Arguments for Art in Education

Madalina Gheorghe-Tanase, PhD. University of Bucharest

Since modern times, the art, the aesthetic and the sensibility realm received a
decorative role, being completely separated from society and real life, and equivalent
to an area of refuge from reality. At the same time, contemporary education focuses
mainly on theoretical knowledge accumulation, keeping a distance from the sensorial
domain, the fundamental human ability to perceive and create forms, to express
feelings and convey meaning through the arts. The consequences of this situation are
to progressive aggravation of psychological and social imbalances due to the
inactivity of the practical and creative valences of the human being. But the situation
was not always similar: back in the cradle of European civilization, the ancient Greeks
educate their children through the formative influence of the musical arts, in the belief
that harmony and beauty leave their mark on the developing human personality. Thus,
great thinkers have argued formative role of art in education and society.

Many modern and contemporary thinkers, including Martin Heidegger and Hans-
Georg Gadamer, revealed the cognitive valence of art, arguing for the connection with
a type of truth and a type of knowledge inaccessible by scientific methods, knowledge
arising through the meanings of the artistic forms. Meanwhile, Howard Gardner and
Robert Sternberg, representatives of contemporary psychology, argued that there are
several types of learning and hence several types of intelligences, which brings
implications for educational methods, multiple intelligences being the argument for a
holistic, balancing perspective on education, for the training of the sensitive side of
human being, because art education or the education through art involves several
expressive languages and different types of intelligence.

The curriculum area corresponding to the arts is very poorly represented within our
formal education, leading to the emergence of non-formal contexts in which activities
of cultural and artistic education can take place. The formal education focusing on
theoretical knowledge accumulation and excessive testing led to numerous clubs,
museums and other organizations that currently offer courses and workshops for
children and adults during which, through artistic and practical methods and
techniques (arts, crafts, drama, music, dance) can be transmitted knowledges from
very different fields, from artistic-creative areas, to history, geography, science,
literature, languages, and so on.