INTERDICTION
The study of Arts Education has been looked down upon for the past few decades in Saudi Arabia. More emphasis have been directed towards sciences such as engineering, medicine and mathematical courses. This is a problem that is prevalent in this kingdom to the point of pushing the ministry of higher education to consider reviewing the curriculum by developing an Art Education curriculum. This problem adopts a Discipline-based Art Education as the backbone of this project. The ministry of higher education is responsible for investigating, exploring and highlighting the merits associated with this program on developing Art Education in our institutions of learning. Additionally, through the developed approach by the ministry of higher education that would be able to provide a more balanced and integrated form of learning and also that would be able to lead to a sequenced and systematic acquisition of knowledge all through the grades. The ministry of higher education and ministry of Education has led to the student’s curriculum that reforms Art in providing both technical and serious people. Nonetheless, despite the great importance of arts education especially in middle and elementary schools, the emphasis and importance placed on this subject appears undervalued. The ministry of higher education does not focus in curriculum planning, and therefore teachers rarely teach Art education according to the specific learning objectives. The purpose of this paper is explaining the condition of the theoretical foundations ofArt education curriculum in Saudi Arabia.
Historical of art education curriculum in Saudi Arabia in:
- Higher education
The history of art education in Saudi Arabia’s higher educations is connected to the history of general education. The term art education appeared during the late 60’s. During this time, art in the higher education entailed classes that were referred to as drawing and crafts lessons only. The classroom teachers were by then guiding their students in duplicating or copying pictures that have been drawn on the blackboard using a chalk. Therefore, the children were deprived of the room to be creative or acquire the true knowledge about art.
- Universities
It is in the university curriculum where the creative self-expression model of art education that was student-centre came into prominence. In this level of education, more emphasis on the therapeutic benefits and fostering of personal growth that is associated with philosophy that compelled the decision makers in the ministry of education consider including art in the general curriculum. With the graduation of the first batch of art specialist form the art institute of Riyadh, in 1974, building capacity on children arts ability has been increasing day by day (Felamban, 2007, p.17).
The theoretical foundations of Art education curriculum development:
The goal of art education is to strive and expose the students to knowledge in and about arts. In addition, unlike the traditional form of education prior to curriculum development, this type of practice was not included. Nonetheless, its inclusion may however improve students’ visually literacy and its outcome be a great achievement to the core goals of the curriculum. It is also worth noting that Arts education in Saudi Arabia are highlighting the importance of applying religious guidelines, which came into practice during the era of the Prophet Mohammad, to modern-day life. According to my experience when I taught as a lecturer in Art education in King Abdul-Aziz University between the year 2002 and 2004, During this period of time, I managed to teach the students a number of course, as part of my personal experience and the observation that I made, all the students are supposed to do all their projects as instructed. I further noticed that there were really weak standards on evaluating their work, more than 60% of the grade is dependent on the teacher’s opinion and style of teaching. Therefore, I am of the opinion that the major problem with the curriculum in Art education was not due to the curriculum design but in the strategies which are adopted for both instructional and evaluation purposes.
- Sources Of curriculum in art education:
In regard to the sources of curriculum in art education, the knowledge-centered approach entails the ability to think and reflect on various issues through the aspect of strengthening ideas, conceptions and assumptions by arranging them in meaningful ways. In knowledge centered, learning highlights the imperative role of the teacher especially in setting up the “course” of learning. Since the advent of the 21st century, the growth of curriculum development, discipline based groups have largely contributed in many ways to organize knowledge and skills. On the other hand, community centered source of curriculum in art education is founded on the notion that the society should be also part of the learning process. Nonetheless, learner-centered learning acts as one of the most crucial sources of curriculum in art since they are to engage the student in their own goals and a willingness to construct new knowledge.
The validity of the sources of the curriculum has been a subject of discussion for as long as the introduction of art education took place. The learner-centered form of art education has been one of the most practiced forms of teaching arts. A curriculum’s strength arguably lies in the means that provides a clear student’s progress to the teacher. The new curriculum has managed to incorporate all the sources of the curriculum in art educations by providing the teacher with an innovative method that can be able to assess the students’ performance and ultimately evaluate the instructions given.
- Curriculum Orientation in art education:
Art education in Saudi Arabia is termed to being essentialism in nature and the result of this study is clear that the curriculum in art in this kingdom is far away from being progressivism. In many occasions, one is compelled to ask about the type of education that we desire for our children. The teacher holds order in the classroom and directs the students according to their perspective, therefore, just as the concept of essentialism dictates, the teacher is one of the most vital part of the classroom. Upon asking what kind of education that we would want for our children, the terms essentialism and progressivism are hard to ignore in this context. Essentialism and Progressivism are terms that are known to represent two distinct schools of educational theory and are known to be in conflict since time immemorial. The conflict is largely based on variously constructs, which can be paired as opposites such as discipline vs. freedom, effort vs. interest, logical organisation vs. psychological organisation etc.
Essentialism is coined on the idea that everything has an essential nature to it. Since any work of art has three fundamental aspects attached to them: technical, emotional and aesthetic, when all of these three variables have been combined they result into an essentialist piece. According to the example in the Aesthetic eye curriculum project, students are given a lesson in printing through the aspect of introducing extra activities in the quest to making them create an interest in fostering their passion. Progressive theoretical construct entails the belief that an educational curriculum should be based upon the actual living of an individual. This is the type of curriculum that begins with a child’s interest and then gradually prepares them to undertake various socially responsible roles. On the other hand, essentialism entails gripping and enduring various interests frequently and in the order of higher interests which may grow out of the first or initial learning efforts that may not have been attractive in the beginning.
The Essentialism in Art education curriculum:
Essentialism in art education is meant to emphasize the idea of the teacher’s authority in the classroom. Essentialism therefore condemns all other styles of teaching that may otherwise not be in line with the style of essentialism. It appears to be the most suited theoretical construct that would be applicable on art curriculum according to the teacher’s perspective. It this study that This is because educational essentialism is a theoretical construct that purports that children should endeavour to learn the traditional basic subjects and also learn them thoroughly and rigorously. It teaches children from the less complex skills into more complex with a major focus on writing, reading arts, languages and music. It is considered the best theory with regard to this topic of study since it argues that the freedom of the immature learner in choosing whatever they desire to learn should never be compared with his future freedom from want, error and oppression. Therefore, essentialism is a great theory of education that can be used to promote interest and further promote learning art education in Saudi Arabia.
The proponents of essentialism are normally of the view that the general state of education should be a fine combination of both hard work and effort. For instance, Islamic art department aims at preparing the student with technically completed preparation which qualifies her to be artist that have special activity in the field of fine arts, and give her the opportunity to work in institutions that relates to the arts, in the context of the commitment of Islam teaching, and preservation of the ancient artistic heritage of kingdom (Felamban, 2007, p.133). The study that I have included in this paper is a clear example of how essentialism as the teacher’s perspective and not progressivism is an imperative approach to arts education curriculum.
The major approach used in this form of research entailed a type of data collection that appears to be descriptive in nature. It goes further to examine the current education curriculum especially with regard to its content analysis, the interview of various developers and also examining the feedbacks that are included in the data collection process. Using previous data from various research studies, I will investigate the characteristics of art teachers, their guidelines and teaching strategies, the general attitude towards art education and the ways that have been formulated to develop teaching art education in schools.
The study entails a total of 237 Saudi Arabian Arts teachers in boy’s middle schools in Riyadh. In order to find the representative that would participate in this study, all the arts teachers in Riyadh were included in the study due to the low number of Arts teachers in this locality and in order to increase the preciseness of the final result of the study. In the study design for this endeavour, the state of Art educational programs in boy’s middle schools, as perceived by their art’s teachers were examined. It is a quantitative study where surveys were used especially for data collection. The use of questionnaires was among the major method of data collection. After giving out the questionnaires to the 273 arts teachers, there was recorded a 74.35% return rate, therefore, a total of 203 questionnaires were received as responses from the 273 sent. The data received for the participants of this empirical study will therefore be able to satisfy the ministry of higher education so as to push them in to formulate the relevant strategies in handling the current state of arts education in our schools.
Based on the findings from this empirical study evidence, it is obvious that the current state of teaching and learning Art education is at stake. Therefore, it is for the relevant and responsible education planners to consider redesigning the curriculum guide so as to be able to teach art education both in the middle and elementary schools. The teacher’s guide, textbooks among other vital teaching materials should become developed and also made available to the Art teachers. In addition, special attention ought to be placed on the specific training of the art teachers and also being more vigilant during the recruitment of arts teachers so that the teachers who do not possesses the self-will or interest in teaching arts to be dropped. According to my critical analysis, I am of the opinion that the ministry of higher education should consider employing both the community-based art education theory and the Discipline-based art Education in all the Saudi Schools (Alheezan, 2009, p.32). It is also imperative that the teachers seeks to create an interest in their students, through essentialism, they should consider organizing galleries and arts exhibitions which are meant to develop or create competition among themselves and also give them a chance of showcasing their talents (Smith, 1987).
- Methods of teaching in Art education:
The five widely used models of teaching: Mastery learning, cooperative learning, theory into practice, behavior modification, and nondirective teaching .I think, Theory into practice is that model are using cooperative learning in art education’s teachers in Saudi Arabia. Cooperative learning entails the mutual support from all the interested parties in the quest to developing and implementation of art curriculum. For instance, the teacher is expected to be the key source of motivation to the student in cooperative learning by encouraging them to progress with their artistic dreams. In Saudi Arabia, teaching art is focusing on how to improve student’s skills and encourage them to do a great project of arts. I think this way involved on negative impact on the students. Artistic beauty is not only the goal of art thus there are many goals of art that teacher has to achieve them during teaching art.
DISCUSSION
They set up a curriculum document in three sections. Section one dealt with the theoretical framework that addressed questions like why was the new art education curriculum needed, approaches and principles necessary for the curriculum as well as the objectives. It also checked the teaching strategies and modes of evaluation methods preferred. Section two composed of the practical work and it entailed the identification of goals and general objectives and proficiency in both grade and certain class levels. Section three concerned concepts which guide the scope i.e. the scope and sequence that shall guide elementary level 1-3, the scope and sequence that shall guide elementary level 4-6, the scope and guide foe intermediate levels, the detailed specification of teachers and students’ books as well as a detailed example of lesson plans (Smith, 1987). These steps in the development ensured that the curriculum contained enough content and practice that match the discipline based art education.
In addition, Major assumption of the Discipline-based art Education was as follows, every student gains certain knowledge, skills and experience in that could be measured and evaluated. Art education is equal to other subjects; the curriculum should be drawn from art history, art critics, aesthetics and also art production. The basic aspects that guide art education all over the world includes drawing, sculpture, painting, design in jewellery, pottery, weaving, fabrics and other specified fields that include graphics and furnishing of homes (Wilson, 1971, p.17). The contemporary art fields, which have impacted on the art education, is Saudi Arabia is film and video making, photography, computer aided design among others. Creativity and that untutored childhood expression are not necessarily creative and implementation, which is based on district-wide participation that ensure full effect of sequence and articulation.
The other question of study requires that we analyse the extent to what the curriculum contains the Discipline-based art Education. The content of the students book is designed such that is has activities related to what is taught in classroom. The contents of the contents of the teachers books included; an introduction on how to use the book, methods of identification of subject and the subject matter, a recommendation of the teaching strategies, an elaborate list of tools and media needed, guidelines on how use the assessment table provided, a detailed list of general and specific goals of every lesson, the scope and the sequential flow, list of suggestions and recommendations of alternative solutions and in-depth details of all units and lesson plans.
CONCLUSION
The notions included in the concept of essentialism states that arts education is a fine combination of hard work and effort. I conclude that if a student is interested in a certain subject that they may be studying and receive the relevant support from their teacher in accordance to the idea of essentialism, good results will be observed over time. This is very applicable in arts education curriculum in Saudi Arabia since the levels of interest in Arts education are recorded to be very low according to numerous previous research studies. Arguably, it is evidently clear that the art curriculum in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is articulated sequentially and systematically throughout the grades. Its goals, content, conception of learner, conception of teacher, implementation, creativity, and evaluation are clearly identified. The curriculum gives a chance to unify the input so that the output can be evaluated across the different districts, which adapted the curriculum. But it is evident that it requires a great deal of improvement since arts education still continues to be perceived as a minor subject. However there is need to integrate the curriculum with the current technology. Different countries world over are in the process of integrating the curriculum with modern technology and this would be a good revolution in the art education in Saudi Arabia.
References
Alheezan, A. A. (2009). Examining Art Education in Boys' Middle Schools in Saudi Arabia
in Riyadh.
Clark, G. Day, M. & Green, D. (1987). Discipline-Based Art Education: Becoming Students of Art. The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 21(21):129-193
Felamban, A. (2007). Saudi Artists, Saudi Arabian Association for Art and Culture, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Smith, R. A. (1986). Excellence in Art Education: Ideas and Initiatives. Reston, VA: National Art Education Association.
Smith, R. A. (1987). The Changing Image of Art Education: Theoretical Antecedent of Discipline-Based Art Education. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 21(2):3-34.
Wilson, B. (1971). Evaluation of Learning in Art Education. In B. Bloom, T. Hastings,& G, Madeus (Eds), Handbook On Formative And Summative Evaluative Of Student Learning (499-558). New York: McGraw-Hill.
