In Pursuit of the Intrinsic Value of Art Education

Musings from my Early Years as an Art Educator: Encounters with Art Teaching and Learning in Singapore

Last Supper After Pollock (2024). 1 x 3 meters. Acrylic, food crumbs, food wrappers, plastic cutlery, pencil & eraser shavings. Abstract Expressionist exploration created collaboratively with JC1 art class of 2025.

“It’s hard to get a job with an art degree. You probably became a teacher only because you couldn’t find any other jobs after graduating, right?”

This comment by a former art student in my GCE A-Level Art class served as a reminder about how hegemonic schools of thought and sentiments of pragmatism still persist in Singapore’s mainstream education system today. Her apprehension towards pursuing art in higher education was not uncommon amongst her peers, reflecting their limited perspectives towards the discipline. To find out about some experiences and perceptions that my non-teaching peers have of art and art education, I interviewed individuals who attended the same secondary school and Junior College as me. While most had majored and later pursued careers in non-creative fields, they were not entirely oblivious about art. In most of their secondary school art lessons, students were allowed to choose from a wide variety of modules like fashion design, ceramics, and printmaking, in addition to foundational technical drawing and painting lessons. However, they were often unable to make connections between art and their professional lives. As I reflect on our conversations, I contemplate on possible ways in which art education can be reframed and reconstructed to uncover the intrinsic values of art beyond pragmatism and utilitarianism.

Practice and Production

“It was mainly to help me discern if I like or don’t like something…art lessons had more entertainment value than educational value or use-value for me.”

While many of my interlocutors had the opportunity to explore a variety art mediums and technical artmaking skills in secondary school, they concluded that these explorations and skills are not relevant or useful to them at present. One former secondary school classmate shared that she was only able to approach each medium at surface-level, as opposed to a deeper exploration of the potentials afforded by each medium. Eisner writes that “brief excursions into materials limits rather than expands experience.” (Eisner, 1974, p. 99) To navigate more purposeful uses and understanding of medium for artistic production, students need to experience art practice in more authentic contexts and settings, through which they can generate valuable leaning points and cognitions from the knowledge and skills being taught.

In attempt to compare these experiences with several others whose secondary school art lessons placed emphasis on a limited range of mediums. I interviewed a former A-Level art classmate from Junior College who currently specialises in Mathematics. He recalls spending much of his art lessons refining his skills in drawing and shading with pencils and charcoals to achieve realism. In local secondary schools, it may not be uncommon to find similar formalistic modes of teaching art. These practices have been observed to result in polished but homogenous-looking works in national examinations, which “did not go unnoticed by examiners who remarked that many of them were so impersonal that it could have been produced by the same candidate.” (Chong, 2017, p. 120) Although Behaviourist drill and practice approaches that he had experienced can impart tangible skills onto students, providing students with the experience of creating art in a more independent and experimental manner could be beneficial for their learning.

The teaching of artistic mediums need not exist in a vacuum, and students can engage in artmaking beyond application of technical skills to create realistic representation. Studio Thinking Habits can convey the transformative power of art, to “translate ideas and feelings into public visual form, and appreciate relations between art and its cultural contexts.” (Eisner, 1974, p. 94) In his writing on the function of the art studio, Buren suggests that in the studio, the artist becomes the critic, organiser, and curator over their own work. (Buren, 1979) Studio-based learning provides a platform for students to think and work like professional artists, as they engage in decision-making, planning, and curating, in addition to developing technical skills and control and selection of materials. Through close observations and analyses about the qualities of a medium and envisioning of how it can be applied most effectively represent their subject matter, students can “learn to attend to visual contexts more closely than ordinary looking requires.” (Hetland, Winner, Veenema, & Sheridan, 2013, p. 6)

Drawing from my interlocutors’ experiences, a role of the teacher in studio-based classrooms could be centered around conducting demonstrations of controlling and manipulating different mediums. A key component of studio-based learning, visual demonstrations “illuminate complex multistep thinking that might otherwise be difficult to understand and remember.” (Hetland, Winner, Veenema, & Sheridan, 2013, p. 21) When learning about different art mediums, modelling their uses can deepen knowledge and understanding about the physical qualities of each medium to apply them more effectively and purposefully, instead of merely using them as tools for production. Contrary to how their art teachers in the past had only provided minimal comments for students’ works, I would like to instead adopt more “individualized interventions” (Hetland, Winner, Veenema, & Sheridan, 2013, p. 25) to deliver feedback and formative modes of assessment more effectively and promptly, in ways that are specific and relevant to students’ progress.

From these exchanges, I inferred that many of my interlocutors’ secondary school art experiences had largely focused on the production and completion of artworks, lacking opportunities for evaluation and reflection, which are important processes in art practice. Apart from receiving feedback from teachers, the critique component in studio-based learning can provide a sense of authenticity as well as a collaborative dimension to artmaking. One of the hallmarks of critique is to “make explicit and analyse the decision that went into making a piece.” (Hetland, Winner, Veenema, & Sheridan, 2013, p. 27) As students learn to verbalise about their work, they are encouraged to be more aware and conscious about their applications of mediums, while developing alternatives to improve their work in response to others’ critique. Critique also places greater importance on students’ art and labour, since they use their own works for points of discussion and learning, allowing learners to find meaning in art aside from its practical functions.

The ‘Study’ of Art

“What’s there to inquire in art? …if you mess up, you can just find out why you messed up and learn from your mistakes…But people don’t go in-depth into thinking when making decisions for art.”

Such was one of my interlocutors’ response when asked about the place of research and inquiry in artmaking. Due to the nature of her secondary school art lessons, she might not have had the opportunity to engage in investigative processes while completing her artworks. Similarly, in my classroom teaching, I had observed that associations between complex thought and art practice may not be immediately visible to students. In conventional schools of thought, art is “regarded as concrete rather than abstract, emotional rather than mental…imaginary rather than practical,” (Eisner, 2002, p. 35) as shown in her statement. On the other hand, a selected few whom I had conversed with believe that inquiry is inherent in creative modes of production, especially for those well-versed in the sciences and mathematics, and not accustomed to the conventional underpinnings and rigor of art practice. As forms of Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) are known to have emerged from the fields of science and mathematics, it was perhaps not unusual for many learners including my peers and I to “approach art from a science point-of-view” back when we were students.

Despite IBL’s roots in the sciences, inquiry skills are embedded in artmaking processes, including innovation, analytical skills, decision-making, and problem-solving; and art education need not be antithetical to academia. From a Constructivist school of thought, the art classroom is an ideal space for building metacognitions and “invites creative approaches to pedagogy,” (Marshall & D’Adamo, 2011, p. 10) where students learn to view and create art beyond literal forms of representation. This is applicable even to prescriptive teaching models reflected in the experiences from several of my peers. For example, students can be tasked to experiment with different ways of applying pencils or charcoals, and evaluate which ones effectively convey their ideas or intended visual impacts. It would also be opportune for students to examine the drawing techniques of other artists and question the functions of realistic representation. Back when I was a student, there were instances were my art teachers had unconsciously implemented structured inquiry, as students worked semi-independently to complete their artworks using templates. (Banchi & Bell, 2008) There is perhaps potential to move towards open inquiry, with open-ended tasks and independent research about the medium or concept with which to create an artwork.

Drawing back to pragmatism, skills and competencies in research and innovation acquired through IBL can be applied to creative industries and the cultural economy. One may refer to the art education programs of the German Bauhaus, where students were trained in conceptual thinking and analytical skills to address design tasks and invent practical solutions. (Eisner, 2002) Innovation, as part of IBL processes, is a much sought-after skill in industry organisations, notably in opportunities for problem-solving to design and invent solutions. (Acar & Tuncdogan, 2019) The IBL framework can help equip students with skills to generate ideas and execute these ideas into works of art, design, and products. Furthermore, as one of the philosophies of IBL is student autonomy, students would be led to problem-solve and execute their work with minimal instruction, which prepares them for future professional practices.

Intersections of artistic practice with metacognition in IBL can challenge the boundaries of students’ imagination to transform ideas into form and visuals, or making something out of nothing. Medium and technique become secondary to creating works of art that generate meaning, thought, and discourse. This is evident in many art movements such as Situationism (Debord, 1957) and relational aesthetics (Bourriaud, 1996) which are often at the forefront of the roles of art in ethnography. These practices have indeed gained traction in recent years with the rise of global socio-political movements. Relational art such as performance art and activist art suggest the relevance of IBL in art education, as they raise important questions and seek to challenge the institution or existing socio-cultural phenomena, prompting reflection and dialogue in art-making to formulate ideas or solutions in larger everyday contexts. They mediate intersubjective encounters between the artist and viewers, in which “meaning is elaborated collectively rather than in the privatised space of individual consumption.” (Bishop, 2004, p. 54) This compels greater student engagement with the issues that art addresses.

In line with discourses on metacognition in art, another comment by an interlocutor stood out to me: “You can learn about art critique and theory in General Paper in Junior College…so it’s not really art-specific.” In response, I refer to the place and treatment of art in general education, to teach concepts and ideas specific to art practice and theories. The Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE) approach offers a set of well-rounded disciplines that frame the subject of art. (Greer, 1987) Although art-related topics are indeed being addressed in General Paper, they are usually discussed as current affairs in general local or global contexts. (Ministry of Education, 2023) On the other hand, DBAE makes available avenues for learning structured around art as a discipline, whereby art education becomes its own rhetoric. Students learn to examine and respond to different elements in art, including subject matter, form, historical background, and artists’ intentions, which in turn inform them about the creation of their own works. (Greer, 1987) Such approach to art education could be useful to address concerns about the value of art as subject of study.

Encountering Everyday Aesthetic Experiences

“When people ask “Can you do art?” you will straightaway think of someone who can draw really well and paint really well.”

One key recurring concern throughout my conversations pointed towards concerns that art education appears to place an emphasis on proficiency in drawing and painting, as well as stereotypical mindsets about art in Singapore. When asked to elaborate on the relationship between students’ enjoyment and deliberate pursuit of art, one of my interlocutors remarked, "They don’t know that there’s a whole world of art that doesn’t require drawing and painting…” This led me to consider the impacts that institutional definitions of art can have on students’ perceptions of it. In a re-examining of the definition of ‘good’ art and how art can be defined in educational frameworks, it is important to recognise the evolving and emerging multivocalities in our current social, cultural, and political trends. Visual Culture in Art Education (VCAE) proposes a means for students to view and experience images in relation to these phenomena and to our time, instead of confining one within a limited selection of art forms.

Gell’s anthropological theory on the agency of art (Gell, 1998) critiques the evaluation of art based on standards of classical art history, which neglects its social, cultural, and political significance. In place of traditional visual language, he proposes works of art as social agents that are “relational, context-dependent, and non-classificatory”, (Gell, 1998, p. 22) highlighting specific socio-cultural contexts within which art is produced and circulated. With reference to Gell, art education can place greater emphasis on social and cultural values of art, illustrating how works of art, including those created by students, are inextricably linked to influences from the everyday. Likewise, proponents of VCAE “reject formalistic uses of principles of design in favour of symbolic uses suggesting multiple extended social meanings.” (Freedman & Stuhr, 2004, p. 820) VCAE approaches reveal the significance and role of art in students’ own everyday lived experiences, as social agents that generate meaning and discourse from these experiences.

With the advent of technology and digital media, art education can include visual culture content, such as animation, design, and advertising, (Freedman, 2003) which have become commonplace and integral to our social landscapes. Students can be introduced to different genres of art in everyday encounters, instead of conventional and stereotypical definitions of art that they may be accustomed to. There were instances in my classroom teaching where I had to convince students that their favourite video games and manga are forms of art that they can refer to and analyse for subject matter and visual qualities like style, linework, and colour schemes. As such, it is necessary to illustrate and make explicit to students that in our contemporary climate, it is “less important to focus education on making distinctions between higher and lower art.” (Freedman, 2003, p. 16) Visual cultures help blur the boundaries between fine art and popular mass media, redefining students’ perspectives of how images are manipulated, reproduced, and presented. Additionally, teaching digital media skills and aesthetic sensitivities, like in graphic design and content creation, can be beneficial for professional fields.

The VCAE framework also offers a fluid and organic approach to appreciating art. Its hybrid and multidisciplinary nature, which brings in other fields of study into art, embody how people “negotiate, resist, and appropriate meanings of images in terms of their cultural predispositions.” (Duncum, 2002, p. 8) In addition to being an aesthetic medium, art can mediate experiences of cultural difference in which students’ worldviews and interpretations inform art education. This is highly relevant in Singapore’s multi-racial and multi-cultural landscape. Through VCAE approaches, students can channel personal experiences into art, which Eva comments should be “about understanding based on my own beliefs”, instead of using prescribed canonical structures. They would be able to view diverse ways in which others negotiate and respond to objects and images based on their socio-cultural dispositions, encouraging peer-learning in class. VCAE can thus help students appreciate multicultural and cross-cultural nuances embedded in art, bringing art out of the confines of the classroom and into the everyday, and “recognising the ambiguities, conflicts, nuances, and ephemeral qualities of social experience.” (Freedman & Stuhr, 2004, p. 821)

Conclusion

In my interviews and conversations, many brought up the notions of self-expression and creativity as takeaways from art education. As we consider possible teaching methodologies and approaches for art education, an intrinsic value and source of motivation in artmaking would be the creative and aesthetic experiences that one encounters. Beyond the skills, knowledge, and research processes it offers, an essential contribution of art education is the provision of space and time to pursue and explore what one’s imaginative capacities can bring forth. The intrinsic educational and aesthetic values of art education lie in experiences and explorations that students encounter during lessons to share about their emotional landscapes and lived environment with others. Such cognitive impacts enable students to become more reflexive and introspective in their own thinking and making processes, as they learn, create, and dialogue about art.

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References

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Banchi, H., & Bell, R. (2008). The Many Levels of Inquiry. Science & Children , 26–29.

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Hetland, L., Winner, E., Veenema, S., & Sheridan, K. (2013). Making the Case for the Arts. In L. Hetland, E. Winner, S. Veenema, & K. Sheridan, Studio Thinking 2: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (pp. 1–8). New York: Teachers’ College Press.

Hetland, L., Winner, E., Veenema, S., & Sheridan, K. (2013). Studio Structures for Learning. In L. Hetland, E. Winner, S. Veenema, & K. Sheridan, Studio Thinking 2: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (pp. 20–29). New York: Teachers’ College Press.

Marshall, J., & D’Adamo, K. (2011). Art Studio as Thinking Lab: Fostering Metacognition in Art Classrooms. Art Education, 10–16.

Ministry of Education. (2023, February 10). Singapore-Cambridge GCE A-Level General Paper Syllabus. Retrieved from Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board: https://www.seab.gov.sg/docs/default-source/national-examinations/syllabus/alevel/2024syllabus/8881_y24_sy.pdf

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Disclaimer: This writing draws on my personal experiences and interactions. It is not intended to represent the state of art education across all schools in Singapore, nor does it reflect the views or policies of education ministry.