Art, Artists and Teaching

In June of 2002, leaders from education and the arts gathered at Bennington College in Vermont to discuss the challenges facing arts education today. A collaboration between the college and the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Art, Artists and Teaching symposium was designed to explore new ways to infuse the creative impulses of the arts and artists info education in America, as well as new models of teaching and learning.

Ironically, the business community clamors for creative people, seen as the competitve key to innovating in a globalized conomy; but the educational system continues to put greater importance on mathematics, science, and other "hardcore" disciplines, which are seen as more "useful." The arts help to promote both the creative abilities and cultural literacy that are critical to developing fully engaged citizens in the global society.

- from the report Art, Artists and Teaching

Arts faculty from Bennington College—an institution that emphasizes an artistic and holistic apporach for individual development—first presented their pedagogical approaches, then all participants joined in a discussion of the implications for research, policy, and practice.

To talk about the artist's role in teaching is to talk about a pedagogy that encourages making, attending, problem solving, taking responsibility, and experienceing—hardly revolutionary concepts in themselves, but perhaps revolutionary in articulating the case for teaching art as fundamental—even critical—to developing a healthy and creative post-industrial society.

- from the report Art, Artists and Teaching