Nov 21st Session 8C

Presentation 1: Agents of Change in Art Education in Francophone Quebec (1940-2006): From Drawing to Multimodality, Suzanne Lemerise & Moniques Richard

This presentation will focus on the decades ranging from 1960 to 2000, a period in which modernist and postmodernist art education replaced traditional drawing education. Between 1968 and 2001, Quebec programs underwent three important changes (1968; 1981-82; 2001-2006), both on the primary school and high school levels. In regards to the history of Quebec art education, Leah Sherman and I have extensively examined the influence of the major European and American movements, while also strongly highlighting the cultural and structural factors which underpin a milieu’s development (Lemerise and Sherman, 1990; 2006). Moreover, we have analyzed the recent changes in practices linked to the programs (Richard and Lemerise, 1998; Richard, 2012). The present research studies the internal dynamic of a disciplinary field in which innovative leaders succeed in bringing changes to the official programs. On a methodological level, the emphasis is placed on the various paths the leaders took and on the organizational and institutional mechanisms whereby the changes were officialised within the state programs.

This proposition raises a number of underlying questions? Who are the leaders, where are they located and how do they take action? In what educational, cultural and social context are these changes legitimized and then institutionalized? As we will see, the various paths do not necessarily share similarities or invariable features, for the issues are different: radical paradigm change in the 60s and, at the same time, a response to a specific social demand in relation to new media; an enrichment of educational practices through a knowledge of art in the 80s, followed by an in-depth questioning of modernism’s limits, and then a multimodal approach to teaching based on an understanding of youth culture (2000s). We also show how the official programs take the desire for change into account, but often at the expense of surprising compromises.

Presentation 2: Sara Joyner: Virginia’s First Art Supervisor, David Burton & Pearl Quick

Sara Joyner (1900-1967) was the first art supervisor in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the first woman state art supervisor in the United States. Although she was born and raised in the segregated south, she demonstrated courage, insight and determination in the development and advocacy of art education for all students, both black and white.

Joyner began her art teaching career in the public schools of Virginia and New York. Later she became the Director of Art Education for the Richmond (VA) schools. In 1945, she became Virginia’s first art supervisor, establishing art curricula, accreditation standards for art teachers, and art graduation requirements for high school students.

Joyner was instrumental in organizing a Negro Art Section of the Virginia Art Education Association, and in 1947 she was able to hire Mary Godfrey as a Negro Assistant Supervisor of Art Education. This was a daring and important move in the segregated south of that era. Joyner and Godfrey worked closely together to assure a quality art education for every child in Virginia. They developed the first Virginia Department of Education art education curriculum guide.

Joyner was also instrumental in the formation of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), serving as NAEA’s first Vice-President. Sara Joyner contributions to art education were formidable but deserve recognition.

Presentation 3: Ziegfeld and Marantz: Pioneers of Culturally Inclusive Art Education, Marjorie Cohee Manifold

The field of art education owes immeasurably to the tireless efforts of Edwin Ziegfeld (1905-1987), from his pre-WWII involvement with the Owatonna Project (Ziegfeld & Smith, 1944) to his organizational work as founding father and first president of both the National Art Education Association (NAEA) (1947–1951) and the International Society for Education through Art (InSEA) (1954–1960). Transcripts of an interview with Ziegfeld that were published in an early USSEA journal (Gregory, 1987), reveal little known details about the experiences and influences that motivated Ziegfeld to campaign for comprehensive, inclusive national and international art education. While annual awards are given by USSEA to art educators, whose scholarly works honor Ziegfeld’s insistence that culturally inclusive art education fosters tolerance, appreciation, and mutual respect among diverse peoples, few published accounts iterate or the his ideas.

Ken Marantz (1927-2015), was concerned that imposing the arts and art educational practices of more powerful mainstream societies (through media, school curricula, and instructional practices) on less empowered groups, marginalized the personhood and unique aesthetic contributions of people from less visible groups (Marantz, 1987). This, he argued, fostered human discord. While perhaps best known for his advocacy of multi-cultural picture books for children, Marantz also was founding father and first president of the United States Society for Education through Art (USSEA). He saw culturally inclusive art education as nurturing appreciative understanding and mutual respect among diverse ethic groups within the United States, a nation comprised overwhelmingly of immigrants and descendants of immigrants. Yet, except for a digitally recorded interview conducted by Enid Zimmerman with Marantz (Marantz Interview: Parts 1-5), little has been published regarding his historically important ideas and activities that led to the establishment of USSEA.

In a contemporary world of competing ideologies, with ever deepening divides between ethnic, tribal, religious, cultural, national and international groups, the ideas of these two men might once again speak to us with an immediate relevancy. This presenter invites us to revisit the ideas of Ziegfeld and Marantz as revealed through archival documents of USSEA.

Recently, USSEA has moved to make its public archives, which were contained in a dozen boxes hidden away in the Special Collections section of a Southern university library. The materials include letters, personal correspondences, and writings of Ziegfeld, Marantz, and other officers, and prominent members of InSEA and USSEA. With information gleaned from these newly opened archives, the presenter will explore cosmopolitan ideas of Ziegfeld and Marantz that affirm potentials of art education for seeding harmony among peoples.