Judith M. Burton

Professional Background
Vitae
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Professional Background

Educational Background

National Diploma in Design, Hornsey College of Art, London; Academic Diploma in Education, University of London; M.Ed., University of Manchester; Ed.D., Harvard University

M.Ed. Thesis: Innovation in Art Education at the Secondary Level in France and England: A Comparative Study.
Ed.D. Thesis: Lines, Space, and the Organization of Meaning in Human Figure Drawings Made by Children Eight to Fifteen Years.

Scholarly Interests

Artistic-aesthetic development in children and adolescents.

Learning, and transfer of learning in the arts. Instructional methods in the arts. Role of artists in the education of children. Cultural experiences in arts education.

Selected Publications

Burton, J.M. & Hafeli, M. (Eds.), (due Fall 2009). Conversations in Art: The Dialectics of Teaching and Learning. Reston, VA: NAEA.

Burton, J.M., (Due Fall 2009). Guide for Teaching and Learning in the Visual Arts.

Burton, J. M. (2007). Conversations Across Cultures. In Al Hurwitz, Memory and Experience, Reston, VA: NAEA Press.

Burton, J.M. (2006). Drawing in the Service of the Mind. In Rolf Niehoff and Rainer Wenrich (Eds). Thinking and Learning with Images. Munich, Germany: Kopaed.

Burton, J. M. (2006). The Integrity of Personal Experience, or the Presence of Life in Art. International Journal of Arts Education. 3.2.

Burton, J.M., (2004). The Practice of Teaching: Devices and Desires .In Elliot Eisner, and Michael Day, (Eds.). The Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education. Reston, VA: National Art Education Association.

principal publications

studio

Maintaining a studio practice has threaded in and out of my teaching, writing and research these past years, apparently idiosyncratic, yet on reflection, not so!. I was originally trained as a painter and had the good fortune to study with Maurice deSausmerez, one of the most eminent painting teachers working in Great Britain in the 1960s. From him I acquired a great respect for the hand, the physical gesture, the mark, and the dynamics of its presence on a surface. As I now reflect on things, this, perhaps, is not surprising, as drawing has been at the center of my art practice since I was a child. For me drawing was and still is a private place, another world, in which to follow where my imagination leads. I think I have always drawn, and still do. For sometime now my drawings have taken the form of what one might call elaborate doodles, activations of surfaces: lines pushing, pulling and floating behind and in front of the flat paper. My drawings begin and go where they will, and only slowly do the lines come into relationships that hint at meanings, little messages that are multiply layered, each building on the other. I think these kinds of drawings call upon what I have termed ‘Sensory Logic’ in my more theoretical writings. They also refer to my abiding interest in the many and different ways in which we can explore the representation of the third dimension on the flat surface.

My sense is that the activity of the hand and body in consort with material provides part of the loop we call artistic intelligence, perhaps intelligence itself. We know that knowledge at its profoundest originates in and remains rooted to our bodily and emotional sensibilities. My fear is that as technology moves us further and further from actions on and with materials, and as we acquire more and more information, we will at the same time denude knowledge of its human meaning. Technology provides us with fantastic new tools, it is now up to us in arts education to use them with imagination to enrich what is central to all the arts—their humanness; the possibility they offer us all to stretch across time, space, and cultural differences and meet each other in human enterprise and community.

teaching

As I look back to the beginning of my teaching in a comprehensive secondary school in London, England, I see a set of concerns that have shaped the work I do. I remember only too vividly the young adolescent who said to me in my first year of teaching "I don’t like art and you can’t make me do it!" and another who said "show me how to make my drawing look real."

Over the ensuing years I have struggled to understand how, and for what reason, we can make art education compelling in young people’s education at a time when learning itself becomes problematic. I have also sought to ponder on the difference between my own sensibility as a trained artist and the experiences brought to artistic practice and appreciation by young people of different ages. Where does artistry come from, what is its trajectory and outcome? What is ''real'' anyway and why does this pose such critical questions for human experience, culture and art? Why do some of us feel so profoundly that art is important to life?

Out of such ponderings emerged a belief that we can, and should, educate teachers to reflect thoughtfully on their own artistic insights, be sensitive to and insightful about human development in general and in the arts specifically, and be able to translate the former into supports for the latter. Within this conception of education I also place personal agency and cultural knowledge, for it is imperative that teachers take in hand their own on-going learning and research for through this that they remain alive and young people in schools are empowered to inherit the artistic accumulations of history. Personal agency is also founded in relationship, and a growing sense of professionalism. For if we treat each other with respect and caring, as partners in a complex enterprise, if we practice professional integrity, then art education stands a chance of remaining a humanistic enterprise.

My own teaching reflects these concerns as they have been shaped over the years and as they continue to be shaped—both as a teacher and teacher educator. Each year, through work with an extraordinary vital faculty, wonderful doctoral students in research, and lively minded master students preparing to teach, my own thinking and practice move forward in many and surprising ways!

Judith teaches seven courses at Teachers College

biographical information

Judith Burton is Professor and Director of Art and Art Education, Columbia University Teachers College. Before that she was Chair of Art Education of Boston University and taught at the Massachusetts College of Art. She received her Ed. D. from Harvard University in 1980. Her research focuses on the artistic-aesthetic development of children and adolescents and the implications this has for teaching and learning. In 1995 co-founded the Center for Research in Arts Education at Teachers College, and in 1996, she founded the Heritage School a comprehensive high school featuring the arts, located in Harlem, NYC. She is author of numerous articles and chapters and currently has three books in process of publication: She received the Manuel Barkan Award for excellence in research writing, and the Lowenfeld Award for lifetime achievement in art education from NAEA. Dr, Burton is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts in Great Britain, a Distinguished Fellow of the NAEA, and serves as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing, China. She is also a Trustee of the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD.

research

My research interests of late center on a number of factors contributing to the artistic development of children, adolescents and young adults in college. Studies have included examination of such questions as: how teachers ''read'' and respond to children''s art works, how children and adolescents themselves respond aesthetically to paintings, how children’s artistic thinking extend to other disciplines and the role of professional artists in stimulating learning in the arts. In essence, my research interests relate to gaining deeper insight into the emergence and continuous development of visual symbolic capacities, and the factors that both promote and inhibit this journey. I am concerned to know more about how acts of artistry shape individual’s relationships with the world, the relationship between artistic thinking and aesthetic responding, and the mediating role played by the culture.

Recent Projects:

Investigation of the relationship of learning in and through the arts to other subject disciplines in K-12 schools.

Investigation of the sources of image making in the art-making practices of early adolescents (funded).

Investigation of the role of professional artists working in schools.

Investigation of the aesthetic responses of children, adolescents and adults to mature works of art: fine and material culture.

honors and awards

October 2010. Special Recognition Art Education Award for Outstanding Service and Leadership. From NYCATA/UFT.

March 2010. Recipient of the 2010 Edwin Ziegfeld Award for contribution to international art education. National Art Education Association.

December 2006. Special citation from the University Council for Art Education, NY, for significant contribution to art education.

December 2006. Special citation from the New York State Art Teachers Association, for leadership in art education.

December 2006. Special citation from the New York Public Schools, for contribution

to art education in the City schools.

March 2004. Elected Distinguished Fellow, National Art Education Association.

March 2001. The Lowenfeld Award, For Distinguished Contribution to the Field of Art Education Throughout the Years. Presented by the National Art Education Association.

March 2001. The Manuel Barkan Award, For Distinguished Research and Writing in Art Education. Presented by the National Art Education Association.

Spring 1995. Elected Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), London, England.

June 1993. Charles Robertson Memorial Award for 'Significant Contribution to Art Education in Both Theory and Practice.' The School Art League, New York.

1989. Art Educator of the Year, Eastern Region National Art Education Association.

A&HA 4080: Artistic development of children

Corequisite A&HA 4281. Required of all candidates seeking New York State art teacher certification (K-12). Recommended for all degree candidates in elementary education. An examination of the role of the senses, emotions, and intellect in artistic development and of the layered integrations they form over time. Discussion of ways in which developmental insights are basic to the design and implementation of exemplary visual arts lessons and offer critical starting points for research. Special fee: $30.

A&HA 4087: Processes and structures in the visual arts

Suggested for all students in all degree programs. Opportunity for in-depth and sustained exploration of the properties, structures, and expressive uses of selected art materials. The course aims to enrich and extend personal visual repertoires and in parallel, provoke insights into the role of materials in supporting, integrating and challenging the artistic growth of young people in school. Special fee: $75.

A&HA 4088: Artistic development: Adolescence to adulthood

Corequisite A&HA 4281. An examination of sensory, biological, affective, cognitive, and cultural issues influencing continuing development in the visual arts. Discussion of ways in which developmental insights are basic to designing challenging lessons which enrich growth and learning as well as offering critical starting points for research. Required of all candidates seeking New York State Art Certification K-12. Special fee: $30.