spite of all this, popular culture invaded students' art. Althongh done in a slightly unusual way, Toni's stereotypic cartoon for stationery had its origins in comics. To discuss these concepts in depth, to decide when something is so much like another that it lacks integrity, could have been an appropriate subject for an advanced art class. However, Jean did not step beyond that which a lower- middle and lower-taste culture would expect. A marked lack of visual motivation in the art room matched the void in the whole school. At the beginning of the semester two posters made by former students and a commercial poster hung on the bulletin board. A few dozen library books were on the shelf (PA 11, PA 31). They all remained on the shelf throughout the duration of this research. Former students had painted designs on ceiling tiles and stools. These, too, remained throughout the investigation. Mrs. Bo encouraged students to seek information in books. Rarely did this include art masterpieces. Books in the art room on long-term loan from the school library included several books on craft techniques and some on drawing; few dealt with art history or appreciation (PA 16). Twice during the semester Mrs. Bo got a book and showed an example of a technique she was discussing. Once Jean came into the classroom saying, "Hey! I brought books. If you need 147 ideas, go to the books . . . . I don't care if it is a sculpture book." She was talking about books which inspire ideas of what objects look like (C 1). But rarely were books used by students independently. Twice Jean referred to a poster on the bulletin board in a similar context. Mrs. Bo rarely used visuals to inspire in spite of her claim that she learned visually. She often used words to stimulate students' ideas for art they could create, as indicated by her conversation with Kathy. Mrs. Bo: Kathy, what about horses? [as a subject for stationery] Junior high girls would love it (c 2). Occasionally Jean used functional forms to motivate, like the time when she said to Toni, "You know, your shirt would be good inspiration . . . . so would Halloween (C 2). Throughout the project to design salable items, students and Mrs. Bo casually mentioned, but never formally explored, the effect that visuals have on sales or how visual messages are conveyed in contemporary society. When looking for a lost item Jean came upon visual aids she had forgotten to display. She put them on a table and apologized for not having exposed the laminated calendar pictures earlier. Several pictures inqzired parts of students' illustrations or led to new ideas incorporated into their art. The selection of pictures fit the lower- and lower-middle taste culture. The collection included Sierra Club calendar photographs of nature, reproductions of some Norman Rockwell paintings (sentimental art needing no interpretation or extensive looking) pictures of barns, and reproductions of M.C. Escher's prints which play with visual illusions (M 1). 148 Impositions Students were unhappy when they felt Mrs. Bo imposed her ideas on them and their art. A junior high student complained because Jean told her what color to paint her geometric design. Sandra: I finished my painting. I don't like it. Mrs. Bo made me paint red lines. Want to see it? Researcher: Yes. Don't you like it because of the red? What part of it don't you like? [The lines were a givenJ Sandra: I don't like any of it. Sometimes students say they are not satisfied with their work when they are really looking for attention. That seemed not to be Sandra's intent. It seemed the student felt the teacher's dissatisfaction concerning her as strongly as the teacher's imposing a color into her plans. Some student dissatisfaction with Mrs. Bo's leadership was obviously not related directly to their complaints. Lorraine felt Mrs. Bo imposed weaving on students when she said, "If you are not into weaving, you're not doing her kind of art" (KK 36). Only one student did weaving, however, and it was the independent project Ella chose to do. The problem seemed to be the girls' or related to their feelings apart from the object of their criticism. Occasionally, Jean manipulated the situation by having students critique each other's art. When this did not accomplish the point she was attempting to make, she added her opinions, as in the case of Jeff's stationery design. Jeff, a transient student because of emotional impairments, was not comfortable with his art unless he had solicited several opinions about it; however, he rejected other's opinions—a behavior typical of some insecure students. Sonja squealed when she saw Jeff's pig-she was so entertained by it. She enthusiastically said it was superior; she would not change it if it belonged to her (H 3). The female pig lying 149 on a beach towel was flanked with a castle and flag flying behind her. The pointilistic black and white design had to be improved by increasing the value contrast by darkening to the black areas, said Jean. The Westenders would not agree with her that the drawing needed more work. Mrs. Be: The body is light. Karen: I think it's good. [Several students agree] But the picture could have a little more shadow. Mrs. Bo: The rear of the pig is lost into the background. Maybe a beach ball behind her would help. Candy: I wouldn't do a thing more to the picture! [emphatically] I think it's fine. [Others agree stronglyJ Nevertheless, Jean continued to maintain that Jeff's drawing needed value contrast in the background. Later Jean reported that Jeff did draw a beach ball behind the pig's tail, and she found the drawing greatly improved. When Jeff showed the Westend girls the repaired work they too, thought it was improved. Jean overheard this and reminded the girls of their earlier judgment. Later she overheard the girls say that Mrs. Bo was right again (H 3). In a similarly decisive manner, Jean made decisions about entries to the state students' art competition. Although she first announced that students' votes would determine the entries, in fact Jean made the selections herself. Jean was sometimes directive, and sometimes she got other students to mouth what she might have said. It was usually with the "artists" that Jean "did battle" regarding their art. These students were willing to be influenced by her, and often ended up agreeing with her point of view. Time Out Sometimes Mrs. Bo took "time out" in class work and gave in to students' wishes to do things other than school work. She sat down for about five minutes 150 with the group just to talk about various topics. Then she nudged, "Well now, back to business" (C 2). Susan was a promising student, a middle-class girl with "cultural capital" (Bourdieu, 1977). She was from the right family (her father taught at the school). Jean offered her a choice in activities, a rare occurrence in junior high. Students usually had to perform with the total group in Mrs. Bo's classes. Students were working on their lockers made of shoe boxes covered with papier mache and plaster-impregnated—gauze strips for strergth. Susan finished her locker, which needed no plaster strengthening. She painted the surface white and waited for the next part of the assignment. Mrs. Bo: Susan-dear, sweet Susan, we [as a group] are not ready to go on to the next part of the project. You will have to wait until tomorrow [for that]. You have two choices—one, to help other students; two, to help me. Susan chose to help another student (U8 4). Her Art In School Jean brought some of her artwork to school for personal reasons on several occasions. She had her felts in school before for delivery to an invitational exhibition of felting. Students saw her creations; however, she rarely discussed or imposed her work on students. Furthermore, she did not mention the exhibition to students as a class. Had she been interested in encouraging students to exhibit their art, she might have instructed them in this way as did the teacher at Covenant Chrsitian High School, the middle-class, private school referred to earlier (Bonzelaar, 1982). On two other occasions Jean had some of her work in school. She worked on her woven jacket during a teachers' work day and at another time before her art sale. "This is my work day," explained Mrs. Bo as the advanced art students 151 were settling into their seats (Y 5). She was making wool-top angel Christmas ornaments to sell for $2.50 at a local YMCA sale. The stereotypic angels fit the current popular-culture taste. Jean made them of unspun wool like traditional, trite yarn pom-pans. Bound bunches of wool, the faceless angels had arms tied to hold straw-star flowers. In contrast, Jean's felt wall hangings and functional weavings were original. She designed wall hangings of feltings or weavings by rearranging them as assemblages and stitching them as fabric. The process developed as Jean's expression emerged. Often she was commissioned to create works. These were usually functional forms—table scarves, placemats, and stoles. She exhibited and sold her wall bargings and wearables. How can the trite, yarn angels which followed someone else's pattern be explained as art when Jean's rule in class was not to be trite or to plagiarize? Her response to the question was that these were her "bread-and-butter," her means of making money. It seemed that Jean's definition of art was broad enough to say this is "time out" from real art, time for art to please the popular taste. This also explains why Jean assigned follow-the-pattern Christmas ornaments to the junior high class. It was time out from the real thing for a little unoriginal activity for pleasure. Neither of these kinds of activities appeared at Covenant High School (Bonzelaar, 1982). STUDENTS' RESPONSES TO THE DILEMMA Students exerted their power to accept or reject the challenge of creating art when the teacher's power was in jeopardy. Cusick says it is just because . . . public schools are obligated to attract, retain, imtruct, and "serve the educational needs" of everyone, regardless of inclinations, predilections, or abilities, that there emerged a structure which ultimately left 152 each teacher alone to work out his or her own version of curriculum and each student alone to work out his or her own education (1983, p. 105). The diversity among students made it difficult to keep the order in the classroom. Students' responses to art class were conditioned by Mrs. Bo's attempts to keep order, and by their dislike for what Cusick cells "being instructed in terms of positive abstract knowledge" (1983, p. 109). Compulsory school attendance meant that students could exert independence only by truancy, skipping tests, refusing to work, and complaining. Kettle School students followed these patterns. Work The amount of attention students paid to art in class was one of the most outstanding differences between students at Kettle Schools and those in the aforementioned private, middle-class high school. Although Mrs. Bo insisted on students' getting to class punctually, they were often able to decide to work or not to work. Frequently students spent entire class periods talking; some students even avoided getting out their assignment. Refusing to do work was one way students exerted power. They did this without malice. During the study some students were simply not interested in the work; some became bored with a long asignment; and some felt they could not perform the task satisfactorily (G 2, H 2, O 2, V 18, Y 5). Items about students not working in class appear regularly in the researcher's observational notes until attentive behaviors had become an established pattern. Observational notes and photographs include items like, "Ann and Sue did other homework in class," and "Donna studies for another class" (C 5, D 6, H 4, PC 12). Occasionally students set work out but then very obviously failed to work on it. Toni once said that she was tired of working on her drawing and so did not; 153 several students supported her by also not working. Observational notes include items like the following: Students at the west table—Winnie, Sonja, Toni, and Candy-painted their fingernails and talked about things other than art the whole period (V 15, V 16). Candy and Toni sat at the table and talked the whole hour without getting their art materials. [Another day the same thing began to happen] Mrs. Bo asked the students to stop painting their nails (U 5). No one at the west table works and girls talk about eye colors and contact lenses (C 2). Two girls did no art today. Sonja read a book. Candy said that she got mad and "ripped" up her picture even though she really had not (BB 1). Attending Behaviors Analyzed Analysis of students' attending behaviors during one day illustrate that even on a comparatively work-oriented day when students concentrated on their art, less than half of their total time was spent on art (see Figure 4). On-task activity included preparation for work, involvement makitg an artwork, and clean up. Off-task activities consisted of chatting, physical involvement with another student or object, or other activities like reading, scrubbing tables. Some students were not obviously attending to art but may have been thinking about it, talking about it, or preparing to work in a way not vivibly or audibly observable. The pattern of attending behaviors in Figure 4 shows students' activities from the middle of a class period until fourteen minutes before the class ended. This time, when most students had gathered their art supplies and projects, represents the major work time when students would likely be working and not establishing social relations for the day. The time represented a good day for working, in contrast with a day when students were bored with their projects. Students had critiqued each others' stationery designs five days earlier and knew what direction to take with their work. we Toni Winnie Christi Kern Nero Sonic Candy M Tim Gene East Table Lorne Dorm Am Vere Tootsie Lorraine Jeff Note; ON:Ontasiq?:NotobviousiyonorofftosquFF:Offtosk. 154 l0:3$ 0N?OFF ON?OFF 0N?OFF X X iflx> x I w x n F:— .“ i 763 Cmdy arrived one-half hour after close began. Fiwreé Students' Attending Behaviors ?OFF ON?OF'F 155 The analysis of Figure 4 shows that at 10:25 seven students were working, four students were not working, and four students had their art out but were engaged in activity not obviously art-directed. At 10:30 the number of students working reached a peak, but from that point-the midpoint in the class- fewer students continued working. By 10:35 more students were obviously not on task (nine) than were on task (seven). At 10:45, nineteen minutes before the end of the class, nearly two-thirds of the class were obviously not on task. Typically, Gene and Tim remained at work during the entire documented period, and Lorna failed to work observably on art the entire period. Of the sixteen students, an average of 7.17 students were on task during the observation period; 3.93 students were not obviously on task; and 4.67 students were off task. Topics of students' conversations recorded just before and during the time analyzed included Ann's sketchbook, Mr. Handel's (the substitute teacher) watercolor painting, movies, pop tunes, glasses people wear to see a movie in three-dimensions, marriage, college, careers, and how to achieve the layered look in a haircut. I Clean-up time on the day described followed the usual format. The Westenders were ready to leave the art room nine minutes before the class terminated and the Eastenders began to prepare to leave class six minutes before the bell rang (G 3, o 4). 156 TABLE 3 A PHOTO RECORD OF THE LAST NINE MINUTES IN CLASS PB 20 PB 21 PB 22 PB 23 PB 24 PB 25 PB 26 PB 27 PB 28 PB 29 PB 30 PB 31 PB 32 PB 33 PB 34 PB 35 PB 36 10:55 10:55 10:56 10:56 10:56 10:57 10:58 10:56 10:58 10:59 10:59 11:00 11:01 11:01 11:02 11:02 11:04 E. work W. ready to leave; Mr. Handel chats with students E. work W. Handel left and girls sit and talk E. still at work E. still at work W. waiting E. Jeff is packed to leave; girls are packing belongings W. waiting B. Tim prepares to leave W. Four minutes until bell and only Candy is left at work at the west end, other students left early but wait near hallway. W. Christi goes out of the room, eager to leave W. goofing off in the hallway B. waiting E. ready for the bell Handel shows students at east table his work. They are interested. Handel and Gene talk about shadows in Gene's work (GB 4) Note: E = Eastenders W = Westenders 157 Consecutive photographs taken as frequently as twice every minute, beginning nine minutes before the end of the hour, show some students anxious to leave the room (see Table 3). The class ended at 11:04. Photographs point to a contrast between students sitting at the east end of the classroom and those students at the west end who put away their supplies, gathered their possessions, and put on their coats by the time of the first photograph, PB 20, taken nine minutes before the class period terminated. At the same time, students at tables on the east end of the room were on task until 10:58, six minutes before the class was set to officially and (PB 27 ). These students returned to their tables and talked among themselves until the bell rang (PB 34). The students at the west end were quite different in that they sat on tables, stood together in a group, then moved to the doorway, and violated school rules when they went into the hallways to their lockers, where they allowed themselves to be photographed (PB 28, PB 30, PB 31, PB 32). Students at one east table spent the last few minutes of the class talking with Mr. Handel about the watercolor paintings in his portfolio. Gene remained in class until the class hour ended; other students left class early. Mrs. Bo's Response When asked how she felt about students avoidance of working in class and their early preparation for leaving, Jean said the students were not working anyway; "why push the matter?" seemed to be her attitude. Periods before and after lunch just £9. this way, she believed (C 4). She seemed to permit students power to reign here-it was another "time out" from teaching. She innplied that there was little anyone could do to counter students at this time. She continued My first year I worried about that [students not working] . What would people think when they walked into the room and saw students not working? I've changed since then. It's up to the students to be responsible about work. If they are not responsible, their grades reflect it (CC 1). 158 Jean merely gave in to student power; rarely did she attempt to detain students or thwart their plans to pack their belongings early. She did not, however, allow students to break the all-school rule forcing them to remain in their claesroom during class hours. That rule extended beyond Jean's immediate domain. Jean revealed her attitudes in private conversation. Researcher: Do you flunk students? Mrs. Bo: Yes. Nora, for example, knows that if she doesn't work, she won't even get the one-half credit she needs to graduate. Nora quit going to classes at the end of last year and dropped out. When I started teaching, there were some kids I couldn't get along with. One [veteran] teacher whom I respect was out with us at a bar one night. He complained that one of my problem kids didn't show up in his class either. That made me feel better. . . . I had to build up my reputation among the kids first (C 8). Later the discussion about students' use of time resumed. Researcher: Why do you say you are not so uptight about non-working students in your classes as you used to be? Mrs. Bo: One, I no longer have the threat of being a new teacher [Jean is now tenured]. I now don't blame myself as I did when I was inexperienced. I don't take it personally. Two, we can't change an apathetic person anyway. Three, I grew up in the 19608 when kids didn't talk back to teachers and students assumed responsibility. [Times are different, Jean impliedJ (KK 28) Students could, in other words, violate implicit school policy that required work until the end of class. They could not as inconspicuously defy the all-school rule requiring students to remain in classrooms during class hours. Moreover, Kettle students' use of space resembled those in a study by Wilson where she says the art room to students became a "sanctuary," "sacred space." Wilson quoted students describing their art room, "You come in, you walk in the door and you say 'All right! Now I breathe! ' and 'Did you ever feel, as you step outside the door of this room into the halls, that you want to run back inside?” (M. Wilson, 1977, p. 91) She reflected that the "students in the art room do, in fact, view themselves as standing outside of the social structure of the school and 159 its conflicts" (M. Wilson, 1977, p. 80). Often within the art room "anti-structural behavior elicited in response to the same stimuli or tensions (of the whole school setting) assumes a more positive aspect and falls within the realm of the constructive, the innovative or creative" (M. Wilson, 1977, p. 79). The amount of time that students spent working seemed relatively unimportant to Mrs. Bo. Even though she verbally encouraged students to be on task, there were times when she revealed that it was not something on which she insisted. Students could sit for whole claw hours studying other subjects or not working without Jean mentioning her dissatisfaction (G 2, H 2, V 18, Y 5, V 15). There were times in claw when nothing was scheduled for a student. After seeing the first portion of a filmstrip about Picawo, for example, the whole class spent the last twenty-five minutes of the period talking with each other informally (P 5). Mrs. Bo saw this time as too short for working on the current studio project. As noted, deadlines for awignments did not mean much to many students, and Mrs. Bo predicted thh one day when she showed me only some of the series of five drawings students were supposed to submit at that time ( D 7). Still Kettle students were not always seemingly so uninterested in their art. Em my, an independent-study student, worked so diligently on her weaving that she barely noticed that she was being photographed. John, in Art I class, noted that students were so involved in an assignment that they were not aware of the time. He called the group to reality: "Hey, it's three minutes to the end of the hour" (V 13). The assignments required creative thinking both this time and the time when Art III students worked until the end of a claw hour (M 12). Mrs. Bo reported that a student who would start to work before the students entered claw was an unusual phenomenon (M 12). It happened once when Winnie felt succewful in her colored pencil drawing. 160 Mrs. Bo tried using subtle means to influence students. For example, she went along with students' "time out." Early in the year she sat to chat for sixteen minutes with the students at the west table. Subjects of the conversation varied. She tried to conclude this sewion with, "Getting back to this Idrawing ideas for stationeryl" (C 2). She told individuals to get to work by singling them out and calling them by name. In response to a question about students not finishing awignments on time and often not working as hard as they could, Jean restated her perception of the advanced art claw. There was not much talent in this claw, she believed, and she got tired of pushing the students, and she gave in to their power. The day Jean took time out of teaching and worked on the personal project of making wool angel Christmas tree ornaments she thereby modelled the freedom to be at school but not to be teaching (Y). At the same time she demonstrated what an artist may do to sell her work, and she violated her own standards for students that art should be neither trite nor plagiarized. Compared with Non-Public Schools What explained students' greater attention to work in non-public schools compared with a lack of it at Kettle High School? Creative responses were often part of students' assignments at Covenant Christian High School. There, students frequently came before the beginning of claw to work and often worked until the end of claw. There, intrinsic motivation was encouraged by a teacher who held high standards for herself and her students (Bonzelaar, 1982). There, too, subtle parental prewure may have extrinsically encouraged students to be diligent because the middle-claw parents paid at least $1,900.00 tuition per student. Many parents were strained to pay this tuition. Moreover, Cusick quotes a Catholic 161 school principal saying, this school "is an authoritarian organization" (1983, p. 128). Cusick comments that when compared to the public schools where fairnew was a priority, parents who sent their children to a Catholic school "were quite willing to take the chance that authority could be exercised whimsically or capriciously" (1983, p. 128). While "discipline and order" seemed to be a high priority among non-Catholic parents in Cusick's study, this was not entirely true at Covenant High School. Beyond responding to the social prewure of friends to send children to a Christian school, excellence in education, and seeing "Christ in culture" were primary motivations. Part of these goals implied developing creative and respomible students as evidenced in the Covenant School art room. The Covenant School principal was reputed to have long, discuwiom with delinquent students in what seemed to be attempts to be authoritative, rather than authoritarian (Bonzelaar, 1982). Neverthelew, both the Catholic school in Cusick's study and Covenant Christian High School had a hierarchy of power ending in the principal's office, and the principal could dismiw students arbitrarily if they did not work. Students Arggg Students had the right to argue with Mrs. Bo about their work or the rules. Nora complained about the grade Jean gave her sketchbook. Long- suffering Jean permitted arguments to be made, but she maintained control. Mrs. Bo.: These drawings, young lady, are [sound inaudible on audio tape, meaning seemed to be unacceptable] . They are like junior high kids' [work]. Nora: Yeah, but my God . . . that's a mirror, that's a speaker. Sonja: That's my stereo. 162 Nora: Man, that's a good one. Mrs. Bo: Yes, that's what saved you. That's the start of something. Sonja: That's my alarm clock. Mrs. Bo: [to Nora] If you would draw bigger . . . [one of her drawings was about 1 1/2 inches x 2 inched. (E 20) These two students identified "good" art as that which resembles the object represented. The argument is partly about how to define art. Mrs. Bo: Yeah, but you can't draw both ends like that. [Nora has drawn something showing the front of it and both sides of it.1 You're doing cubism and we're not even studying cubism. Nora: What is cubism? I never even heard of cubism. Mrs. Bo: That's drawing both sides and the front at the same time. Nora: Well, it was laying there—yes it was. Mrs. Bo: There '3 no way you can see both of those ends. Nora: I don't want you to tell me about my drawings. 1 don't need anybody to do that. ldon't even want to hear it (E 20). Here Nora sounds like a parent arguing with a child; in fact she is telling the teacher not to evaluate her ch-awing, an argument more emotional than rational. Mrs. Bo: Nora, Nora. No, you've got to learn to take criticism. Now don't you get firey on me. Come on. Sonja: [in background] "I think those are good drawings" (E 21). Now Sonja was involved in the argument. Jean had to tell Nora to play fair in an argument by listening. Argumentation like this never occurred at Covenant School (Bonzelaar, 1982). Mrs. Bo used typical working-claw level argument, an externalized interaction (Anyon, 1982). Mrs. Bo: Be quiet, Nora. You just don't understand. Listen a little bit longer (E 21). Similar arguments occurred, most often in the advanced art claw. (Recall the twenty-five minute argument with Winnie about the words she wanted 163 to put on her stationery with lip imagery when Mrs. Bo became angry and resorted to sarcasm). Students Suggest Assignments Mrs. Bo was open to trying some new claw activities, and once during the tenure of this study an idea came from a student. Suggestions for awignments from students led to projects in the past also, although sometimes with modification. This year, Carol brought a commercially prepared "art graph" found in a game book. The objective was to copy precisely squares containing various amounts of solid black and white shapes. When students copied the squares in designated portions of a grid the shapes together created an animal image. The junior high students in Carol's claw contentedly drew and filled in lines to create the images. Students working on independent study sometimes offered suggestions for their projects. Barnie and Craig's 93.26: the comic magazine, and Ella's woven tapestry involved cooperative student and teacher planning. Students approved of this kind of education; it meant a sharing of power. Students' Responses to Assiggments As stated before, students wanted to create realistic images and were not interested in symbols or exprewion. For example, Sonja asked Mrs. Bo's approval of her drawing, "Do those l_og_k_ like flowers?" (B 4). Recall Nora and Sonja's challenge to Jean. In the earlier cited dialogue, these two students identified good art as that which closely resembles the object represented. In the 164 following interview Tootsie and Lorraine reveal their view of art as realistic imitation. Tootsie: When he [Picawo] does the picture of the baby, [it is] okay. I like that picture, but he made that picture look so big. Lorraine: Yeah. Tootsie: It didn't look like a grown mother and child, you know, the baby is supposed to be smaller, not-uh—[laughter]. I don't know why he enlagges thmgg' . Lorraine: He distorts things. Researcher: And you don't like to have enlargements? or distortions? You would rather see things be realistic? Both: [immediately respond together] Yeah. Then the students began to recognize the distortion in their own work and were beginning to accept it. Tootsie: Okay, she [Lorna] did something weird. The ribbon turned into a tree. [This is not typical of Picawo's metaphors.) Lorraine: That's kind of weird. It's kind of like what Picawo would do. Lorna: She [Mrs. 303 told me it looks like a bean stalk [with disgust; the image was incorrectly identified (KK 37). Later the girls being interviewed exprewed the belief that "reading" art demands no education. Researcher: Do you think a person has to know anything about art in order to appreciate it? Lorraine: [thinks for eight seconds No, I don't think you have to know anything. Tootsie: [You] Don't have to know anything really about art because someone could just walk up and there would be a nice picture (KK 35). Other students intimated that creating art requires time and skill, when they evaluated Picawo. They believed that his paintings did not require skill. They said, "He just slaps things together" (L 3). Sonja jokingly spoke of a plastic, phallic-shaped cigarette lighter as a piece of art. As she thrust it into her girlfriends' hands, and they pawed it from 165 one person to the other privately, it seemed they saw this as the kind of artifact not for public view (C 3). In summary, the procew of making art in a junior high and high school setting revealed that keeping order was a more important objective than instruction, and that the art teacher chose a curriculum which followed formal order more than anything else (Cusick, 1983). She wanted students to see art as serious. Students responded to the educational dilemma by working half-heartedly and arguing with Mrs. Bo. Many merely went through the motions of making art, but some made succewful artistic exprewions. Kettle school cut advanced art from its offerings the year after the research because not enough students could coordinate their schedules with their vocational education program. The advanced course had been the culmination of Mrs. Bo's aims. In advanced art, students consolidated the structures they had learned previously to now create authentic art, she implied. This was Mrs. Bo's source of art for art competitions, an important opportunity to her. CHAPTER V THE PRODUCT: THE JUDGMENT "Gorgeous? What school were you in when you learned that term? Nothing is gorgeous at Kettle. You couldn't have learned that word here" (Todd, a junior high student, P 5). The student reflected Mrs. Bo's attitude when she repeatedly equated her students with a sow's ear (0 6). In spite of these judgnnents, some art exprewions at Kettle were noteworthy. Especially significant was art created outside the routine awignments; but even within the prescribed, some artwork called for attention. For example, during the time of research, one student's woven hanging was accepted for the state art education awociation's traveling exhibit. Another piece was awarded honorable mention, Mrs. Bo reported eagerly. When one junior high student went to the sink to dispose of his dirty water and clean his brush, he dropped a blob of tempera in the wet sink. The paint bled into the thin layer of water lying on the bottom of the sink. The feathery designs created by this paint fascinated the student so much that he called his friends and the teacher to see it (PB 13). He marvelled at the pattern of parallel lines. The freedom this adolescent displayed suggests there was something "gorgeous" at Kettle schools; what was necewary was simply to be receptive to the possibility. Pewimism takes over when people are unable or unwilling to recognize beauty. There were two categories of students' art at Kettle Schools: those created out of art claw and those done in art claw. The out-of-claw projects 166 167 revealed students' free response to culture. The awigned work reflected the art teacher's influence and the students' response. ART OUT OF CLASS Art that students voluntarily created at home or in school indicated their level of interest in art and understanding. The nature of that work was different from what Wilson labels "school art"—that which complies with a teacher's objectives and peer influence (1974). Art produced independently or outside the clawroom was a form of play. It was non-compulsory, it had an element of spontaneity, and was usually not a means to extrinsic ends. This kind of art was motivated by a desire to release tension or seek arousal. Novel forms of exprewion often occurred. Art At Home Some of the art produced at home consisted of purchased, follow-the- directions kits. Latched—hooked rugs, prefigured crow-stitch, and poured ceramic molds were typical examples of the kind of art generally awociated with lower- taste publics. Since objects made from another's design and therefore requiring no original thought, they lie outside the definition of high art. Gene's art, which was done at home, resembled kitsch often sold at souvenir shops and having no potential to raise the vieww's or the artist's level of consciousnew. Gene's thin, plywood image of a fisherman in a boat, holding a fishing pole strung with real fishline connected to the mouth of a separately cut, plywood fish, exemplifies this. This artifact was mere unoriginal decoration, yet it did symbolize belonging to the society of people who enjoy trite images, exactly 168 what Gene had defined as art when he said art does not say anything and that it is made for the wall (see opening quote, page 1). Some students were attracted to one subject, and it appeared repeatedly in their work, especially in art made out of claw. Lorna returned to her favorite image—a stereotypic, popular-culture rendering of a horse. Craig and Gene adopted the styles of commercial, science fiction illustration when they repeatedly drew outer space creatures. Art At School Three of the more outstanding art forms made out of claw or independently in claw were the $9.98 magazine, the collages with which students decorated their lockers, and Halloween. In 2% Barnie and Craig created comics in a contemporary style; in this way they were exprewive of belonging to an age of visual mew media, an age of cryptographies. The cartoons exhibited the playful nature of voluntary art. Cross-cultural studies "show that play incorporates the major themes of the surrounding cultural life . . It [play] incorporates cultural traits, conflicts, and wishes and allows for a free and open modelling of these traits" (Sutton-Smith, 197 3, pp. 9—10). Students' lockers incorporated pictures from popular magazines, advertisements, photographs, and other memorabilia-also reflecting students' interests and values. Comgg Three issues of Comgg (November, 1982, December, 1982, and Spring, 1983) were written and drawn independently in claw, edited and printed by faculty, and sold in school. The content and format resembled contemporary comies. The humorous content closely resembled the nonsense of Mad magazine. 169 Craig and Barnie, the authors and illustrators, joke about scrambling for material in the Med magazine trash barrel. In the background is an image of the Mag offices (Appendix A, p. 3). In the same issue Barnie chides Craig in a comic entitled, "Did you ever wonder where Craig Bly gets his jokes?" Craig stands near a partially-open door which has "Steve Martin" lettered on it. Thu exemplifies the importance of media stars in students' lives. Craig says, "Hurry, Steve, before someone sees me" Television comedian Steve Martin's reply emerges from behind the door, "Just a minute! I'm trying to find some old material I wish you could write your own!" (Appendix A). This spoof about writers is reminiscent of the creators of M_a_d_ laughing at themselves (Hudson, 1983). Like advertisements in some current magazines, Qo_m_eg also asks the reader to draw a given image and submit the work to win a prize. "Draw This Duck Wearing His Rubber Nose and Glawes" and "Can You Say Hay! I Know That Dude?" Just as comics parody familiar cultural objects, so 29M presented a synopsis of Dickens' A Christmas Carol (Appendix A; Drucker and Siegel, 1983). Scrooge and other humans are stylized Venus flytraps having human characteristics. Similar Venus flytraps also appear in currently popular comics which influenced the students' art forms and dry humor. School in the comics. Many of 993133 spoofs comment on school life; in this way the popular art form led students to reflect on school life and represent that which bothered, humored, or enticed students. "School Patrol" describes the awistant principal looking for smoking students. When he encounters a cloud of smoke creeping from under a doorway he says,"l got you now!" and then, "Awe [sic], it's just the cafeteria making lunch!" (Appendix A). The strip entitled "Captain Punk (alias Todd Treefeld)" jests about Todd's regularly wearing slit glawes and drewing in punk styles (Comgg, 1). When the 170 awistant principal asks Todd to take off his glawes, Todd responds using the administrator's first name, "Skip you Harry." After a threat, Todd removes the glawes with the comment, "All right but you wont [sic] like it." "Put the glawes back on, Todd," assistant Principal Hiwen netorts after seeing the punk without glawes. "Thanks, Harry," is the rebuttal (Figure 5). The final page of the first issues of _Co_m_ag is a skillful caricature of Mr. Hiwen waving farewell until the next issue. R ‘ /////’./fl///W Figure 5 Craig's Comic Strip Craigs dependence on popular culture. Craig's comic strips, like the awigned art he created in claw, were clean, fine-line designs that were highly controlled. Timid use of black and white value contrast and carefully-drawn geometric lines and shapes characterized Craig's surrealistic drawings in claw and in the comedy l7 1 magazine. Craig was stubborn; that's why Mrs. Bo and the mechanical arts teacher had decided to let Craig "do his own thing" this year instead of trying to give him instruction in form, subject, or content. "It makes no difference anyway," remarked Mrs. Bo about Craig's refusal to hear helpful criticism. She did, however, talk to Craig about his failure to use enough value contrast and his slownew in trying different graphite pencils (C 1,2). Craig was self-motivated and stubbornly independent. Craig's frames in comic strips were geometric, except for one row in "Scrooge" where images (like those in M) seeped into spaces between frames in the row above (Appendix A). This reflected Craig's willingness to copy novel solutions from pOpular culture. Both in m and his drawing entitled "Stormer," images spill over the keyline into the margin. A similar but lew original overlap occurs on the cover of the second iwue of gppipg, where the title of the magazine overlapped Santa's stocking cap. Where the action and objects within a frame were appropriate, Craig varied the size of frames, as popular comics commonly do. One frame was divided diagonally (Appendix A). The shifting points-of-view in Craig's drawings paralleled those used in Ma_d. Some images appeared to be looked down upon; others were seen from the side or front. Some scenes appeared in close range and others from a distance. Craig exaggerated movement to create humorous forms. The man in the Christmas tree ran without touching a base line and the dog's front legs extended behind the back legs to indicate great speed (Appendix A, cover page). Imaginative use of exaggerated perspective requires the viewer to examine some of the drawings carefully. Suspense is created in a cartoon which begins on one page but is not resolved until the page is turned. Craig's flexibility and the influence of current comics were evident in the zoomorphism of a mouse awuming human characteristics (Comag l). A 172 nautical anchor was tranformed into a hammerhead shape and a hammerhead shark fell in love with it (M l). Enus,'the Venus flytrap, had human characteristics; it was based on images in My; (Coker, 1983, p. 88). Enus used its shadow as bait to capture flies (M)- 1433 magazine has used this same idea (Aragones, 1983). Inventive words suggested the sounds of action in Mid and M- Craig's colorful collection included words like SPLORK, CLUNK-CLINK-CLUNK, SLAM, POOP, BANG, YAWN, ZZZWOOOSHHH. Craig's work for 99n_n_a_g was inspired in part byMpg magazine. (Other sources of inspiration appear below.) His awigned art produced in claw was different. Science fiction images dominated in school work this year and last year, but the images never became part of M. Althongh female images frequently appeared in his clawwork, Craig included a woman only in "Scrooge" where the story dictated her inclusion. _M_a_g magazine also rarely includes females. Lockers As members of an adolescent subculture, Kettle Junior and Senior High School students revealed their values and reflected their culture partially through the way they decorated their school lockers. Not every student embellished the inside of his or her locker, but many displayed images or objects as a way of personalizing the locker. Most students used photographs, magazine or poster cut- outs, cards, advertisemenw, torn papers, and other sorts of memorabilia. Junior high students typically seemed to indulge in decorating with more fervor than high school students, although both seemed to enjoy the art form. Boys and girls of both groups created these art-in-a-box collages, although girls 173 seemed more eager to display the finished products to an observer. Many of the embellished locked interiors had outstanding design qualities. For example, Anita, a junior high art student, proudly showed me her locker CE 25). Behind the orange door were photographs ranging from four inches to fourteen inches high. A fourteen-inch high, colored photograph of Rick . Springfield, a teenage hero and sex symbol, movie and television star, drewed in a black shirt and white sportcoat was placed slightly above the center of the locker door. Rick Springfield had acted in "General Hospital," one of the most popular teenage soap operas of the time. The photograph created a visual focal point. It was surrounded above and below by other rectangular photos and an equally large photograph of Matt Dylan, another star, and two performers from the Police, a rock group. The black backgron of this portrait repeated the black from above and introduced another color—the red of the man's shirt. Red, black, and white were rhythmically introduced in other rectangular images, unifying the forms. The lowest rectangular picture had a yellow background with a red image of Garfield and his name. To contrast with these warm colors on the bottom were small, predominantly green cards with repeating warm accents. The small, four- by-six—inch cards overlapped and connected the larger portraits to create a visually unified design. The whole image suggested a syncopated rhythm of overlapping sounds. The images exprewed of the world of rock music of the 19808. Enhancing the back of the locker Anita had other collage images of visual sound. These images were more mysterious because of their placement in the shadowy background. Figures seemed to peer around objects stored in the locker. Here was a purple Grimis (a character from the McDonald restaurant chain). There were large photographs of other young, male faces. Each photo had an equally dark, mystery-building background. The largest photograph smiled 174 winningly from under the top locker shelf. A duet of faces, even more in the shadows, stared out from above the top shelf. A newspaper cartoon-strip in yellow, red and green with black type dominated the photographs. Because of its light value, the portraits appeared to recede even more mysteriously in the shadows. Below the cartoon strip was another rectangular card and two shelves full of books. This uncanny, color-coordinated scene fit its hallway surroundings- the army-green locker interior repeated the brown-green carpet below the locker; the reds and yellows in pictures coordinated with the red-orange on the exteriors of the lockers. Anita was a mature, middle-claw girl. Her well-designed locker had the same poise and flair that she presented as a person. The integrity with which the whole locker interior was presented and its relevancy to Anita's life characterized the locker as one of the finest student artworks seen at Kettle Schools. This form may have been intended to perform a function-decorating the locker; in fact, it seemed to present an exprewion of who Anita was and what she enjoyed. While not all lockers were so well designed or completely filled, a junior high boy's locker contained a carefully unified montage of automobiles (F 7). The photographs of cars in Bob's locker appeared to have come from an automobile magazine. Four unequally sized, orange, mid-19603 Chrysler-made products, laid out on single auto magazine sheets, topped the arrangement. A blue-on-white 1956 Ford, photographed from several angles, appeared under the orange cars. Midway down was a series of black and white photographs of a dark 1931 or 1932 Model A. Below this were four images of a 1937 red, Plymouth sedan against a black background. At the bottom of the display were two images of a recent red compact—possibly a 19703 Chevy Vega. The colors tripped like a cascade from warm tones to cool, to neutral, and back to warm tones. Atop the whole zig- zagging pattern, in the upper right-hand corner inside the locker door, perched a 175 bright, red, imitation boutonniere with a rectangular, orange label spelling "Kettle." All of the images in Bob's locker came from pOpular culture and emphatically pronounced Bob as a lover of automobiles as evidenced from what he said and the endlew number of cars and trucks which he drew in and out of claw (N 7). Only some lockers were as preplanned as Anita's and Bob's (E 25, F 6, F 7). Their organization appears to have been made from material they had previously collected, although the back and interior of Anita's locker was in transition because of new additions. Other students' lockers appeared more haphazardly organized and eclectic because of frequent spontaneous additions and deletions (F 8, F 9, F 10). Other images and themes of contemporary maw media students included in their lockers were a rock radio station call letters and advertisements, photographs of clawmates and rock stars, notes from frienw on scratch paper, stickers, logos (like those found on Chiquita bananas), cartoons of all sorts, and many Kettle boutonnieres. The locker pin-up themes suggested interest in the opposite sex exprewive of heightened awareness of sexuality, so pronounced in adolescents, which rarely emerged with such vigor in the art room—certainly not so freely as when students selected their own images. These lockers, then, reflected the students' spirit sometimes dormant in the art room. Mrs. Bo had noted the vitath students showed in their "locker art." From this she developed the junior high awignment to create model lockers in a shoe box. If more appropriate materials had been part of the locker awignment it might have been more fun and workable for the students. Neverthelew, succewful designs and exprewions were obvious in the lockers themselves. 176 Halloween Mrs. Bo invited Darlene, a student in the advanced art claw, to design a Halloween costume for her—an "outside" art activity done inside school. Darlene and several clawmates decided that Mrs. Bo should "go punk." "Punk," derived from the British nihilistic Punk Youth culture, was the popular costume at Kettle Schools' "Halloween" this year just as it was seen in current fashion magazines. Students outfitted the good-natured Mrs. Bo in typical punk dress (C 8, C 9, C 10, C 11). Around her head she wore a sweat-band; her hair was sprayed blue. She wore a long-sleeved red shirt under a sleevelew yellow sweatshirt. A "V" was cut out under the ribbed neck band thereby creating a take-off on a "V" neck shirt. Black, narrow-lens sunglawes fit the detailed requirements for "Punk" along with a mini-skirt, knee-high boots, and leotards. The primitive-style facial paint made an asymmetrical pattern: one check had red and white stripes, and the other was smeared brown-gray. With glee the students spent two-and-a-half claw hours preparing Mrs. Bo-apparently the only teacher in the school who drewed incostume. In an all- school awembly Jean learned that she had won first prize. She divided the $10.00 award among the student costume designers. When students voted for the best Halloween costume, they used three criteria: creativity, details (including time, effort, dbguise), and originality. These student-council developed criteria were dittoed on ballots which were made available to all students during lunch hour. Lew than one-fifth of the student population voted on costumed characters. Other costume designs portrayed several girls drewed as black mice, a character from pioneer days on the prairie (a reference to the popular television program called "Little House in the Prairie"), a hobo, an old man, and punk rockers. Mechanically minded Gene drewed as a "Honda-Freak." He wore his 177 usual blue jeans, a blue-jean jacket which displayed several insignia, and a button- pin (C 7). His hat had the logo of wings and looked like one belonging to an airline pilot. His costume, like most others, was put together from items found at home. A few costumes used purchased articles, such as a rubber mask, and at least one costume was purchased in its entirety. Although not invited by the high school council to participate in the festivities, junior high students wore costumes anyway. More junior high students visited the art room in costume than did costumed high school students. This seemd to signify junior high students emulating their elder high school students. The costumes revealed the students' interests. Darlene, who designed Mrs. Bo's costume, emulated music stars. She knew the history of the Beatles, their music, and their album covers. Several of her siblings played in rock bands; two of her brothers were moving to England to study rock. Gene enjoyed mechanics, drove large trucks in vocational education, and regume wore a chain- link belt. ART IN-CLASS "Hey, freak me out," said a junior high student to Ella. The girl was overwhelmed by the fact that Ella was preparing to do a "real painting" on stretched canvas (P 3). Many students at Kettle believed that paintings on canvas were the highest form of art. "Art" of course meaning for them a representational image either drawn, or better, painted with oil paints (B l, B 9, C 1, E 11). Mrs. Bo referred to abstract art as being "lew safe" and "so hard" for students to create, therefore, it was lew freely explored (O 5). "Students think art is representation" (0 3). She recognized this when she planned lewons for the 178 introductory claw. "Let's get rid of this 'I can't draw' hang-up," she said (O 4). When students were given assignments which permitted them to select an art style, almost all chose realism. One stationery design and one submission for the "illustration" awignments were non-objective. The rest were representational or slight abstractions of physical reality (PB 18-30; D 7-D 9). Among the sixteen submiwions of illustrations, nine were primarily mimetic, one was intentionally art as exprewion, three turned out to be exprewionistic, and three were objective art—art for the sake of form. Students preferred independence from Mrs. Bo's dictates, yet they asked for her help. As a high school student said, ". . . I want to do this myself, but help me" (N N 8). While students said that people exprew their feelings through art, exprewion occurred only in two instances of their explanations of their art. Rarely was meaning the criterion by which students judged art. They seemed to know art could be exprewive, but could not create their own art to exprew meaning. Students' art created in response to the open- ended illustration awignment reflected their preference for style and subject. Mimetic Art Attempts to represent nature succewfully were half-hearted; even though students liked representational art, they did not spend the time necewary to develop the required skills. Mrs. Bo encouraged realistic drawing in sketchbook awignments in which she wanted shading and details (E 19, G 2). A few homework awignments asked students to draw from life. If Mrs. Bo had been more serious about this objective, she could have made drawing from the subject an in-claw awignment. Mrs. Bo could then have seen to it that students drew the subject required by the awignment. It seemed that drawing had occurred more in other semesters, though this was not confirmed. As it was, Jean said, students were 179 stubborn about their drawings; even when they drew hallways, they were not willing to really look and see subtle nuances (E 11). To really see demands concentration and extended practice. In the hallway awignment, the one-point perspective formula became a crutch for students to avoid the challenging work of looking closely at physical characteristics. By contrast, Jean suggested that Rick ought to study the anatomy of a horse in order to draw it realistically, but there was no evidence that he took her advice. (E 12). She evaluated students based on their poor drawings; she gave Tim an "E" for failing to draw from life in his sketchbook (E 12, H 2). She complained to a student about his trite drawing of "sticks" that represented sun rays (E 12). Jean encouraged students to find photographs of subjects they wanted to draw (B 9, G 3, N 5, W 1). She encouraged them to look at pictures in order to discern the general characteristics of subjects, not in order to copy images. Students resisted looking at actual objects even when creating mimetic drawings. They frequently found photographs to use as resources, or they incorporated part of a photograph into their artwork (‘N 5, M 6, PD 6, PD 9, PD 11, PD 21, PD 26, PD 18, PE 5). Students rarely copied entire photographs. Lorna copied flowers in her illustration (PE 5). Sally copied two of her art projects directly from photographs. Her stationery design was traced from one illustrated in a brochure for Parson's School of Design. She said that she hoped Mrs. Bo would not remember it (Q 4). Mrs. Bo did remember, but did nothing in spite of her mandate, "Don't plagiarize." Sally rarely did anything in claw; this was at least an attempt (A 2). Students' art looked stiff as a result of copying photographs and not looking at the world around them. Although copying by itself does not necewarily lead to mimetic art, the students intended to represent physical likenew in most of their work. 180 Occasionally, work had a narrative quality; usually, however, the students' aim, as they stated it, was to imitate the visual likenew of the subject. Illustrations A primary motivation was obvious in each illustration that students submitted. Mimetic motives were most frequent. Eight of the sixteen illustrations made in the advanced claw were mimetic; most were made by Westenders (Table 4). (Three of these were seascapes, four landscapes, and two still-lifes.) Of the four exprewive pieces, one was intentionally exprewive; two attempted exprewion, and one bordered on the mimetic but had elements of exprewivenew. One of the three objective pieces was trompe l'oeil, one a repeat of the introductory art claw project which explored cubes in one-point perspective, and one patterns of ribbon-like dancers where rhythmic lines and colors predominated. TABLE 4 ILLUSTRATIONS BY ART ORIENTATION AND SEATING Mimetic Exprewive Objective Name Seating Name fiSeating Name Scating Christi Candy Winnie Sonja Nora Lorna Vera Toni Tootsie Darlene E Karen W Ann E Lorraine E Donna E Tim Gene C msmmsssss Notes: Sally and Jeff dropped out of the claw before completing their work. Lorna did not finish her work. 181 Examples of mimetic art follow. Sonja tried to illustrate palms in a tropical setting; the result was flat images with unconvincing attempts to create deep space; Candy's log cabin was the same. The seascapes were ewentially patterns of color with hints of water and rocks. Some pictures had a narrative impulse, although each of these had an element of fantasy and bordered on the exprewive, the primary motive was to create a realistic image. Vera pictured costumed Halloween figures which imitated those from popular culture. Tootsie drew fantasy, an ice-cream cone visited by a butterfly. Donna's surrealistic exprewive figures interacted in a park setting; middle parts of each person were invisible to create intrigue (Darlene had originated the idea). Donna suggested deep space by placing some figures higher than others and by overlapping objects. Lacking a complete understanding of how to create the illusion of depth, she made the park bench appear larger at the back than the front; furthermore, near and distant graw was uniformly detailed and equally bright green instead of gray-green in the distance. She had neither really looked at the world to see it nor had she been able to articulate any reason for making her work other than to make a picture. She did, however, recall the principle that size varies with distance and that lines appear to converge at a theoretical vanishing point. Now when the problem of creating the illusion of space arose, Donna applied the rule but erroneously. The resulting image had the character of primitive art-that done by an unschooled artist. Moreover, there was no initially intended meaning or emotion exprewed in the picture. Donna's art exemplified skill problems resulting from a lack of basic drawing experience. Neverthelew, her playful art began to speak of incomplete people—people superficially aware of their environment. 182 Craig's Art Craig's art in claw differed from his comics in two ways. First, he often used science fiction themes in his clawroom art. Second, he included the female figure in his art done in claw. The predominance of futuristic images in Craig's in-claw art typified science fiction images which a select group of students in many high schools like to draw. These images were missing in both Meg and 9.0298: yet these science fiction images appropriated those appearing in other popular art, especially films. His precisely rendered, zoomorphic creatures were engaged in quasi-human tasks. Frequently the animal personalities interacted with humans (PC 28). Craig included women in his clawwork, but his stereotypic female figures symbolized woman as sex object and did not represent a person with whom one might interact. In one surrealistic picture the female image predominates (CC 5, Figure 6). She has been captured by a gold, two-legged beast wearing tall, toelew boots and metal arm bands. Her companion, who has also been captured by the gold beast in spite of a large, long weapon, is a human male covered completely by a green military defense suit which includes a helmet, gloves, high boots, tightly- fitting body covering, and jointed sleeves. He holds a large, long weapon; but he, too, has been captured by a gold beast. The beast is as tall as the man, and the beast points a large, futuristic gun into the air to symbolize his controlling power. Behind the figures in the sand stands a gold and orange mobile unit marked, "Policion." Deep space is a dark, black, solid, horizontal rectangle which graduates into diminishing parallel black rectangles suggesting the ocean. An abrupt break in the broad, black rectangular lines suggests a horizon line. The drawing depicts a human couple manipulated by aliens in a technological world. The strong sexual implication arises most obviously from the 183 woman's enormous breasts and her tight-fitting garment which ends at the top of the thigh on the sides and tapers to a knee-length, narrow strip between her legs. Her stance is one of helplewnew. The content of the picture reflects the episodic stories of women in distress in Edgar Rice Burrough's science fiction illustrations— almost a comic version of a soap opera. The sexual content resemwa that found in the adult fantasy magazine, Heayy Metal. Figure 6 The Influence of Science Fiction A preponderance of male imagery pervades M magazine. In the M Winter '83 Sn_iper Special Book of Silly Nonsense, there are 427 male images but only 133 female images. The logo of the magazine itself is Alfred E. Neuman, a red-haired, freckle-faced young boy. Craig's and Bernie's use of female images in 9.9M imitated popular culture carefully. The question not dealt with here arises 184 about the students' understanding of chauvinism and equality of the sexes. Data shows no discuwion of these issues. Why did Craig use science fiction images and female forms in claw work but not in Comag? Several explanations are powible: l) he and Barnie parodied -_M_a_c_l_ with exactnew and consistency, 2) in both arenas Craig employed safe of deep human feeling or psychological reality, 3) science-fiction is fictitious, so it is difficult to parody in a comic magazine. One drawing especially reflected Craig's dependence on visual images from popular culture. The picture, entitled "The Stormer," depicts a girl who is wrapped in a coat, with an open book lying beside her. She is propped near a large toadstool which has roots breaking through the keyline which creates a one-inch margin. Clouds burst through the keyline at the top to create the illusion of fantasy mixing with reality—the picture related to a life beyond the here and now as it escapes the boundaries of the picture plane. This characterized Craig's learning style. He learned independently at his own pace from magazines like Mpg, Heavy Metal, and Cracked, and superhero comics like E21312]. and those published by Marvel Comics—especially John Byrne's art. He followed these graphics, refusing to respond positively to suggestions of the art teacher and a visiting professor (not the researcher) to draw from life and intensify dark values. His initial, awkward attempts to use the darkest values were evident (CC 5). Craig's need for tight control of media, his reluctance to trust others' advice, his need to imitate visual images from popular culture, and his limited ability to articulate ideas or feelings limited his exprewion to safe images, ideas, and techniques with which he was thoroughly familiar. He knew well and admired science fiction artist Richard Corbin's airbrush, dry brush, and ink washes; he knew these techniques and although he had no airbrush, he did employ the other techniques. Mrs. Bo commented on Craig's advances in "The Stormer," when she 185 quipped, "You are drawing a girl now instead of a mythological, futuristic, beast- like figure." She noted Craig's willingnew to deal with a more real human figure. The reason Craig employed a female figure is not clear. He seemed to trust guidance from the popular culture more than Jean's personal instruction. Jean also noted Craig's inclusion of the picture title within the picture—reminiscent of the role of dialogue in comics. Under the keyline at the bottom of the picture, Craig had written, "The Stormer." Mrs. Bo said that art does not require a title as part of the art, but should stand alone. Furthermore, she said, the title may impose an interpretation on the viewer (V 14). Craig seemed to believe that here the visual was unable to stand as independent exprewion and that the role of art was to communicate a didactic mewage. Craig's drawing seemed motivated by what Wilson refers to as "strong predisposition for fantasy and an acute need for stimulation and excitement, or to be seen from the negative side, a strong drive to avoid boredom" (1974, p. 3). Art for him was a form of play, utilizing the same images and techniques characteristic of his culture. Together Craig and Barnie follow a pattern of students enamored by science fiction graphics and comic magazines. They represented a type of student who emerges in high schools like perennials. These students are often transported by a mythological-like fantasy and are devoted to the cliches characteristic of the science fiction illustrations both in print and popular in movies. Students' J ucgnp ents As previously noted, students' intensity and concentration when drawing the hallways were related to their desire to reproduce the physical reality, to the appeal of formula following activities, and to the freedom from the challenges of creating original exprewion (E 4). For example, Ken, who regularly got into 186 trouble and often settled disputes with a friend by fighting, characteristically started the hallway assignment slowly, but when he became engaged in the project he moved away from his friends and sat almost in front of the open, girls' bathroom door. He was so involved that even the sound of girls talking in the bathroom and flushing toilets failed to break his concentration. He also worked until the last minute of claw (E 10, E 11). Students' appreciation for realism was also revealed by their admiration of Mr. Handel's art. Mr. Handel, the substitute art teacher, brought his realistic watercolors to claw, and Gene remained after claw to talk with him about how shadows fall in nature and how an artist can create the illusion of a shadow (GB 3, GB 4). Furthermore, students' preference for realism became apparent in their critiques. In one critique the students and Jean struggled to evaluate their illustrations. Students resisted evaluation, and Mrs. Bo recognized this. She coddlingly urged them to volunteer evaluations of each other's art. The Eastenders sat in a clutch on high stools, and the Westenders lopped in chairs with their arms folded over their chests. Mrs. Bo mentioned body language when she commented on Karen's arrogance and defiance. "All three of these [posted illustrationd have something that still could be worked on even though Miw Sow [Karen] is sitting over there with her arms folded and her legs crossed . . . ." (Z 2, Z 3). Jean braced herself and went on, "I'm not yellin' at cha; now quit it. I'm just saying . . . . What do you think?" (Z 2). Students, refusing to be serious, said, "It [the art] looks great. I don't think it needs anything" and "It's cool" (Z 3). In this antagonistic atmosphere evaluation was difficult. Students disliked evaluation so much and this is the critique that Jean sprung a day earlier than it was scheduled so that students would not skip the critique sewion. 187 Jean did little to build the image of evaluation as a professional activity in which artists engage to gain their critics' awistance. Educating profewional artists was not her goal. In contrast, critiques at Covenant Christian High School had taken on an air of celebration, with specially arranged easels and a red velvet tablecloth (Bonzelaar, I982). The distaste for critiques at Kettle Schools and their infrequency suggests the participants' discomfort in analysis of personal views and their rejection of thought-provoking analysis and discuwion. Neverthelew, some comments in the critique revealed standards by which the participants judged art. Jean evaluated design qualities like pattern, movement, the illusion of three dimensions, and focal point. She also commented on the identity of subjects. She did say a little about meaning when she referred to the metaphorical quality of an image. In connection with Karen's attempted troer l'oeil she said that some art is a joke to fool the eye. Students also followed with comments on design. They mentioned things like color, value, and the attempted illusion of deep space but said little about meaning. Most of the judgments students made related to identity of subjects. One student mentioned the mystery in an illustration. In both students' and teacher's remarks meaning held little importance compared with that mimetic quality and design. Recall that Nora decided that she would not become an artist because she thought she could not draw (GB 2, GB 3). She implied that if an entity is to be called art it must be done by someone who can draw physical likenewes. Her reluctance to complete a realistic pencil drawing of three bottles and her lew- than-convincing drawing of a lock suggested that Nora believed that an artist should be an expert draftsperson. "I am not an artist," she said; "I can't draw" (GB 3). Students also praised Ann's drawings of her grandfather's barn. Both the subject and the style attracted attention. 188 Christi (to Winnie): Look at these drawings, Winnie. Karen: They're really good. It's her grandpa's barn. [The girls from the west table gather around Student: Things aren't just sketched. Student: These are so good (GB 2). Prpgnpatic Art Students recognized that the stationery they designed was a functional form of art in society. They designed and evaluated it with criteria related to its usefulnew. The mural made by junior high students served as a Christmas greeting to residents in a neighborhood old people's home. The mural employed conventional symbols widely understood by the general public, requiring no formal education (Broudy, 1977). Neverthelew, the forms these projects took required students to recognize the impact of conventional forms and the mewage these forms communicated. Probably the most revealing functional art that students created consisted of artifacts which they would not usually consider art. In this sense students became visual sign-makers of their own culture (Chalmers, 1981). The visual symbols employed by students are described by Chalmers when he says people's artworks "convey ideas and exprewed emotions, qualities, and feelings . . . varied rank, status, and role influence behavior and decisions" (1981, p. 6.). Since the students' lockers, Halloween costumes, and everyday clothing, were types of functional, popular culture art, it is not surprising that the yearbook was no different. 189 Stationeg Mrs. Bo frequently reminded the advanced art claw of the function their stationery ought to serve. Sufficient space for writing, the light and dark value of ink used to print images, and the appeal that images might have to potential customers were considerations that Mrs. Bo suggested. According to students' written evaluations of stationery, key qualities of good art were detail and shading (Table 5). These criteria were used by Jean when she evaluated sketchbooks, and these were also the two criteria that students viewed as ewential to realistic art. The "idea" category was vague. Included were comments like "cute," "cute idea," "great idea," "pOpular subject," "I like (or do not like) the subject." Because of the superficial quality of student's comments little meaning can be derived from this category. It became clear that idea to students meant subject. The design qualities mentioned related mainly to proportion. Of the forty-six properties listed, twenty-nine specified proportion. TABLE 5 STUDENTS' WRITTEN EVALUATIONS OF EACH OTHERS' STATIONERY Evaluator Number of Responses Evaluator Number of Responses Idea 58 Original 27 Design 46 Too plain 21 Detail 34 Well drawn 15 Shading 32 Identifiable 12 Appropriate for 31 Meaning 3 stationery 190 Originality was also significant. Mrs. Bo fostered the aim to be original when, on the first day of school, she wrote "original" on the chalkboard. Mrs. Bo's leadership was clearly effective, since twenty-seven students evaluated on that criterion (Table 5). Mural One day, during the first week in December, the junior high students were wearily drawing in their sketchbooks stereotypic Christmas images—Santa Claus, fireplaces, and Christmas trees. Their major lively interest lay in the discuwion of horror movies. At one point Jean joined. Yet, although the discuwion intrigued the students, after fifteen minutes Mrs. Bo asked "You want to begin to work on the mural now?" Students eagerly responded in the affirmative. Within seconds Sonja and some other students headed for the school office to obtain colored butcher paper for the background of the mural which was to become the large greeting card for a near-by old people's home. Steve sat on the floor, tracing the circumference of two round wastepaper baskets onto a sheet of large white paper to make circles for a snowman (D 16). The hard-edged, geometric snowballs were reminiscent of elementary school tracing activities rather than a sensitivity to the fluffy texture of snow. Two girls worked on plans for a fireplace. The sudden aninnation indicated new motivation. Steve reported that Mr. Hiwen, the awistant principal, noted the students' enthusiasm and asked them to lower their volume (Y 3). The girls had little notion of how they would use the paper to create an evergreen tree but the idea of cooperatively creating this oversized picture caught their fancy. 191 Enthusiasm appears frequently among junior high school students when taking on a large task requiring social cooperation. For example, students at the neighboring private school came to school with their teacher one evening a week from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. to continue working on their six foot high papier mache sculptures. Oakhill Junior High students responded with equal vigor to a group awignment when they made large models of how they would develop islands on which they were supposedly marooned. At these schools and others, junior high students who respect their teachers voluntarily remained in the art room to work on projects during lunch hour and before or after school hours. Commitment to the mural activity was obvious from the joyful sounds and the renewed motivation. It was the noise level and the boundlew energy that separated typical junior high students from the more contained high school students. There are several powible conclusions regarding the cause for Kettle students' burst of enthusiasm for the mural. First, it is the nature of early adolescents to feel spirited engagement. Miss Jacometti described junior high student energy when she said "See, they are like gnats; they are with you and they are around. They have that problem . . . . They fall walking up the steps; they fall walking down the steps" (KK 7). Second, bursts of energy accompany group activity and not only in art projects. For example, Sonja and Patty independently planned and conducted a party for their claw at the end of the semester. School policy prevented Mrs. Bo from organizing parties with food in claw. Although she knew Sonja nad Parry were wanting this farewell party she took no action either to prevent the celebration or to awist it. The junior high girls independently baked cake and brownies and brought canned punch. On the festive day Sonja and Parry pushed tables together in a pattern they desired, they obtained two sixteen-foot-lengths of mural paper and used it as a tablecloth. Napkins, matching pape' plates, and 192 cups which they bought completed the energetic array prepared when students arrived at classtime. Not all students were convinced they wanted to take part in the doings, yet these two preteens spiritedly persuaded their clawmates to join them. Third, Sonja's and her friend's independence and the self-sufficiency of Steve to devise a way to make large circles pointed to students' joy in developing projects which allowed for at least some development of their own ideas. It is relevant that Mrs. Bo withdrew from awertively directing the mural, because she set this day aside to make yarn angels for her personal sales. Students felt‘comfortable with the stereotypic images in the Kettle School's mural. Students' activity awociated with the Kettle School'Christmas mural then suggested that students enjoyed pragmatic art which identified objects more than feelings. Students also appreciated a project which required their input especially when working coOperatively with their peers. Emressive Art A few awignments demanded that students exprew their emotions or ideas. The awignments which did permit exprewion captured the students' attention, if the project was not too long. Mrs. Bo awigned exprewion-oriented lewons only to the junior high and advanced art students. Art I students had to learn "structure" she said, and get beyond their fear of drawing (0 9). Awignm ents The junior high students' first exprewive awignment was to make a figure from a doodle. The second awignment, telling a story with a line, was designed to develop students' thinking about the relationship between lines and l 93 emotions-form and content. Then came the awignment to build a model locker and fill it with clay images of things the junior high students would bring with them if they were marooned on an island. This led to fantasy, an awignment to depict objects using a pointilist style followed. The three awignments Mrs. Bo . developed for the advanced art clawes permitted students to select their own subjects, and two let students select style. The illustration awignment, which Mrs. Bo initially called "the poster" awignment, was done with colored "prisma pencils" on twenty by thirty-two inch poster board. Mrs. Bo said that poster could be realistic or abstract; she asked students to choose the theme and style (K 8). She revealed privately that her objective was to let students choose their own awignments. "They are always yelling at me because they don't want to do what I assign, so I'll let them find out how hard it is to choose their own," Jean said (K 8). Motivation for the assignment could come from pictures or doodles. "What's on your mind?" Jean asked when a student requested ideas. "That's what to make pictures about" (K 9). "Food" quipped a student. "No," rebuffed several students, revealing that their ideas of art did not include images of food at least for this awignment (K 9). "Without copying this, here is an example I got in the mail," Jean suggested. The image was a black line drawing with a painted wash. "You could make these [posters] illustration-like. How about the outside of a house—looking through a window, or looking in from outside?" she continued (K 9). Then she referred to illustrating an item to sell or an abstract idea. It seemed she was unclear in her own mind about what students would do with this awignment. The poster ideas seemed to fade after this point into an idea to illustrate. In this awignment Jean never made a clear distinction between poster art, illustration, or exprewing an idea, mood, or feeling for its own sake. Her explanation of subject went like this: "I don't want you to copy exact details from a picture. If you want 194 to do a tree, decide what kind it is. An oak tree? If you do snow, consider colors that reflect in snow" (K 9). These comments suggested that the objective of the lewon was to capture a characteristic of a visual image, to communicate or interpret the physical likenew of something. Jean asked, "If you could be anything you wanted, what would you be?" "A housewife," responded Candy, apparently without a second thought (K 10). Jean was attempting to relate this assignment to students' experiences and desires. But most students did not talk about their experiences as the subject of their illustrations. Candy significantly chose a log cabin as the subject of her illustration; that subject fit her interest. Students' Illustrations Students' responses to this open-ended awignment ranged from Tim's repetition of a former Art I claw assignment—drawing cubes in a mechanical, one- point perspective to Gene's surrealistic image of a skull surrounded by flames (D 30). Four works of art were obviously expressive—Darlene's, as she stated it, intentionally so. Ann, an "artist," caught the spirit of visual exprewion in her drawing of a horse. Although her earlier art was mimetic and she initially was unable to verbalize her intent for her illustration, she attempted to capture a mood. Recall her conversation with Mrs. Bo as an illustration of Mrs. Bo's encouraging exprewion? This vignette also illustrates a working-claw student's ability to grow. Mrs. Bo: What is the message you are trying to get acrow? Should the horse be bigger? Should the trees or forest be more important than the horse? Why are you doing this? That is all very important (N 4). Ann: . . . The design must be related to what's going on . . . . Mrs. Bo: There is a reason why things are where they are [in a picture]. And I guew you're saying it's supposed to look eerie. . . . What are you trying 195 to get acrow? [Seven seconds elapsed before Jean continued] And once you tell me that, I can give you some suggestions, but . . . Ann: [softly and apologetically interrupted] I have no idea. I think I was sort of not thinking [pause] about anything. Mrs. Bo: Okay, I guew you're not. And see you said 'How can I make this more eerie?‘ Right now it doesn't [look eerie]. Ann [interrupted softly again] That's what I want to do-make it more eerie (N 4, N 5). Through the discuwion, Ann began to see art as a potentially exprewive medium. Darlene had a sense of illustrating a psychological reality. Her colored- pencil drawing depicted a figure climbing toward a central focal point. The work was drawn with a straight edge and large empty spaces, creating the illusion of the figure's psychological distance from a portico and street where mechanical people were moving. [Darlene exprewively used the formula-dictated one-point perspective she had learned in her introductory art claw. The drawing exprewed her diser of the housework she did at home, said Mrs. Bo when reporting a conversation with her (V 14). Gene, an "artist," did not set out to create art which was intentionally exprewive. In response to Mrs. Bo's attempts to encourage him to use images to exprew a message, mild-mannered Gene at first resisted, then held up his illustration and retorted, that an artist has to please himself and that art is to be put on the wall (M 9). By the next day Gene had redrawn flames with a human skull in the center of something that had a globe-like image and shapes of continents. He was playing with Mrs. Bo's idea that art is exprewion. The following encounter reveals Gene's opening to art as exprewion. "Something is starting to happen there . . . . My perception is that here is the universe and fire—it's death. All of a sudden it might be hell . . . . right?" Mrs. Bo investigated. "This is the sky; we often represent heaven by the sky, right? Here is this struggle about death. This is the story I'm perceiving, if that is right or wrong to you . . . . Now you're getting the idea; you're starting to make me think. And that's what [art is] all about. Okay?" inquired Jean (N 2). 196 After Gene had resisted the first encounter a great deal he by the next day asked for help. "The only thing is, if I do this with the colors of the globe can't I fuse them softly? Why can't it be done without a hard line in there? Why can't the earth be part of the skull?" Gene recognized the importance of subject identity. "Well, you gotta' be able to tell what it is," he said, looking at Jean admiringly. "You are starting to come up with a mewage and it's working together. Can you see that?" "Little bit," responded Gene (N 2). It is evident'that Mrs. Bo wanted Gene to see that design, subject, and mewage must function together in a work of art. Gene respected her instruction. This encounter about his art caused Gene to discuw it with his father, who told Mrs. Bo at parent-teacher conferences that Gene was concerned that she was angry with him. Gene was generally open in communicating his feelings with his father and Mrs. Bo. This raised a question about the relationship between exprewivenew in verbal and visual communication. Gene had freedom to communicate his feelings, a characteristic more typical of the middle claw than the lower claw (Rubin, 1976). He was able, after a few days, to overcome the trauma of seeing art in a new way. I The mostly working-claw Westend girls reacted emotionally and verbally to situations without thinking about them, and most strenuously resisted evaluations. These girls were not able to respond to situations thoughtfully, and they were the least likely to create art with meaning which they could recognize. Students' Art like Picawo's The third advanced art awignment required students to adapt one of Picawo's styles. This led some students to exprewive art and others to dutifully 197 attempt the awignment without comprehending Picawo's motivation. Without that awarenew, students blindly imitated a style without developing an art form with integrity. ' Toni's attempt to exprew a feeling was prompted by a conflict in her life, much as Picawo in his blue period despaired the tragedy he saw in life. Toni responded to a personal experience on an obvious level. She said that she wanted to show her feelings about having a midnight curfew. Her painting appeared motivated by thought and feeling as seen in the misty, elusive qualities of shapes and colors in the background contrasted with the hard-edged, boldly colored clock in the foreground. Reflecting on and exprewing feelings about an immediate personal problem is difficult even for experienced, profewional artists. When adults work for extended periods of time on a picture, they compound the difficulty of maintaining spirit and a consistent mood in their art. The intuitive, wontaneous production, therapy or a reaction to an actual circumstance in life becomes a revelation of a person's feelings, in view of Langer's description, of 331-; egprewion, as a symptom, in contrast with egprewion, an intentional symbol (1957b). Toni's month-long struggle to exprew her feelings became an illustration of her previously felt emotion. Her planned work of art was more than an unconsciously revealed emotion. It was a conscious attempt to impose meaning on her art. What did students learn from studying Picawo? Not the concept of Picasso's form following the content in response to his environment, in response to frustration, lonelinew, or joy. All they learned was the name "Picawo" to transmit to their children and a vague notion of his styles. (OO 1). 198 Students' J ufiments It follows that in both formal critiques and informal conversation, students did not evaluate art on the basis of its expressive qualities since their concern with form related to its representation of physical reality rather than to its mood. Mrs. Bo occasionally critiqued a student's art for its expressive content. Ann gave evidence of wanting a more eerie mood in her pencil drawing but she initially had not been able to independently state the need. Although responses to a questionnaire showed that students claimed to know that art is exprewive, they did not voluntarily discuw exprefion in their own art (Appendix E). That is beyond expectations of most professional artists; furthermore few awignments explicitly required exprewive forms. Students had indicated, either verbally or behaviorally, that they wanted artistic freedom and had complained about Mrs. Bo telling them what to do, yet their inexperience with various media and their typical disdain for developing control of a medium before attempting a profound expression prevented truly exprewive results. Furthermore, their uninformed evaluations of Picawo's art demonstrated their lack of understanding exprewiveness in art. Tootsie: [contemptuously] Really, Picawo was weird. Lamina: Yeah, really. Researcher: Why do you say Picawo was weird? Lorraine: Because some of the things he does . . . don't make sense (KK 36). Later Jean agreed that some of the students had not "caught on to Picawo" yet (00 1). If students knew that art can be exprewive, few experienced it consciously, and so could rarely apply the criterion. 199 Objective Art - Of the kinds of formal order or Objectivist orientation awociated with this category, most of Mrs. Bo's awignments dealt with what Feldman calls "intellectual order" (1981). Art typical of this style usually deals with design elements-line, color, shape, texture, value—and principles-unity, variety, balance, rhythm, focal point, and repetition-as a primary function. Kettle curriculum dealt with art elements only. Another category of formal order missing in the Kettle School art program was Feldm an's category labeled "aesthetic order"-the appeal of sensuous surfaces (1981). The sensuous qualities of organization or the sophistication of richly exploited media lead to art which is appealing because of its formal qualities—often of surfaces. Also missing was concern for relating media to them or subject. Awigpments Awignments Mrs. Bo designed for the high school Art I claw had objectives derived from the style of "intellecutal order." Because none of the awignments involved media exploration, few sensuous surfaces appeared in students' art except accidentally when students noticed them. Once Candy rolled printer's ink on a smooth surface and playfully added colors which repeated as she rolled the brayer over them. The exploration of "aesthetic order" was so rare that it deserved to be photographed as an exception (P 15). The results were exciting and several students marveled at them, but Candy said she saw nothing interesting in them. 200 When the junior high boy clamored about the beauty of paint drops bleeding in a moist sink and he invited his clawmates and teacher to celebrate his discovery, he was exalting the aesthetic, visual drama in the everyday. These isolated incidents were appealing to sensitive viewers (C 24). Neverthelew, beauty in the form of media and their potential received little formal attention at Kettle School. Design in art can be rationally explored and mastered by students willing to take the time to analzye it. The introductory art curriculum became a [cognitive exercise, analagous to studying theory in music or grammar in verbal discourse. Studying the color wheel, completing an exercise in designing with linear perspective, composing a mosaic-like awemblage of actual textures (in contrast to implied textures), designing a radially balanced pattern of geometric shapes, reproducing lines on a graph, and making a crayon rubbing of textures- these exercises comprised the formula. After this introduction, a few advanced students gave evidence that they recalled what they had learned by employing the formulas in slightly different situations. The early hallway drawings, intended to convince students that they could draw and also provide students with a technique for creating the illusion of space, was another example of formal order. Art awignments geared for learning design often became dull, fill-in-the- line exercises which had the potential of lulling learners into lazy thinking habits and not thinking independently to solve major design problems. The traditional awignment to reproduce a color wheel asked students to mix colors and place them in spectrum order. The awignment required students to mix all primary and secondary colors. To apply color systems derived from this knowledge base, students were asked to devise a color palette for a painting. They were told to choose a scheme of analagous, neighboring colors, or split-complem entary colors, a chosen color and those neighboring the complement directly acrow the color 201 wheel, and to paint these in previously drawn geometric shapes. After this initial choice little decision making could occur except for deciding which geometric shape to fill with which color. Finally, the evaluative decision about liking or not liking the product left some students surprised and others disappointed. Working with analagous colors led some students to create a painting with all dark or medium-dark values such as blue-violet, violet, and red-violet. A similar lack of value contrast was evident in some split complements—red-orange, green, and blue. Students selected these combinations for unaccountable reasons and did not anticipate or later talk about the lack of value contrast. In the illustration awignment, it was counterproductive for students to trace their sketch or innage and transfer it to the drawing paper on which they made their final pencil drawing. This procew generally led to stiff lines which lacked feeling. However, Kettle High School students lacked drawing skills, and as a result many did not have the confidence to draw their images with sensitivity and freedom. As a result, transferred outlines became shapes to fill with small pencil lines. For most students, working on a large, poster-size paper led to fatigue and boredom. Furthermore, students had not previously explored the powibilities of these brilliant colored, soft pencils. Before exprewion, exploration and disciplined skills in using a medium are required. The limitations of the awignments detracted from the exprewive qualities powible in the artworks. Students' Art Three advanced students created art which explored form in the illustrations awignment. Tim repeated a design of rectangular solids drawn in one-point perspective (because of his inflexibility, according to Mrs. Bo). Karen attempted trompe l'oeil by creating the image of a reclining female in browns and greens. From the land-er female form grew a patterned forest of stylized 202 evergreen trees. The repetitive quality of trees created a pattern which Karen awociated with wallpaper (D 33). Her major concern was to fool the eyes with the subjects which could be identified either as a landscape or reclining woman. The design lacked unity. It was divided at the top contour of the woman/land maw. Unity was not strewed in the art curriculum. Lorraine's flat, abstract dancing figures appeared almost ribbon-like. Exaggeratedly arched backs and irregularly elongated arms undulated rhythmically throughout subtle paths of tiny teardrop shapes (Figure 7, PF 18). A primarily analagous color scheme melted together to complete the rhythmical lines and shapes of the imaginary scene. Pattern was its predominant strength. The design of the background particularly was of primary concern to Lorraine. This contrasted remarkably from the trite musical notes aimlewly scattered on her stationery design. Lorraine's growth was due in part to her concentration on art rather than on Jeff, an earlier distraction, who left school before the illustration awignment was completed. However, evidence of Lorraine's interest in form persisted into following projects. This symbolizes growth in a lower-claw student; from mimicking images to original development of form for its own sake. 203 Figure 7 Lorraine's Form-Oriented Illustration The Exam The exam which Jean gave advanced art students at the beginning of the semester and which they would take again at the end of the course dealt with design, perspective drawing, and a little art history (Appendix D). Design portions included completion questions about color theory—complementary colors, split complements, tints, shades, and the color wheel. Other questions dealt with shapes and values. Students were instructed to draw two boxes-one above and 204 one below eye level and to draw a circle and shade it. Of the fifty-five responses required, six asked for the name of an artist, forty-nine related to design, and none dealt with the exprewion, purpose, style, or function of art. The factual questions reflected Jean's low expectation level for students' creative, reflective, or independent thinking. Nothing required exprewivenew, evaluation of it, or material written in eway form. Jean saw the exam as a review of what students had done in the claw; for example, they made a color wheel and questions on the exam asked for secondary colors. As noted above, in spite of the low-level, factual information sought, students failed the exam even when it was presented the second time, at the end of the semester. Jean despaired that Brian cared so little that he neither studied for the exam nor answered more than ten questions correctly—lew than twenty percent of the test. The exam reflected the lowered expectations teachers had for students in the school. Factual information, the lower level of learning in Klinckmann's grid for test analysis (1973), required no higher forms of thinking like extrapolation or evaluation. The simplicity of an objective test like this one suggested that only part of the potential learning in the course was tested. CHAPTER VI ASSERTIONS, REFLECTIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS The primary contribution of this study is to identify what art meant to students from the predominantly working-claw social strata, and to identify the unique characteristics of a specific art clawroom. It is not the purpose of this diwertation to propose a model for raising students' awarenew of the nature of art. There is no single formula that will change students' course of direction. The description provided here points to elements of society which enculturated students, and suggests where social claw and taste culture influenced students' definitions of art. The findings suggest conditions conducive to further investigation and learning. ASSERTIONS Students from different social clawes and taste cultures awociated different meanings with the word "art." Many working- and lower-claw people preferred mimetic art. A few decorated their homes with reproductions of exprewive high art. Students reflected their lower- and lower-middle-taste cultures' preference for representational art. Students respected other people's representational paintings and drawings as noted in students' own art and their evaluation of others' art. They required the teacher's encouragement if they were 205 206 to be reflectively exprewive. Although, in response to a survey, some students acknowledged that interior decorating and food preparation could be art, they did not refer to these as art in claw (Appendix E). The art teacher, who came from the working- and middle-socioeconomic claw, regarded most students as non-artists, and she did not discuw with them the exprewive qualities of art. Formula-oriented awignments left little room for significant decision making. Lower-claw-taste publics prefer art with "black and white" answers. Art curriculum in a working-claw school fulfilled the expectations of students and their families by including formulas for desig makipg and drawing. The mechanical drawing, one point perspective, and ink texture awignments required students to fill in outlined shapes. Some awignments resembled commercial art. The teacher permitted advanced art students to spend sixteen and one-half weeks of the eighteen-week semester on the illustration and stationery activities (Table 2). Teachipg in a predominantly workipgylaw school was characterized by role-taking which foreshadowed conditions and requirements of industrial and i_vp_n_'_k_i_ng;claw occupations. Many clawroom awignments seemed designed to fit the kinds of jobs students would likely awume in industry. Student-teacher interaction was also related to students' occupational aspirations. The teacher's insistence on punctuality was similar to the attitude of an awembly line foreman and reflected the adoption of businew and industrial values and practices in education (Callahan, 1962; Rubin, 1976; Terkel, 1975). Her laxity in demanding work fit the same perspective. An alternative explanation is that she was attempting to teach students to be responsible; however, she never explained the need for promptnew or gave negative rewards for uncompleted work. Mrs. Bo spoke of individual responsibility only once, at the beginning of the semester. 207 Students with an opennew to art as exprewion were able to develop an understandingof art as exprewion when the teacher encouraged it. Mrs. Bo confronted the "artists" with questions which prompted them to look for the exprewive content in their art. Non-artists, the majority of the students, continued to look for representation of physical reality in their art and in their evaluation of others' art. Ann, an "artist," had "human capital" (Becker, 1967). When pushed, she began to see her art as more than a collection of pretty images, and recognized that her art had an "eerie" mood. Ann had the potential to grow, and when she sought her teacher's awistance, Mrs. Bo encouraged this development. The same was true of "artist" Gene. When he unintentionally drew symbols, Mrs. Bo challenged Gene to recognize the potential of metaphor in his art. Significantly, she encouraged understanding of s_u_pj_e_c_t as the conveyor of exprewion, and she made no reference to design or medium as ways of symbolizing feeling. According to Gans, only members of upper-middle- and upper-taste-publics consider design and medium important (1976). Why did some students appear to significantly develop beyond what their cultural heritage might lead one to expect? Jean's encounters with Ann and Lorraine illustrate the kind of opportunity educators have for inspiring some students to expand beyond their cultural backgrounds through education. These students had "human capital," the native talent necewary to achieve in art claw which, with the teacher's support, led to growth (Becker, 1967). Bourdieu's writings on cultural and social reproduction explain that some students succeed also because of their "cultural capital." Their knowledge of artists, art history, and uses of art gave these Kettle "artists" an advantage. Middle-claw students like Darlene and Toni had talent and "cultural capital," and received more of the teacher's attention than students with "human capital" only. 208 Art created spontaneously and volitionally included elements from particiapnts' everyday world which was more reflective of meanng in students' lives than was awigped art. Many students' artworks in lockers and in the comic magazine, £919.38; were better-designed and more reflective of students' everyday life than were awigned art projects. Many lockers were embellished with images selected to make a unified statement, visually and thematically. Colors and shapes were coordinated with subjects to relate to one idea. These out-of-claw creations reflected popular culture. Awembled memorabilia in student lockers, both pictures and objects, represented students' heroes, joys, and desires. There was no evidence, however, that students reflectively considered this to be art. When students chose their own subjects and styles in awigned art, the "artists" emerged as a group who were reflectively beginning to attempt exprewive, high art. Darlene depicted her problem with conformity in the open- ended illustration awignment. Gene used the surrealistic style typical of science fiction illustrations to reflect his concern for society. When aware of what she was attempting, Ann worked to create an "eerie" mood. Most awignments in introductory art clawes dealt with form, and the art produced lacked flair in design quality and thematic unity for two main reasons. First, design was imposed, and not intrinsically motivated. Second, exercises were intended to develop students' understanding of non-objective design elements. Little opportunity existed for variation or originality. The lack of visual imeges presented for learningreflected the educational climate in a school egeriencipg financial cutbacks and diwatisfied teachers. The tenure of the research covered a time of low faculty morale and academic recewion. More art was exhibited before and after the semester observed intensely. Because of this, teachers miwed an opportunity to expose students to the world of high art without imposing it upon them. 209 Reduced extracurricular art activity reflected, amongbothemhenomenaj, the educational climate in a school experiencng low staff morale. Several reasons explain why students and Mrs. Bo were unsuccessful in planning and promoting a trip to study art in a large city as they had done three years earlier. In the first place, the co-mentor of the art clib which supported trips was ill. His prolonged absence from school left Jean solely responsible for the club. Second, there was a lack of club leadership from the difficult-to-manage advanced art claw. The claw also did little to promote sale of their stationery, so travel funds were scarce. Some students claimed to be interested in the club but chose to work after school during the club's meeting time. Third, times at Kettle School were grim. Teachers felt alienated from the school board and administration because of bitter contract negotiations. Financial cutbacks, the academic recewion, and low teacher morale fostered by antagonism over salaries left Mrs. Bo drained. Fourth, some administrators seemed not to support the teachers. The superintendent sought employment elsewhere; he refused a state grant for the art program, and sometimes failed to attend the Bracers' meetings or complete tasks for them. The weight of these combined elements, it seemed, left the art teacher debilitated. REFLECTIONS One of the aims of this study was to raise questions about art education in a predominantly working-claw secondary school. These questions ponder the role of the students, the curriculum, the art teacher, and curriculum makers. 210 About Students What potential do students in a working-claw school have to develop in areas not usually considered by their social claw? Working-claw students at Kettle School saw art primarily as that which imitates nature. Yet some students were able to understand that mimetic, pragmatic, or exprewive art can be exprewive of ideas, fantasy, and feelings. Other students created art which had pure form to engage the eye. Under proper circumstances could all students have accomplished these levels of cognition? of creating? If so, would these be desirable outcomes? What are the relationships between students' art and their experience with egprewion in other sense modalities, particularly verbal exprewion? Students from social clawes having little experience with verbal expressivenew seemed to create art with little visual expressivenew. These characteristics were corollaries in this study; however, not enough is known about their relationships to make a clear awertion. Research shows that people in lower and working clawes are lew verbally exprewive than people in middle- and upper- social clawes (Bernstein, 1967; Rubin, 1976). Conflicting conclusions exist in metalingu'stics research, generally, especially concerning relationships between verbal and visual exprewion in various social strata; nevertheless, the fundamental predicament of working-claw students suggests some reasons why students found visual exprewion to be beyond them. Studies suggest that children living in lower clawes suffer language deficiency and that their powers of abstraction are often affected. It can be said that for the middle-claw child there is a progrewive development towards verbalizing and making explicit subjective intent, while this is not the case for the working-class child . . . . This is not necewarily a result of a deficiency of intelligence, but comes about as a consequence of the social relationship acting through a linguistic medium. It is through this developing medium that the child learns to internalize his social 211 structure . . . . The form of communication reinforces the pattern of social relationships but fails to induce in the child a need to create speech that uniquely fits his experience. . . . What is made relevant by the form of lower- working-class speech is markedly different from that which is made relevant by the form of middle-claw speech (Bernstein, pp. 140-141). Significantly, feeling is not differentiated among lower-and working-class students because of enculturation. One would suspect that there are implications of this on students' art. Kohn states that middle-claw parents generally consider children's intent in acting as they do and respond accordingly, whereas working-claw parents respond in terms of immediate consequences (1959). Thus, the middle-claw parent is more responsive to intent and "acts with reference to individualized standards . . . ." (Bernstein, 1967, p. 146). Middle-claw parents' attention is given to consequences, results, and authority. Bernstein says, "The restrictive planning function and concern with the immediate tend to make diffith the development of a reflective experience" for students from working-claw homes (1967, p. 147). Further, curiosity is limited by a low level of conceptualization. Asking working claw secondary-level students, or any student unfamiliar with purpose in high art, to create exprewive art is very different from asking a profewional creator of high art to make art. Working-claw students, when asked to create high art, are called upon to make responses to which they are neither oriented nor sensitized. It is a bewildering and frustrating position that could lead to failure unlew teachers are sensitive to students' out-of-school background. Working-claw students can discover and create expressive and formal art, as Ann and Lorraine demonstrated. The procew leading to discovery may initially be accidental or it could be mechanically induced. The question of permanence arises. Will working-claw students, oriented toward defining art as pragmatic or mimetic, become familiar enough with 212 another form of art so that it is part of them once the stimuli cease to be regularly reinforced? What is the role of secondary school students' developmental levels in understanding the abstract quality of an art form fittinLthe entity it expresses and social experience necewary to jufie popular art? It is important to note that high art is not only a matter of visual perception—a simple procew. It is also the transformation of a mental image into visual form. Yet transformation of an image into a figure or symbol alone does not create an artwork. The ewence and function of art are not contained in the form itself—form does not exist alone; it is dependent upon the idea. Validity of form comes only when it is considered in relation to the material conveying the message. The medium "incarnates" the message, as Vygotsky puts it, by giving the form new life in the context of the specific artwork. Exprewion in visual art is challenging even to adult artists. Are its demanding requirements an even greater challenge to secondary students unsure of their adulthood therefore lew able to be exprewive? Are students too close to their own maturing to comment visually upon it? Furthermore, the qualities of visual art, based on a unique semantic mode for exprewing meaning, are different from the discursive mode of verbal’language. Langer makes several points about the nonverbal, nondiscursive arts (music, dance, and the visual arts) which demonstrate the difficulty all adolescents face when trying to exprew meaning in art. Discursive, verbal language, which students encounter in most of their education, has a fixed vocabulary with specific meanings and syntax. It is succewive and general, and has fixed equivalents. In contrast, the semantic nature of art is nondiscursive; it has a wordlew symbolism whose elements are the visual elements and principles which present meaning simultaneously, in relationship to each other (Gunter, 1971). 213 Students—accustomed to vocabulary generalizations, fixed meanings, and "right ways" in academic clawes—must abandon these in art claw. A reliance on "correct" structure becomes even more diffith with nonobjective and imaginative art than with objective and representational art. Mrs. Bo's instructions such as "please yourself" and "you make that decision," while stimulating exprewion, countered the working-claw students' customary guidelines for right or wrong in their authoritarian society. To be effective in creating art, furthermore, students must perceive and organize drawings and paintings in a simultaneous way. The visual elements and their relationships interact all at once. For adolescents generally, this differs from speaking, writing, and reading thoughts in a linear, succewive way. Many art students observed in this study had a tendency to complete their artwork serially—from top to bottom, side to side, or easy to difficult-rather than blocking in the overall composition to make it a whole which requires forethought. The fluid, slippery quality of the relational or contextual nature of art is difficult for working-claw students to grasp. For example, Langer says of a curved line in a given picture, "It has no fixed meaning apart from its context" (1951, p. 95). The line and other visual elements function visually and have meaning as they relate to each other and the meaning they convey. This conditional quality of the visual arts depends on artists' originality and makes choices difficult for all artists, particularly working-claw students who have been enculturated to look for and engage absolutes. The awertion arising from the research at Kettle School is that adolescents enculturated in a subculture which engages in little reflective exprewion in verbal modes were unable to be exprewive in the visual mode. The findings suggest that students coming from the lower and working clawes, who are lew likely to understand exprewivenew, are lew likely to be visually exprewive themselves. 214 Do working-claw secondary school students have sufficient maturity to step back from popular art in their culture to view it from a distance? These very peer-dependent people may not be able to critique artifacts in common use because of closenew. About Curriculum Wteraction between participants occurred about meamng' in art. Why? And why was there little revealed concern for hm art as a reflection of meanng in life? What explains the lack of emphasis on art history or art and its uses in society? Two factors emerge. First, the out-of-school milieu did not expose Students to art masterpieces. Only exceptional students' families and friends knew about the Midtown art museum and visited it. Some faculty members were openly scornful of the outdoor stabile which was the most visible masterpiece in Midtown. How could students be expected to regard high art seriously? Second, Jean believed that a teacher could only introduce students to art masterpieces with the hape that their children would one day have the background to understand exprewive qualities and meaning in art. Mrs. Bo brought controversial, high art to her students' attention. Furthermore, she may have been accurate in her belief that students from the lower-taste culture will not readily change their attitudes about high art. Educational philosopher and researcher Philip Jackson agreed that Mrs. Bo may be right (personal communication, October, 1983). Because of students' deprived experience they might reject exprewive art that is not realistic or representational. What is the range of working-claw students' response to unfamiliar art when relevant information about the nature of art is presented? 215 What is the place of popular arts in a working-claw secondaryschool? One of the educational goals worthy of consideration is equipping students to make reflective judgments about their culture. As Broudy says, students do not need education in that which is popular, the maw media educates willing learners (1977). What requires attention is students' awarenew of the influence and , exprewion of these artifacts and discernment in using p0pular culture. How can this be approached best? Lg school is to be effective in teachingart to its students, how can it i_n_fluence the out-of-school milieu to be supportive of the art proflnp? It is evident from this study that students' families influence the students' tastes. The question extends also to the in-school milieu. The presence of respected art alone in the school may not have an expansive effect according to research, but that which is supported and used by the faculty-at-large could influence. What is the place of volitional and pppntaneously crapped students' a_r;_i_n_ the curriculum? Students at Kettle School created delightful designs in their lockers. To discover this art in its natural place seems to offer a non-threatening opportunity for healthy critique. What do students learn about control of media and form from their self-imposed work? If it is true that students learn well this way, what proportion of the curriculum ought to encourage students to select their own subjects and media? What was the role of the photographic material in the succew of locker collages, given students' preference for representational art? The argument is not valid that students more succewfully designed their lockers because awemblage requires lew technical skill. The careful selection and placement required to make an awemblage of quality are demanding. The illustration assignment initially, at least, incurred students' interest. Students' art appeared to be more playful and life-related when they defined part of the assignment. 216 What is the appropriate extent of meaningful criticism in curricular M? Students made their dislike and rejection of art critiques so evident that Mrs. Bo found it necewary to force their attention to it. At Covenant Christian High School students also exhibited nervousnew in critiques of their art; however, students participated in the critiques productively. What methods foster healthy, cooperative evaluations? under what conditions? What is the place of art criticism of other artists' work? At what level can students beneficially read profewional art criticism? If it would be beneficial, in which social clawes might that occur? We the curricular implicgtions of studentng‘spirations for their futures, both vocationally and aVocationally? Some rationale for Kettle students' enjoyment of fill-in-the-line activities may have roots in the mesmerizing characteristic of repetitive, non-challenging activity. Neverthelew, the similarity to awembly-line work presents questions about students' self-expectations and levels of curiosity as they relate to students' conditioned aspirations for their futures. Furthermore, since few Kettle students had attended art museum exhibitions, one wonders about the potential attitude changes resulting from model visits to art museums and galleries. Mmount of work can teachers expect in current working-3:11;; school setting? Societal factors determine students' power and interests which led to difficult teacher-student relationships, as Cusick describes them (1983). Covenant Christian High School students attending behaviors contrasted with many Kettle students' inattentivenew to art work. Many questions about cause arise, while solutions remain vague. Of what value is education which is not compatible with its society? How can teachers expose students for intrinsic motivation rather than impose schooling through extrinsic means? 217 In a working3claw schmiwhat impact does skill training_i_n_n_ representational drawing have on students' understanding of art and the freedom to create visual metaphors? While most Kettle students preferred representational art, they showed little development in drawing during the observation period. Looking and seeing minute visual characteristics of objects leads to realistic rendering with practice in drawing; however, that requires discipline. Furthermore, preoccupation with technique could preempt broad media exploration and art in history and society. What are the results of extensive drawing programs in working-claw schools where students prefer realism? Highly developed technical skills without understanding of art as metaphor limit students' view of art as objects and instruments of human actions. What are appropriate proportions of various activities for secondary school students enrolling only in a one-semester-long art claw? in advanced level clawes? Few prepared curricular guidelines are available to art teachers. About Art Teachers What is the influence of an art teacher reared in the same social claw as the students? Mrs. Bo seemed to understand her students' perspectives conditioned by her life close to that of her students. This understanding was apparent in her ways of relating to the "toigh girls," evidenced by their statements and respect and by her honor being elected teacher of the year in the Kettle School District. Some of her succew seemed to result from her capacity to empathize with students. Would she have been as successful in a school of a different social-claw? What can teachers do to foster understanding between themselves and students, especially the academically disinterested and socially aggrewive students represented by the Westenders? 218 What curricular affects are seen when an art teacher is also an active _a_rt_i_s£? Mrs. Bo's students knew that she entered her textile art into art shows and competitions. When does modeling this kind of activity influence students and how does it affect them? One wonders if an artist-teacher involved in the struggles of creating art regularly is more effective, empathetic, or inspirational to student artists. About Curriculum Makers Opght curriculum makers to develogdifferent curricula for different pocial—claw students? What happens to equal opportunities in education if that happens? Students representing homes where original art is purchased, displayed, and knowledgeably discuwed enter high schools with different perspectives from those of Kettle students whose parents refer to paint-by-number as art. To what dgggee is published curricular guidance in ert education either pppropriate or effective? Literature in art education generally is non-specific, although some states have established curricula. How would the Kettle art program have varied if the teacher had not been solely responsible for the art curriculum? These introductory questions merit further probing and development. They primarily illustrate the social influences that impact schooling and suggest reflection on the importance of school as an environment. IMPLICATIONS What are the curricular and pedagogical implications for art teachers and policy makers? Recommendations for the subject and mode of future research follow. 2 1 9 For Teachers In order to develop an appropriate art progam and adopt a fitting ML the teacher and curriculum-writer must understand the range of the learners' knowledge of art. In art clawes this means knowing students' aspired future economic status as it relates to their experience with and use of art. In order to communicate to students at their levels of learning, teachers should know what previous experiences students have had with art and should be familiar with the out-of-school community's view of it. Art teachers need to know the current popular art world in its various Lem. Along with the currently accepted expectations for teachers' knowledge of high art are those for familiarity with visual tribal art—er that in movies, television, advertising, and community activities. Acknowledging the effect of these on life can cause students to raise their levels of awarenew. Teachers should also be acquainted with the effect of the visual environment on inhabitants, and should be aware of how visual religious, ethnic, and political exprewions appear in the local and national communities. Just as ancient people drew on walls in caves of Altamira and Lascaux, so twentieth-century people glue advertisements on billboards. What do these tell of other worlds in which people lived? What do people today tell each other through this art? As Amdursky states, "We need an art education curriculum that will help children to understand art in varied lifestylw and thus to wisely shape their own" (1983, p. 4). Teachers ought to be able to objectify the role of social claw in the in- school milieu. The in-school milieu affects curriculum, pedagogy, learners, and teachers in ways often overlooked by teachers because of familiarity. To be effective and respected in school, teachers need to know students' relationships 220 with each other, particularly as they relate to social claw, student factions, power roles, and the status of teachers from students' perspectives. In a heterogeneous school like Kettle, the art teacher had to know and work with students and faculty who were not receptive to the concept that art can be more than representational. Where this is the situation, imaginative methods of educating the faculty, administration, and students become necewary. Teachers of working-claw students must be aware that school will likely be the anyplace where students encounter the concept of grt as function, as form and as egrewion. Boyer and Levine state the importance of the fine arts in a curriculum common to all clawes (1981). At least some works of high art should be displayed and discuwed in school. If teachers are to make high art credible, it is important to teach exprewion as that which requires the tranformation of an idea, image, or feeling. Expression in high art, in contrast with popular or reactive art, is a deliberate act (Wolterstorff, 1980). To experience expression in artworks requires ability to decode what artists have encoded. In social clawes where students have been enculturated by an out—of-school milieu which regards art superficially, students need particular awistance _if_ school is to function as a transforming agent. Teachers in a predominantly working-claw school should recogpize that gpnldpgjclaw learners are not likely to have a backgound where people em themselves verbally; generally they react impulsively rather than respond reflectively (Bernstein, 1967; Kohn, 1959; Rubin, 1967). Visual exprewion may likely be a foreign concept. Art teachers face the challenge of being either "an equal" in the working claw or "an emissary of a strange outside world" (Mead, 1967). Will the curriculum focus on the culturally consistent art as imitation and pictographic images which are preferred by the lower-taste culture? Or will the school promote originality, exprewivenew, and art which raises human awarenew, 221 more characteristic of upper- and some middle-claw-taste cultures? Whether or not to teach about the complex nature of art becomes the problem. This counters the typical working-claw culture tendency to forego careful analysis. This implies that art curricula should deal with the nature of art and the difference between human reaction (Langer's reference to symptoms) and exprewive human 3.32%; to life (Langer's association with symbols). To accomplish this, art teachers would likely include more looking at and evaluating of others' art and lew claw time working on studio activities. A combination of reflection on art in students' own world and correlated studio activities will likely capture working-claw students' interest. Students can gpow beyond their out-of-school taste public. Although growth beyond one's taste public may be beyond some students, due to their lack of exposure in education or their failure to be open-minded, yet Lorraine and Ann did progress, as was evident in some of their art. Lorraine explored art form for its own sake, objective art, and Ann worked in a visually sensitive way to create mood and character, exprewive art. To awist those students who have this potential, teachers could develop pedagogy through which students communicate with their parents about art. As a spur students could survey their communities' opinions of art and thereby consider the nature of art. Art teachers' discussion of the egrewive and formal qualities in students' volitional art could stimulate students' cggnitive understandng of these Qualities. Students' receptivity to learning about their own art will likely be raised when another person points to positive qualities. What was initially created on a preconscious level will become conscious. This awarenew may influence students' intentionally-created design and also their ability to read and evaluate others' art. Most importantly, art created voluntarily is likely that which has deep meaning in their lives—something not always recognized by the artist. Locker art 222 at Kettle school became a personal and social statement. Recognizing this on a conscious level might stimulate students to use art in life with understanding. Volitional art, moreover, is likely to exprew local values and concerns not typical of a broader social context. Unlew teachers help students to become aware of these qualities, they are likely to go unnoticed. Asp‘gnments requiringptudents to fill-in predetermined lines can lead to learnim only when that activity stimulates thinking. The advanced art students spent eleven weeks working on their illustrations. Students became bored with the repetitivenew of filling large spaces with small pencil lines. Time could have been spent making more thoughtful choices if appropriate size and medium had been selected. Making color wheels helps students learn the relationships of colors. Sequencing lewons to stimulate the application of this learning could reduce some of the meaninglewnew inherent in some fill-in—the-line activities. For Poliq Makers Policy makers should consider socioeconomic clawes in developing ppl_i_gy. If general education is truly connected to a "shared cultural heritage, a shared agenda of urgent contemporary problems, and a shared future that cannot be ignored," then curriculum and policy ought to reflect that in art clawes also (Boyer 6n Levine, 1981, p. 20). The task of curriculum writers is "to recognize that this nation is not one culture but many" as represented by the art of these cultures making up the whole (Boyer 6t Levine, 1983, p. 21). Students educated in art ought to know art of their own and others' subcultures as part of a larger culture. If general education, however, is designed to reinforce the status quo and to keep the culture intact, then the art curriculum ought to stress the mimetic and pragmatic art which the out-of-school community already endorses. 223 Some students workingindeppndently during other claw periods succeed conditionally. Craig and Ella were unable to enroll in an advanced art claw when it was scheduled. As self-motivated students, however, they succeeded by working during other clawes. The studio nature of their art activities demanded law of the teacher's time than if their course of study required lecture, discuwion, or demonstration. If an art teacher includes analysis of art masterpieces and reflection on the role of art in society, this arrangement would not function well. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH Recommendations for future research include suggestions of other questions to study and other sites to explore. Recommendations for using ethnographic research in studies of art are also made. Content Beyond reflections presented above, there are several recommendations for future study of high school students. There is need to investigate the meaning students give art in public schools of other socioeconomic clawes. It would be particularly beneficial to examine volitional art and its various forms across subcultures. The more clawes studied, the more extensive an understanding of how social claw relates to the role of art and art instruction. Variations of this study could include participants from other age brackets and other American subcultures. Additionally, case investigations could be directed to focus on families representing various social clawes. It is recommended that the scope of this type of investigation could be increased by researching not only peOple's understanding of art while they are in 224 high school, but those affective perspectives over time. Particularly helpful to teachers would be a longitudinal examination of the effect of schooling, participants' understanding of expressive qualities in high art, and the attention individuals pay to it later in life. More extensive research could be conducted to determine the relationship of verbal expressiveness and visual exprexiveness as they relate to various subcultures and social classes. Mode 0f Research Colored photographs shot with high speed film served well in the analysis of students' art, particularly when looking for expressivenes. Colored photographs must, however, reduce to black and white images with sufficient value contrast if they are to be used in published material. Carefully prepared interview questions are essential to use in parallel interviews. Including questions about the same artwork or artifact could provide the researcher with responses to compare. In this research some students were very anxious about being photographed. The researcher hoped to reduce this response by always carrying a camera. Students relaxed somewhat when they saw the results of that regular photographing, and some invited additional picture taking. The researcher recommends photograprs as sources of unexpected information. Questions may be raised about the researcher's role and influence in the field. In a participant-as-observer role sometimes the researcher gained new insight. Occasionally becoming a complete participant helped this researcher identify with the teacher's role. The paradoxical issues, to change or not to change elements within the investigated situation, are probably philosophical concerns that perhaps cannot be solved. 225 , Conclusions Art educators need to know their society's art vernacular because it reveals what has meaning to members of that society. This is true not only on a broad cultural level, but also in terms of the subcultures to which people belong. The minimal use of decoration and the Spartan quality of the visual environment at Kettle High School, the lack of interest in works of high art among some faculty members, and Darlene's awareness of her art as expression represent the span of values with which some art teachers deal. Helping students develop the capacity to recognize visual artifacts in their environment and to use them well becomes a humanizing function of the school. Some might want students to recognize that other social groups have a different view of art and use it differently. To accomplish this, art teachers become agents to both transmit and counter culture. Teachers transmit an understanding of culture when they include in the curriculum the influence of a given visual environment and the function art has in students' lives. Teachers counter culture when they nudge students to become aware of art that is not accepted by the out-of-school community. To do this, teachers must know what their students mean when they say, "now that is art!" APPENDICES APPENDIX A Selected Pages from Magazines 226 Egg? NO 2 1330‘ ..c F 60H H’ M—IQH‘IN- Iqhwumflous " MATERJAL AND AuMM‘noN " 5. $.11 ‘ ‘3" “\‘3CHRISTMAS COTS TION" I“ ~\\ EARN/:2 ‘- I pg ED] Figure 8, Selected pages from magazines. 227 ,; .7, / ./ / . I ‘ ' fi,//--'//-/ o» nmu INK STORAGE O \../ CENTER _,. _, TABLES J TonAGE FL a AN 9? IE: 55: noon CUPJ B S I L T L g L TO M H '_.....J HALL- “AV wEsn [:::] TABLES ‘ CART OCKERS T0 CHALKBOARD To ‘1L".__., n n STORAGE r LEGEND OF STUDENTS REPRESENTING SOCIAL CLASSES L‘LOHER, M-NIDDLE. T'I TRANSIENT . H-HORKING CLASS Figure 9, Map of the art room. APPENDIX C Distinguished Service Award 237 A Region 19 Art Instructor Receives Distinguished Service to Education Award Jean Bo was the recipient of the 1983 Kettle Education Association's 6th Annual Distinguished Service to Education Award. Jean is an art instructor for the Kettle Schools and was honored for contributions to the arts and it's effect on her students. In light of the current educational trend in the nation to minimize the importance of art education in the schools, it's gratifying to know that some districts are still aware of the importance of art in a young person's life. Jean Bo's accomplishments are: * 83-84 Chairperson of the newly formed Fine Arts Committee for the city of Sailwood. "' 82-83 President of "BRACERS" (Art support group for Ferncrest and Sailwood) "' Chairperson for '83 Divergence Zooland Weavers (weaving conference) * Corresponding Secretary 81-82, 82-83, State League of Hand Weavers * Treasurer of the Two County Art League past 3 years " Facilitator of Region 19 for State Art Education Association - Presently working on local SAEA fall conference ‘ Kettle class advisor for 4 years ’ Kettle Art Club sponsor - was involved in creative fund raising to accompany and allow her students to participate in a New York art experience " Kettle Arts Unification sponsor encouraging availability of an art education to all students ‘ Member of Springville Weaver's Guild * Exhibits her weavings at Weavers Pad in Pantalona - Sadie Smith, owner " Operates her own weaving company called "Loose Ends" It's unfortunate that many people in the nation today do not realize the arts are basic to a child's education. Their lives are enriched by experiencing art because it offers: growth in self esteem, self motivation opportunities of self expression, creative thinking, accomplishing tasks experiences in individual and group activities, manipulating many creative materials the need to respect all individuals, ideas, tools and materials an awareness of the uniqueness of all individuals Shelly Summer 2nd Vice President SAEA APPENDIX D Art Exam 238 KE'I'I‘LE HIGH SCHOOL ART I FINAL EXAM NAME 1. Name the five principles of design: a. c. b. d. e. 2. What are the primary colors? a. b. c. 3. What are the secondary colors? a. b. c. 4. What are the intermediate colors? a. b. c. d. e. f. 5. Draw out the color wheel: ON THE COLOR WHEEL 6. With a broken line show a complimentary lsicl color 7. With a solid line show a split-complimentary lsicl color 8. By circling - show an analagous color 239 ART I FINAL EXAM Page 2 9. How do you get a tint? 10. How do you get a shade? 11. What is meant by monochromatic? 12. Name three warm colors. I. 2. 3. 13. Name three cool colors. I. 2. 3. 14. Name five elements of design: a. b. c. d. e. 15. Name four basic shapes: 1. 2. 3. 4. 16. Name two types of spaces: 1. 2. 17. What is value? 18. Draw a circle. The light is coming from the left. Shade the circle. 19. Name two types of lines: 1. 2. 240 ART I FINAL EXAM 20. Draw three boxes ) l on eye level ) 1 above eye level ) 1 below eye level I. Use 2 point perspective 2. Label your eye level 3. Label your vanishing points 21. Name six artists dead or alive: 1. 3. 2. 4. Page 3 APPENDIX E Questionnaire 241 QUESTIONNAIRE What do you think of art? Write a paragraph response to the followirg questions. This is not a test and will not be graded. You aren’t even asked to sign your name. Try to be honest in your answers; don't feel obligated to give answers you think I would like to hear; rather give me our straight feelings. I. Whatdoyou thinkart is? 2. When do you use art in your life? 3. What do people in your family think of art? 242 5. Why are you taking this class? 5. Did anyone suggest that you ought to take it? Who? 6. What do you think other students at Kettle High School think of art? APPENDIX F Intellectual Autobiography 243 INTELLECTUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY My responses to observations of life at Kettle School evolved through several stages. My initial impressions of the setting were optimistic and alert. After those fresh views, the scene seemed to change. The grim, clouded realities of the workings of the class and its assignments presented a more pessimistic outlook on this working-class school. Later, students' creative art projects enhanced my understanding of who they were as individuals. Authors of related research provided answers to confounding findings, and observations began to make more sense. Only by spending extended time with people at Kettle School and through reflective analysis could I begin to piece together an understanding of the challenges of an art program for students and teachers in this kind of school. Initial Impressions The fresh autumn morning, the first day of school ths year, held the promise of being warm. Beaches and summer jobs were a thing of the past when the calendar indicated time for students and teachers to return to the world of school and assignments. The art room was filled with the smell of cleaning fluids. Piles of boxes containing new art supplies stood waiting to be unpacked. Rows of empty shelves, bulletin boards, and clean tables were ready for use. Fresh, full bottles of glaze, tempera and acrylic paint offered an avenue for students to unlock secret images and to stir firy imaginations. Twenty-four sharpened pencils of varying lengths stood in the rows of drilled holes in a piece of wood on the teacher's desk. 244 The varying signs of preparation symbolized, in a way, a level of preparedness for educating students. Although the art room furniture was functional—adequate for facilitating solid learning-the room would never be photographed for an advertising brochure of the leading national furniture manufacturer whose huge industrial complex was within two miles of the school. Much of the early activity in the art room was devoted to designing stationery to sell in order to raise money for a trip to a large city. Even though I knew otherwise from earlier observation, for a time it seemed that art to sell and preparation for commercial art dominated the curriculum. This came as a surprise because Mrs. B0 was a college graduate of the 19703 and was probably influenced by the educational philosophy which stressed art as personal expression. But there was little encouragement for students to respond to life through art. Assignments ranged from designing stationery and mechanical, one- point-perspective drawing to making color wheels and filling in predrawn lines. These seemed like the kinds of activities appropriate to an authoritarian, working-class school, foreshadowing the boredom of possible future assembly-line occupations. Mrs. Bo's insistence on punctuality in class fit Anyon's and Wilcox's research demonstrating that teachers educate students according to their social level and presupposed vocational aspirations. A Depressed State Further observations made me annoyed with the amount of time students wasted. Work on assignments seemed to drag interminably. This along with the lack of visually inspiring display, the consistently unraised window shades, and the failure of teachers' contract negotiations led to a grim view of the academic recewion. Besides this, the diffith students in the Advanced Art class argued with Mrs. Bo in a quarreling. way that seemed disrespectful to me. It was deprewing. 245 Discoveries As time passed it became apparent that not all of Mrs. Bo's assignments were so confining. Only in the Introductory Art class did a preoccupation with design dominate. Junior high students created delightful clay images for their model lockers and some Advanced Art students developed expressive illustrations. Craig's _Cgmgg parodied life at the school itself. These expressions began to fit Langer's definition of the function of art—"to objectify feeling . . . to articulate life of feeling of individuals to make them conscious of its elements and intricate and subtle fabric" (Langer, 1962, p. 242). Students began to reveal their individuality through their art. Some students were more aware of art as expression because of their social-class orientation. Bourdieu's findings helped _to explain why Jean prodded some students to be expressive while she let others remain at the level of making a picture of objects for its own sake (1977 ). I was frustrated that students did not seem to gain an understanding of why Picasso made art and the expressive content in his work. However, Philip Jackson explained that Jean's observation of her students' lack of interest in Picasso's expression was probably realistic (persoonal communication, October, 1983). While he too supported Boyer's concern for more equality in education, Jackson suggested that perhaps all that can be expected of lower-class students today is an initial acquaintance with some form and subject of art masterpieces (Boyer, 198 I). But how could Ann's interest in making her illustration "more eerie" be explained? James Buschman rekindled my hope for education when he suggested that Ann's case demonstrated that in proper circumstances growth can occur and students can overcome their social-clas limitations (personal communication, February, 1984). 246 Concluding Response After traveling through the darkness of cloudy issues I feel challenged to provide future and present teachers with some insights into the working-class perspective of art, taking into account the realities of the non-expressive, non- reflective nature of the working class and the general attitudes these people hold for art generally. Nevertheless, the openness of some lower-middle class students to expressiveness in their art and in high art of the masters suggested there was hope for expanding the vision of lower-class students. Furthermore, exceptional students like Craig and Barnie used popular culture as a way of explaining life today. Aware teachers in these kincs of situations can instill a respect for the relationship between art—popular art and high art-and contemporary, everyday human life. Art teachers should guide students to reflect on the societal causes for popular art which are usually unconscious—to break up what William James called the "blooming, buzzing confusion" of sense perception "into units and groups, events, and chains of events, causes and effects" (Langer, 1962, p. 242). It is up to the teacher to help students gain self-knowledge and insights into phases of the life and mind which wring from an artistic imagination. APPENDIX G Recommendations for Future Implementation of Methodology 1. 247 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION OF METHODOLOGY By bringing original art into interviews participants could comment on specific artistic qualities. Make a comparative study of students' art done out of class either within one school or engaging schools representing more than one socioeconomic class. Students' art in lockers is an example. Audio tape recordings and photographs were helpful for later examination. Color photography presented a dilemma. Color was helpful for analysis of students' art, but sometimes difficult in publication. A combination of black and white photographs for everything plus color photographs of colored art is worth considering. Further investigation of why students took art classes could have been facilitated through observation of academic counseling. Visits to students' homes, other family gathering places, and churches would broaden even further an understanding of the context in which people select gfljfacts for their lives. LIST OF REFERENCES REFERENCES Abrams, M. D. (] 953). The mirror and the lamp. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Amdursky, M. (] 983). 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