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Literacy, numeracy and now 'visuacy' for schools (Read 820 times)
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Literacy, numeracy and now 'visuacy' for schools
Aug 15th, 2008 at 2:52pm
 
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24183638-2702,00.html

SCHOOL students should study Picasso alongside pictures of Elle Macpherson's underwear as part of a recasting of visual arts education away from traditional forms to include images of all kinds.

A federal government report, released yesterday, argues for visual education, or "visuacy", to take its place alongside literacy and numeracy as a foundation skill in compulsory schooling.

The National Review of Visual Education calls for a rethinking of arts education in schools to end the distinction between art and other images and to overcome the idea that the purpose of visual arts is to train artists.

"One of the problems besetting visual education ... has been the perception that its role is to train artists rather than to educate all students visually," the report says.

"In the compulsory years of schooling, its role is to achieve visuacy for all students in the same way that mathematics achieves numeracy and English achieves literacy."

The report says visual arts should follow the example of English, which transformed from a focus on literature to a study of all forms of communication including emails, websites, junk mail and television shows.

"In much the same way that one might conceptualise a continuum of texts in the context of the English classroom, one might similarly do so in relation to a continuum of images from the most banal to the most aesthetically complex and challenging," it says.

It cites the example of scrutinising the "conditions of value and meaning" in images as diverse as Macpherson's bras and briefs on the back of a bus or on a billboard, a blood-strewn road safety advertisement on television, Picasso's Guernica reproduced in the pages of a book of 20th century European art and the television transmission of a collapsing World Trade Center.

"Given the specialised discipline expertise necessary to interpret and create images, it is thus no longer either defensible or responsible for the visual arts educator to focus only at the traditional end of the spectrum," it says.

The report runs counter to the position of the Rudd Government in its pursuit of a national school curriculum, in which it is advocating a return to the study of traditional disciplines in the national curriculum.

Education Minister Julia Gillard said the report was commissioned by the former Coalition government, and the Rudd Government was concentrating on the four core subjects of English, maths, science and history in developing a national curriculum.

"This reflects the Government's firm view that students must be competent in the foundation disciplines," she said.

National Association for the Visual Arts executive director Tamara Winikoff, who sat on the review steering committee, endorsed the report's findings, and said the full spectrum of visual representation had to be taught in schools. "It encompasses both the traditional territories of art but also the use of all kinds of visual imagery in every-day communication," she said.

"There's no point just doing an analysis of contemporary popular culture without understanding the sources from which it draws its references and, equally, no point in only looking at art history, the formal territories of the visual arts, without seeing how broadly these apply across the full spectrum of communication," Ms Winikoff said.

Artist and cartoonist on The Australian Bill Leak said he agreed to the extent that Coke commercials exist because of Salvador Dali and surrealism, but placing a painting such as Guernica in the same basket asElle Macpherson's lingerie ads was trivialising the painting.

"It's like saying the noise of a foghorn, because it's a noise, is something you can compare to Beethoven's Fifth," he said. "They might both be noises but there's a world of difference. When it comes to art like Guernica, in order to understand what a majestic, overwhelming thing it is, you first have to know something about the language of painting as distinct from the language of photography and the language of advertising."

The report calls for "visuacy" to be a fundamental part of the curriculum for all students until Year 10, and recommends better training of specialist and generalist teachers in visual arts and the establishment of partnerships with museums and galleries to broaden students' experience.

"In re-conceptualising the curriculum, it is thus critical both to build visuacy in its own right as a curriculum fundamental, and in addition, to develop ways in which its integral partnership with literacy and numeracy can be maximised," it says.

"This will necessitate de-mystification of visual education as an elite area accessible only to aficionados and those with exceptional artistic talent."

Another member of the review's steering committee, Australian Secondary School Principals Association president Andrew Blair, said the report's recognition of the importance of visual learning was long overdue.
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