ACARAS DRAFT SHAPE PAPER -

VISUAL ARTS EDUCATORS

REJECT THE PROPOSED BLANCMANGE
 FOREWORD

This E-Journal assembles a collection of articles, letters, reviews and responses by VADEA members,
written in relation to the release of the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority (ACARA)
Draft Shape Paper: The Arts. It is hoped that members will use these resources in their own advocacy for the
Visual Arts and to form their responses to the ongoing issues and debates as they unfold.

The Visual Arts is a subject with a history, traditions, practices and a future trajectory that is not dependent
on a common approach to the Arts. Under ACARAs own definitions the Visual Arts should be viewed as a
learning area in its own right. We should not forget this!

VADEA supports the idea of an Australian Curriculum; however, it needs to match or better current
curriculum provision and expectations and thus at this stage we have had no option but to reject what has
been proposed by ACARA for the Arts. We have wide support for our position – from the Visual Arts
Consortium, Art Education Australia and just last week at the Arts Representatives meeting at the Board of
Studies it was clear that many other stakeholders share our view. So too have those who have responded to
the online surveys. Last week the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne also agreed to raise the
issue at the national level. This support is heartening.

VADEA is not interested in simply being a critic of what was proposed by ACARA. Our Co-Presidents took
the initiative to propose a framework that would better suit the Visual Arts and perhaps the Arts more
generally. This proposal, which borrowed from the Literature Review for the National Review of Visual
Education (Brown, 2006), was included in our submissions to ACARA and the Board of Studies. Below are
some extracts from the proposed Rationale. Take a moment and look back at what the draft Shape Paper
proposed and note that this Rationale is aspirational rather than apologetic.

We seek an Arts Curriculum that acknowledges Australia’s aspirations artistically, culturally, symbolically and
economically in an increasingly globalised world. It would recognise that visual arts, music, drama, dance
and media arts do and play a significant role in the ways that individuals and groups search for meaning,
autonomy and cultural and personal identity. It should acknowledge that the escalation in the global desire for
entertainment, spectacle, festivals, variety, still and moving imagery, art, design, fashion and marketing edge
inform the ways in which contemporary cultures and communities represent themselves and make meaning.

In keeping with this widespread global interest, this curriculum would value practical and critical reasoning
and risk taking in a students’ production of novel, innovative and intelligible objects and things, and in the
judgements afforded to creative performances and artefacts. Drawing on the C20th legacy of
experimentation in the arts and the unpredictability of technological advances, a focus on practical and
critical reasoning and risk taking would assist students in their readiness to systematically advance,
accommodate and critique new ideas while also preparing them as future citizens. The curriculum would also
celebrate the continual dialogue between the growing multi-modality of interactive technology and the need
for precisely differentiated artistic discipline which inform and is continually informed by previous works.

We desire a curriculum that is committed to students being exposed to a wide range of material forms of
aesthetic representation in the visual arts, music, drama, dance and media arts. In this way students can
come to informed understandings about how artistic disciplines are differentiated in their histories and
material engagements with the practical reasoning through which aesthetic representations are delivered –
via designing, making, and the critical understanding of artistic forms. In turn, this background should equip
them in their readiness to adapt to the creative possibilities and challenges afforded by interactive
technologies in their borrowing and bridging of genres and historical precedents.

This curriculum would prepare students for a creative and dynamic C21st.

i
 CONTENTS

Message Board Posts

Responses to Richard Gill Article Pg. 1

Responses to Matthew Clausen Article Pg. 3

ABC Radio National – Late Night Live Discussion Pg. 5

Letters to Editors Pg. 7

Letters to Ministers Pg. 8

Direct Responses to ACARAs Draft Paper

The Visual Arts Should Not Lose its Identity by Being Collapsed into ‘The Arts’ Pg. 9

A Letter to ACARA from Pre-service Visual Arts Teachers Pg. 10

Regarding the Proposed National Curriculum For ‘The Arts’ Pg. 11

Experimentation, Play and Art Pg. 12

Post following the Barry McGaw & John Kaye interview on Life Matters Pg. 13

Comments on the NSW Board Of Studies Survey for the ACARA Draft Paper Pg. 13

Reflections on ACARA Presentations

In the Name of an Entitlement? Pg. 14

Seymour Centre Arts Launch Pg. 15

Curriculum Lite: McGaw’s Dreams Realised in Arts Education Pg. 16

What do the Arts Bring to Education? Pg. 17

All Children Are Born Artists, The Problem Is To Remain An Artist As We Pg. 18
Grow Up

A True Education is a Visual Arts Education Pg. 20

Media Action

Media Release Pg. 21

Liverpool Leader Article Pg. 22

Acknowledgements Pg. 23

Page ii
 MESSAGE BOARD POSTS
Below is a selection of responses, by members, to Richard Gill’s article,
‘Proposed curriculum is being hijacked by visual arts lobby’, 15/11/10. The Age
A full version can be found at;

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/proposed-curriculum-is-being-
hijacked-by-visual-arts-lobby-20101114-17sn8.html

Richard Gill's, Proposed Curriculum Is Being Hijacked by Visual Arts Lobby, 15/11/10, does nothing
but show his misinformation and naivety. As a member of Gill’s lunatic fringe I would like to see an
Arts curriculum that reflects all artforms, while respecting each discipline. Visual Arts teachers
across the country have never made such a grand statement calling for 50% of the Arts Curriculum,
such a statement is offensive and divisive. The constant and consistent chorus from all Visual Arts
Teachers is that we need a curriculum that is non-generalist, rigours and will take our students
forward. There are more to all the arts than play and generating, as describe in The Arts Shape
Paper. Brothers and sisters in music, dance, drama and media, stand up and demand the same for
your subject area. Don’t let ill-informed headline grabbers speak for you.

Nick Phillipson Visual Arts Teacher St Patrick’s College Strathfield

Richard Gill’s article ‘Proposed curriculum is being hijacked by visual arts lobby’ (The Age 15.11.10)
is nothing short of scaremongering. Despite his magnificent contribution to music and music
education, Gill is swept up in the politics of national performing arts education associations and
industry groups. Seduced by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority
(ACARA), these alliances have lobbied and been lured by the desperate promise that has been
targeted at the smaller arts groups – dance, media, and drama – of securing a seat at the big table.
Gill endorses their accommodation. His article is motivated by the promise of inclusion for the
different arts under vague instrumentalist values of social connectedness and self-expression,
discredited in the 1970s. As a one size fits all approach, relating the arts ultimately compromises all
of the arts by trivialising the practices and knowledge base of each. This is the real issue. The visual
arts lobby has not claimed the time Gill reports. Rather, Dance, Media and Drama, fear that if the
Shape Paper is rejected their positions will be up for grabs. They want to avoid this at all costs even
if it is at the expense of the quality of the curriculum.

Dr Kerry Thomas VADEA Co-President

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 MESSAGE BOARD POSTS

Mr Gill, your verbose posturing in Proposed Curriculum Is Being Hijacked by Visual Arts Lobby,
15/11/10, is hypocritical, as you are defending the area in which we, on the Lunatic fringe, are
arguing for. Where have you got the information about the visual arts lobby demanding 50 per cent?
The hours at this stage are speculative. The access that the students will have to The Arts will be
doing a disservice to each of the arts, not just Visual Arts. The proposed curriculum has been
created with a total lack of consultation or representation with NSW Visual Arts teachers, hence our
fury. This is unprofessional and borders on arrogance. Not ignorance, as you have blithely put
forward. We will be devolving if we accept a curriculum that has no conceptual rigour and a total
lack of subject-specific terminology. We are not arguing for hours to be skewed in our direction, but
are simply requesting that this issue be addressed, examined and discussed openly amongst those
who are directly affected. And lastly Mr Gill, what would the quality of your budding opera singers be
when their foundation from age 8-13 is only 13 hours of music a year?

Claire Harrison Visual Arts Teacher Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College

Richard Gill’s article on the hijacking of the National Curriculum by the Visual Arts lobby is ill
informed, ignorant and divisive. It seems Mr Gill’s intention is to incite trouble in an attempt to have
existing arts subjects squabble amongst themselves to deflect focus from the real issue. The real
issue is that under the proposed national curriculum no art form will be allocated sufficient time for
students to experience rich and deep learning. The Visual Arts lobby is not asking for a 50% time
allocation, we are asking for a curriculum that is equal or better to what we have now. In no way do
we see ourselves as better or superior to other creative arts but we do represent the most students
and teachers of any creative arts subject across the nation. We are asking for a 21st century
Curriculum that will be rigorous and challenge our students to excel. We shouldn’t have to settle for
something that is a step backwards just because it gives all five creative arts areas equal time. Mr
Gill needs to get his facts right before writing articles that are designed tospread misinformation and
fear. It seems he is the ignorant trouble maker who inhabits his own lunatic fringe. If he took the
time to investigate, we could all stand together and form a stronger lobby for all the creative arts.

Sophie Lampert Head Teacher Visual Arts Oxley College

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 MESSAGE BOARD POSTS
Below is a selection of responses, by members, to Matthew Clausen’s article,
‘Critics expected but arts overhaul is a positive step’, 30/8/10. The Brisbane Times
A full version can be found at;

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/politics/critics-expected-but-arts-overhaul-is-a-
positive-step-20100829-13xo0.html

The following are blog responses, posted directly on the Brisbane Times message board.

In NSW, we have a strong and proud Visual Arts and Music courses. They challenge our students
to achieve to their best. Art and Music are clear distinct curriculum identities. I find it upsetting that
the president of Australian Teachers of Media NSW sees fit to 'dumb down' two excellent subject
areas to make room for others. Should we not be asking for Drama, Media and Dance to become
strong identities along with Art and Music? It seems that the clumping of all five arts areas will push
two strong subjects backwards rather than push three forwards. Nick Phillipson

Simple question: How can a teacher of Visual Arts teach anything other than rudimentary drawing in
20 minutes per week (13.5 hours per year)? That is set up/ pack-up time for a painting or ceramics
class! I am a NSW Visual Arts teacher, who currently teaches a rich, stimulating curriculum to year 7
and 8 students, which requires time for students to develop skills and understanding of the concepts
taught. The National Curriculum will reduce our indicative hours from 100/ year to 13.5/ year, an
86.5% reduction! I agree with Nick; Dance, Drama and Media Arts should be added, but not to the
detriment of other curriculum areas. LisaA

I support Nick wholeheartedly! The ACARA proposal seriously undermines the value of time in
learning. Matthew cannot seriously believe that 13.5hours per year of any subject is anything other
than pure tokenism. What learning will happen? What skills will be developed? No-one would
expect the Maths department to 'play' with numbers for 20 minutes a week from K to 8 then expect
students in Year 9 to suddenly find "skills and a passion" to study Maths at the expected level to
carry them into senior studies and then University. Students from Year 9 will not be able to explore
their chosen subjects in "complex and sophisticated ways" if the foundational learning and skill
development that is required does not happen up to Year 8. The participatory model proposed by
ACARA is at odds with ACARA's own goals of promoting the value of foundational, deep and
specialised knowledge for all Australian students. Matthew talks about "The Arts" rather the "Visual
and Performing Arts" (as per the Melbourne Declaration) as if each of those disciplines are
interchangeable and that any teacher of the arts has the expertise to teach any of the other "arts"
subjects. Are all the "Arts" teachers going to be required to retrain in every other Arts subject in
order to provide a "cross- arts" curriculum? The alternative concept Matthew presented of loading
the art forms in particular years or delivering it in semester blocks does not seriously consider the
timetable issues associated with this approach in secondary schools. With the clumping together of
all five subjects under the organising principles of the Strands of Generating, Realising and
Responding, ALL five subjects lose their identity as discrete learning that have their own specialised
domain of knowledge and subject specific terminology. Sally

Page 3
 LETTERS TO EDITORS

There have been many individuals in NSW that have raised concerns that the proposed framework
for the arts will diminish intellectual rigour and potential for arts learning. Visual Arts alone
encompasses many disciplines, each highly specialised. NSW already teaches 100 hrs of a variety
of artforms over Year 7/8. Of course, it would 'dumb-down our curriculum to diminish this to 13.5
hrs. Cross-curricula ideas can have some merit, however, the Visual Arts as it currently stands in
NSW is far more than 'moving images' or backdrops to theatre productions as Mathew seems to
suggest. It is an intensive, intellectual course in historical and contemporary issues and techniques
across a variety of art forms where specialisation is allowed in elective years.

How will these five arts to be properly resourced in schools? Will we have dance studios built,
sprung floors, employ dance and drama teachers for 13.5 hrs per week, or only those times we do a
cross-curricula unit of work, which may not last the year.

I also agree with Nick; Dance, Drama and Media Arts should be added, but not to the detriment of
other curriculum areas. ArtExpress has already been taken to America and other countries - NSW
teachers have worked hard to build a strong Visual Arts Curriculum, Let’s not diminish this, we
should be making it stronger.
Michele

"The response by arts educators across Australia to a national approach to arts education has been
enthusiastically welcomed.” I would like to know where the information for this statement has come
from. I recently attended a Visual Arts & Design Educators Association (VADEA) Conference in
Sydney, where this "blancmange" approach to Arts education was rejected outright. There were
approximately 250 schools represented and the outrage at the simplistic and regressive ideas
suggested in this "new" curriculum was palpable. As the largest and arguably the most successful
subject, Visual Arts has the most to lose, but it is the students who are really the losers if this
curriculum is implemented. In NSW students in Year 7 & 8 receive 100 hours of Visual Arts; one
wonders how they will achieve the quality skill tuition and deep conceptual development when under
the "new" curriculum where this will be reduced to a mere 13 hours per year. NSW has a research
based, rich, world class, and aspirational curriculum (see ArtExpress for evidence of this), and now
we are being "asked" to accept a simplistic and regressive "one size fits all" syllabus. This is lunacy!
All the arts are important and it makes no good sense to reduce and indeed annihilate Visual Arts, a
subject that is such a valuable and integral part of so many students' lives (approx 10,000 students
studied Visual Arts in the 2009 HSC). It is time to celebrate what we have now, as if we accept the
"goulash" approach we are being offered I fear for the future not only of high school students, but
also for the future of world-class artists, art critics, art historians and the cultural basis of our nation!
I am appalled at the facile syllabus and the "celebration" of it in this article!

Techer_gal

Page 4
 MESSAGE BOARD POSTS
31st August 2010, The ABC Radio National programme, Late Night Live held a discussion on
ACARAs proposal for the Arts National Curriculum. The Podcast can be found at;

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2010/2997568.htm

RESPONSE TO THE DISCUSSION

The discussion on Late Night Live exposed ACARAs line that is in play about 'entitlement' and
'participation' as the drivers for this curriculum proposal. It seems that having all five artforms in will
raise the profile of the arts. In my view they have yet to demonstrate how the poorly conceived
curriculum which addresses ‘aesthetic knowledge’ will do this in the 21st century context in
education. There was no explanation of how a reduction in time for Visual Arts will assist in raising
the profile or quality of art education or any of the arts in education for that matter. O'Toole's
statements about the preparedness of teachers were certainly very revealing and incredibly
alarming. Apparently familiarity with artforms in primary education means you can teach it – so
anyone can teach any of the arts if they merely have an interest in it! Perhaps if I begin attending
the ballet I might be about to intuit how to provide students with experience in understanding how to
make a pirouette! He said that primary teachers 'will just have to come to the party' – this means it
will be up to them to figure out how they will implement this curriculum. In a content free-curriculum
zone I guess that is all one could say about how to prepare teachers to implement it. From my
perspective as a teacher educator in Visual Arts this an indictment on the willingness and
commitment pre-service and experienced teachers show in seeking to teach these areas well in a
situation when they are given very little preparation or support. Also to think this is respectful of
students' intellectual needs and interests is amazing, let alone about what it says about his views of
the artforms as bodies of knowledge in their own right. He argues integration and cross-arts options
- all of which confirms a blancmange approach and is not worthy of support. With the slippery
description of hours and what may or may not be mandated in schools, this proposal to combine the
arts into a single generic learning area will not result in raising profile of the arts. Instead this
structural indeterminacy combined with an under-theorised, poor quality curriculum that argues
experience equals learning will only result in the role of the arts in education being further
diminished, forgotten or ignored. None of it offers teachers or students a rationale for good practice
in Visual Arts education. It is time to go back to the drawing board and look at the quality curriculum
we have and take the lead from there. Dr Karen Maras VADEA Co-President

The following are responses posted directly on the Late Night Live message board
I am a pre-service teacher at the College of Fine Arts, and I believe I speak collectively when I say
that it is not only a huge amount of our current Visual Art teachers who oppose ACARAs national
curriculum, it is also the people who will be teaching Art well into the future. Why would we ever
agree to give up our NSW Visual Arts syllabus? It most certainly hasn't grown haphazardly as it has
such a strong conceptual basis, with a great focus on art history, criticism and actual KNOWLEDGE!
Opposed an unwholesome mash-up of performing and visual arts which will inevitably reduce the
amount of learning possible for all these subjects. What is being proposed is not acceptable.
A Pre-Service Art Teacher
Page 5
 MESSAGE BOARD POSTS

The forced relationship between the Visual and Performing Arts is tenuous, narrow minded and
meaningless. It totally disregards the importance of each area and is simply a tokenistic nod to The
Arts. Visual Arts is a FOUNDATIONAL SPRING BOARD to ALL visual areas of study which
includes art, architecture, visual communications, graphic design, photography, film making, web
design, interior design, fashion design, industrial design, etc. The basic and common threads of all
these fields are learnt in Visual Arts and to reduce this subject to simply a means of self expression
is an insult and does not take into account the increasingly visual nature of the digital age (think of
the fast transmission of images on The Internet) The visual image is one of the fastest to
comprehend and one of the most universal languages. Visual Arts allows the student to not only
critically analyse visual language which is everywhere, but to learn how to use it effectively and
persuasively. All students should engage in at least 100 mandatory hours of Visual Arts in stage 4
to teach them the basic skills of the many 'visual' fields it forms the basis of. Not all schools can offer
the more specialised areas of fashion, graphic design, film making, photography, etc BUT ALL
SCHOOLS can at least offer Visual Arts with the knowledge that they will be providing our students
with the foundation of these 'visual' fields of study. f.hanna

The plans proposed by ACARA are ridiculous as are John O’Toole’s arguments for what he calls an
‘entitlement’. I am not sure we should be thinking of an outdated conception of curriculum as
‘aesthetic knowledge’ as the right of any student to endure. As was the case in the Initial Advice
Paper which I have seen and commented upon in other forums the claim for arts education as
‘aesthetic knowledge’ reduces the arts to an indeterminate notion of subjective experience on which
they can all integrate. From O’Toole’s argument the direction has evidently not changed even after
some limited consultation advised of alternative directions in May 2010. Subjectivity has already
been proven a limited view of curriculum design in arts education. A review of the various forms of
Visual Arts curriculum in Australia reveals that no state jurisdiction supports this as a discrete or
viable view of what is Visual Arts or arts knowledge or practice. Why would art educators be willing
to accept the very premise of this curriculum proposal? Is aesthetic experience enough to define
content and shape pedagogy? I think not. Would Maths, English, Science and History argue that
experience alone is sufficient for deep learning and knowledge acquisition? No they would not.
Would experts in other learning areas argue that a mere interest in the subject is sufficient as
teacher preparedness? No they would not. Would science teachers accept that what occurs in
biology, chemistry, geology and physics is the same? No they wouldn’t. Then how can art educators
reasonably accept that all artforms are bound by common processes? Wouldn’t it be better to name
each artform as a discrete learning area and thus raise their profile by developing appropriate
curriculum for each? This is the position I support.Blancmange slides down the sink plug-hole very
easily as it has no form and no real content, cannot sustain commitment from consumers and is
hard to advocate for given it has no substance. If there's to be substance in this so-called curriculum
then teachers will not be able to get their teeth into it and nor will students. The Visual Arts and the
arts generally are at risk in this proposal. Beware of Blancmange

Page 6
 LETTERS TO EDITORS
Letter to the Editor: The Sydney Morning Herald, Published 27/10/10

The proposed National Curriculum has whittled down the time for mandatory study of the Visual Arts
in year 8 to mire 20 minutes a week. Admittedly it has added a merger 20 minutes of Media Arts. In
an increasingly visual world, this is a misguided and ill-informed path. Communication has shifted
from the written word to the visual image: advertising, movies, computer graphics, the internet and
even phone apps are visual forms of communication. With text rapidly receding and the image
gaining dominance, educational practice needs to follow suit. Students need to learn the language
and grammar of digital communication so they can sharpen their interpretive and analytical skills as
well as use the visual language to communicate creatively and persuasively. Anything less we are
short-changing them.
Francis Hanna Head Teacher All Saints Grammar

Letter to the Editor: sent 12 October, 2010

Would we accept that students could choose between Science and Mathematics for further study
after a piecemeal introduction to each? I think not. Too much is at stake in accepting a similar
although incorrect view that is being perpetuated about the Arts in the Australian
Curriculum. Perhaps the term ‘entitlement’ is used correctly in the arguments used by the Australian
Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) as to the value of the Arts as
represented in the draft Arts Shape Paper. An entitlement implies a legislative right but in a legal
sense it carries no value judgement. The draft Shape Paper takes the view that the Arts are the
same but different, united by common processes that unravel after a first glance. Nothing much is
expected of students’ learning in the Visual Arts or in other artforms beyond a ‘feel good, know
nothing’ approach as the entitlement. Advocates argue that we should be grateful. Should we? Not
yet. ACARAs approach is a retreat into a conservative 1970s process view. Our students and their
teachers currently undertake far more complex investigations in the Visual Arts in art making, and in
their critical and historical studies. They believe in and expect more.

Dr Kerry Thomas VADEA Co-President

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 LETTERS TO MINISTERS

LETTER TO THEN EDUCATION MINISTER MR SIMON CREAN

Dear Mr Crean,

As a passionate Visual Arts teacher, I have serious concerns about the proposed Draft Advice
Paper for The Arts created by Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority
(ACARA) under the National Curriculum for students from Kindergarten to Year 10. If you are
unfamiliar with this, I hope to share my opinions with you.

Instead of separate learning areas, it has been suggested that Visual Arts, Music, Drama, Dance
and 'Media Arts' are merged into one subject called 'The Arts'. All subject specific terminology has
been retracted and 'dumbed down' to the point of being trivial and nonsensical. This is akin to
amalgamating Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry and Physics and labeling it under the banner of
'The Sciences'. At a senior level of study this dilution of education is backward and not in the
interests of our students. The proposed number of hours for 'The Arts' has been significantly
reduced from 100 hours over two years for one subject to 80 hours for all five subjects; so much so
that at this point, we will simply be baby-sitting the students. I know many students who are
passionate about Visual Arts and its many derivative applications yet have no inclination to study
Music or Dance and vice versa.

At this stage Mr Crean, I am unsure if my position as a Visual Arts teacher would still be relevant or
if I would have to add further training to my four year Bachelor degree so that I can teach these
other subjects, which I have no interest in or aptitude for.

Most troubling, is the fact that the proposed curriculum has also been created with a total lack of
consultation with NSW Visual Arts teachers, this is unprofessional and borders on arrogance.

I urge you, as Minister for Education, to consider the concerns of the various lobby groups that I and
many others like me are members of, such as Visual Arts and Design Educators' Association NSW,
the Independent Education Union of Australia and Creative People against the Standardisation of
Australian Arts Education. I also request that this issue be addressed, examined and discussed
openly amongst those who are directly affected, not least the students. Before any further decisions
are made, consultation and action needs to occur with these lobby groups and the findings should
be made transparent amongst the teaching community as well as with Parents & Citizens groups.

I would appreciate a response to acknowledge this letter.

Regards,

Claire Harrison
Visual Arts Teacher
Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College

Page 8
 DIRECT RESPONSE TO ACARAS DRAFT PAPER
THE VISUAL ARTS SHOULD NOT LOSE ITS IDENTITY
BY BEING COLLAPSED INTO ‘THE ARTS’

Flexibility and connectivity are the key motivators influencing ACARA’s design of Australia’s first
National Arts curriculum. The strands, of which, are organised to allow students to generate, realize
and respond to a constant and organic interplay amongst the Arts: this interplay providing
connectivity by use of shared common elements between the different art forms.

In determining what these shared elements are, ACARA may be sacrificing the very thing it wants
students to generate, realize and respond to- a flexible Arts syllabus that:
… provide[s] young Australians with spaces and means to imagine and engage
personally and collectively within their worlds as well as other possible worlds,
including some not yet imagined…
Yes, the arts are connected in our highly technological age in ways that, even five years ago, we
could not appreciate. Yet, these other worlds are generated because of the differences existing
between ideas, materials, techniques, technology, usage etc... Differences creating spaces for the
realization of that which has not yet been imagined’; these spaces allow for the other to be realized
when in the arts music, film, dance, pod casting or sculpture connect, collide or fuse: then different
ways of perceiving reality and comprehending new art forms or processes can be apprehended. In
fact the very existence of these differences generates the tension and energy required to respond to
the technological complexities of the 21st Century.

Organic interplay, between art forms is a response by artists comprehending the intimate
relationship we have with 21st Century technology; it does not depend on the implosion or collapse
of distinct and separate disciplines.

The collapsing of Visual Arts (or any one of the different art disciplines) into one generic entity ‘the
arts’ will not automatically provide the organic connectivity that ACARA respectfully perceives is
experienced by indigenous communities when their distinct art forms come together, for example, to
celebrate Aboriginal connections to country and ancestors. Neither will this connectivity experienced
by contemporary audiences in popular culture comprising of film, visual arts and music, be
necessarily generated in an imploding curriculum.

The connectivity that ACARA seeks is generated when different artistic disciplines come together for
short periods of time to perform a ritual, to respond or experience a performance, produce a stage
play etc. The performers, dancers, actors, musicians and artists then go back to their various
disciplines to reflect, experiment or further study their specific expertise.
To allow space, in the new curriculum, for this organic connection is one that is vital for students to
fully comprehend the interplay between the Art forms, however, this interplay of art forms need not be
at the loss of distinct disciplines like the Visual Arts.
Gwenda Maude Visual Arts Teacher La Salle Collage Bankstown

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 DIRECT RESPONSE TO ACARAS DRAFT PAPER
A LETTER TO ACARA FROM PRE-SERVICE VISUAL ARTS TEACHERS

Dear Professor McGaw,

On November 1, 2010, pre-service teachers of the Visual Arts met to discuss the future of Visual
Arts Education in Australia and New South Wales at the Australian Catholic University.
Representatives from the College of Arts UNSW, Australian Catholic University and University of
Sydney and University of Technology discussed ACARAs “Draft Shape of the Australian
Curriculum: The Arts”. The keynote speaker was the Dean of COFA, Professor Ian Howard who,
along with other art educators, identified significant limitations in proposals to date that would
affect the quality of Visual Arts curricula currently in place in Australia. Pre-service teachers
shared their concerns about the proposed changes to the Visual Arts curriculum. In particular, the
potential impact of these changes to the quality of Visual Arts Education and their futures as
prospective specialist Visual Arts teachers were discussed. Central to these discussions was
agreement of the Draft Shape Paper’s undeniable lowering of the quality of Visual Arts curriculum.
The generic approach to “The Arts” taken by the Draft paper is unsuccessful as it does not provide
theoretical constructs to organise content. The strands are obviously connected with process, not
content, and do not provide a view of what would be taught and learned in the different artforms
that have discrete and unique content.

A motion was drafted and unanimously passed by 37 pre-service Visual Arts teachers and 8
teachers and academics in attendance:
This meeting urges ACARA to extend the consultation period on the Draft Shape Paper for
the Arts in order that the proposals and the complexity of these are given sufficient
consideration by all stakeholders. The proposal for the Visual Arts Curriculum in the Draft
Shape Paper for the Arts is rejected as it represents a significant depletion of the quality of
what is currently in place for Visual Arts education within NSW. This proposal compromises
the intellectual integrity of our current curriculum. We reject the Draft Shape Paper's
generic organisers of the strands and ACARA's new definitions of "Visual Arts" and "The
Arts". We reject the proposal of 150 hours for the Visual Arts education from K- 8, as it is
inadequate and will diminish the quality learning already in place within the Visual Arts.
We would urge ACARA and the writers of the Arts Curriculum to work with NSW educators to
develop an authentic and rigorous Curriculum for Visual Arts students and teachers, both present
and future.

Please read through the above points carefully. We understand that ACARAs mandate is to draw
from best practice curriculum to develop a world-class Australian curriculum for the Arts. The
existing NSW curriculum provides a blueprint for achieving this goal as has been demonstrated in
the K-12 learning continuum currently in place. As pre-service teachers in NSW, we hope you
respectfully reconsider re-designing the proposals to more appropriately represent Visual Arts as
a knowledge domain focused on conceptual and practical rigour anchored in a coherent
developmental framework.

Yours faithfully,
John Phillips

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 DIRECT RESPONSE TO ACARAS DRAFT PAPER
REGARDING THE PROPOSED NATIONAL CURRICULUM FOR “THE ARTS”
The intention to lump together five very disparate and highly complex areas under one umbrella
called “The Arts” and the expectation to teach them a mere 180 hours (or twenty minutes each a
week) is too simplistic and dismissive. Furthermore, the connections between them being
“generating, realising and responding” are far too tenuous. A more rational division would be “The
Performing Arts” and “The Visual Arts”.

The combining of these subjects at a secondary school level does not take into account the
cognitive development and readiness of a twelve year old to engage in each of these subjects at a
more complex level. Nor does it allow for teachers to engage students who are gifted or talented in
these areas. It constitutes a tokenistic nod to “The Arts” but does not take into consideration these
factors that specialist teachers (and parents of children of this age group) are all too aware of.

This new proposed national curriculum also does not factor in the fact that most Visual Arts, Music,
Dance and Drama teachers in high schools are specialist not generalist teachers, which means they
have achieved a minimum of 4 years of training in their artform (after 7 years of formal training, I am
still learning by the way). As a specialist Visual Arts teacher and practitioner I never engaged in
musical, drama or dance studies during my training. I’m in no better position to teach these subjects
than the average Maths teacher! In fact, university faculties are not structured in this way (for
obvious reasons, each area is far too large and complex). So why does the proposed national
curriculum expect secondary education to?

A more sensible and rational approach would be to divide these 5 areas of study into the areas of
“performing” and “visual” arts. Performing Arts would include Drama, Dance and Music. The Visual
Arts on the other hand would constitute Visual Arts and the ever expanding Media Studies. On this
note, may I add, and emphasize the growing importance of visual literacy in our digital age. A vast
proportion of our understanding of the contemporary world is largely visual thanks to the World
Wide Web and growing use film, web, photography, etc to communicate. The area of the “visual
arts” has enough to contend with and offer to our students without it being reduced and diluted into
a blancmange of subjects that actually bare little relation to each other in industry.

And speaking of the Arts industry, it would be all the poorer as a result. The Arts has so much to
offer. It puts us on the cultural global map, it also contributes enormously to our economy and yet
the response of the national curriculum is to radically reduce the hours spent in this area. It will
inevitably lead to jobs lost, especially in Visual Arts and Music teaching. The educational outcomes
would inevitably be lowered as hours spent on these subjects have been slashed and the content
simplified. The message to students would be that these are trivial subjects that deserve little more
than an average of 20 minutes a week spent on each of them. We need a world class curriculum.
One that addresses contemporary modes of thought; and that belongs to and addresses the
challenges of the age we live in. What we don’t need is a tokenistic gesture which is what the draft
syllabus for “The Arts” constitutes.
Francis Hanna Head Teacher All Saints Grammar

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 DIRECT RESPONSE TO ACARAS DRAFT PAPER
EXPERIMENTATION, PLAY AND ART

ACARA, in the lead up to the new National Arts curriculum, places importance on play and art,
emphasizing that play and art are fundamentally related and that at a deep level, play is artful, and
art is playful.

Art is not playful it has never been playful; instead art has a fundamental relationship with our
human desire to experiment with materials to achieve synthesis with the very act of creation itself.
Artist’s experiment gaining new skills and knowledge to either support the status quo or challenge it.
This experimentation requires high order thought processes and a desire to use new knowledge
gained from the processes of experimentation. Play implies the desire to occupy ones-self while
engaging in some sort of recreational game or pastime, art is not a pastime. We see purposeful acts
of mark making, demanding more than just the acknowledgement of mere playful technique in the
very first cave paintings of the Palaeolithic artist.

These sophisticated cave paintings had nothing to do with artful play; instead the confident use of
line and coloured pigment had more to do with focused experimentation to create the magical
moment when Palaeolithic man exerted control over his environment. Their success as hunters
linked intimately with the processes involved in the making of the cave paintings. Even these early
examples of art and artists creating artworks reveal that experimentation with technique and
material was never “playful art”. Art and experimentation with materials and techniques, finely tuned
Palaeolithic mans observation of his hostile surroundings-therefore increasing his chances of
survival.

Our survival as a species is still linked to the high order thinking resulting from experimentation;
artists remain deeply linked to what is now an established trajectory involving experimentation and
progress. Modern day artists experiment with new and exciting technology. The constant advances
in technology have a huge impact on contemporary environments and societies. Today’s artists
display the same focus and determination to experiment, be it with oil paintings, photo shop,
performance or the digital image. For art students, of the 21st Century, to wield the same power with
their mark making so that their digital image, sculpture, painting or performances ‘engage personally
and collectively with their world as well as other possible worlds..’ they will be required to
experiment not play.

Gwenda Maude Visual Arts Teacher La Salle Collage Bankstown

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 DIRECT RESPONSE TO ACARAS DRAFT PAPER
Post following the Barry McGaw & John Kaye interview on Life Matters, 21/11/ 2010

Lets imagine a situation in a new world order where the subjects of Science and Mathematics were
expected to share common processes in a proposed curriculum which had little theoretical or
research base and belonged to neither one subject nor the other. The expectation was that Sciema
teachers, as they would be known, would conform with this proposal because a corporatised
curriculum authority claimed they knew best. This authority had ‘benchmarked’ serious Sciema
learning with international competitors, the findings of which few could argue. Science and
Mathematics teachers were accused of being ‘afraid’ by the curriculum authority because they
disagreed with the reductive nature of this proposal and the prospect that the practices and body of
knowledge associated with these subjects would be dispelled. Teachers cogently argued, despite
these accusations, that students would be disadvantaged if the proposal were to proceed because
their abilities to apply scientific and mathematical knowledge would be reduced. In turn, students’
expectations and way of engaging with the world in the C21st would be compromised. The
curriculum authority felt the heat and began to say that schools and states could interpret the
Sciema curriculum in different ways, sidestepping the real issue, that curriculum cannot be simply a
fabrication, even though it may suit some interests. Barry McGaw needs to be better informed about
the concerns of Visual Arts teachers in relation to the soon to be released draft Shape Paper for the
Arts. The proposal, like Sciema, is highly reductive in its ‘one-size fits all’ approach to the Arts. John
Kaye rightly identifies how Visual Arts teachers and academics are concerned about the
downgrading of the subject under ACARA’s proposals. It is a huge rumbling as John Kaye suggests
and it will grow louder. Dr Kerry Thomas VADEA Co-President

COMMENTS ON THE NSW BOARD OF STUDIES SURVEY FOR THE ACARA DRAFT PAPER
The forced relationship between the Visual and Performing Arts is tenuous, narrow minded and
meaningless. It totally disregards the importance of each area and is simply a tokenistic nod to The
Arts. Visual Arts is a FOUNDATIONAL SPRING BOARD to ALL visual areas of study which
includes art, architecture, visual communications, graphic design, photography, film making, web
design, interior design, fashion design, industrial design, etc. The basic and common threads of all
these fields are learnt in Visual Arts and to reduce this subject to simply a means of self expression
is an insult and does not take into account the increasingly visual nature of the digital age. The
visual image is one of the fastest to comprehend and one of the most universal languages (hence
the effectiveness of branding). Its presence and influence is everywhere. The digital world
recognises this (ACARA obviously does not) and utilizes the visual image increasingly (think of The
Internet). Visual Arts allows the student to not only critically analyse visual language which is
everywhere, but to learn how to use it effectively and persuasively. All students should engage in at
least 100 mandatory hours of Visual Arts in stage 4 to teach them the basic skills of the many
'visual' fields it forms the basis of. Not all schools can offer the more specialised areas of fashion,
graphic design, film making, photography, etc BUT ALL SCHOOLS can at least offer Visual Arts
with the knowledge that they will be providing our students with the foundation of these 'visual' fields
of study. Francis Hanna Head Teacher All Saints Grammar

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 REFLECTIONS ON ACARA PRESENTATIONS

Written 11 October, in response to public comments made by Peter Hill, ACARAs CEO.

IN THE NAME OF AN ENTITLEMENT?

It is hard to imagine how in the Arts students will develop an understanding and appreciation of
each of the artforms as Peter Hill, Chairman of ACARA claims. The recently released draft Shape
Paper for the Arts proposes that students from K-8 will learn in five art forms of visual arts music,
drama, dance and media arts. Commendable at face value but on closer inspection when 20
minutes per week is all expected for each artform what will students be exposed to or actually
learn? At best, quick tricks, amusement, a time for students to superficially express themselves or
the monotonous repetition of the same song, ‘lets pretend’ or yet another drawing of ‘my imagined
world’ with a blunt pencil? More alarmingly, the mistaken belief adopted by students, parents,
teachers and educational systems that that’s all there is to the Arts?

Certainly we could predict that few resources would be systematically allocated to learning in the
Visual Arts in schools or teacher training. Would future primary or secondary specialist teachers
need to be prepared in their undergraduate programs to teach the Visual Arts when so little is
expected or would they bother as teachers with thoughtful preparation for students’ learning? Some
would because of their genuine commitment to students and their own knowledge of the visual arts.
Some would do no more than maintain the status quo of doing little, professionally obligated by the
prevailing orthodoxy that literacy, numeracy and the repeated testing of students is more important.

When the draft Arts Shape Paper is compared with the recently released Geography draft Shape
Paper, the document is grossly inferior. The Geography document manages a cogent explanation
about the what and why of Geography, an aim, and a scope and sequence. Each of these aspects
is denied in the draft Arts Shape paper and a concept of development for the visual arts and the
other artforms is lacking. Knowledge is reduced to aesthetic experience and common processes to
make the Arts appear doable although its focus on legislating definitions suggests it is more about
control: and one that is narrowly defined to ensure an entitlement without knowledge.

ACARA’s own definitions of a learning area which equates with a subject do not help in the Arts.
Part of the problem is that the Arts are not a subject like Geography, History, English, or
Mathematics. The Visual Arts is a subject in its own right with its own body of knowledge, practices,
traditions, future trajectory and so forth. As such it should be recognised as a learning area.

Is this all the nation can hope for? It is a serious flaw that the Arts have been represented in such an
ill-informed way. Particularly when so much of our future will depend on how we conceptualise and
come to terms with an increasingly visual and aestheticised world. The Visual Arts will play an
escalating role artistically, economically and culturally in how we form our aspirations and identity
and how the rest of the world views us. Students and the broader community are being sold short in
what ACARA proposes as an entitlement.
Dr Kerry Thomas VADEA Co-President

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 REFLECTIONS ON ACARA PRESENTATIONS
SEYMOUR CENTRE ARTS LAUNCH
st
November 1 saw the launch of the Seymour Centre’s Arts Education program for 2011. To
coincide with the event a forum and feedback session on the Draft Shape Paper for the Arts (DSPA)
was held. Presenters included:
- Professor John O’Toole, ACARA Lead Writer for the draft Shape Paper
- Linda Lorenza, ACARA Senior Project Officer-Arts
- Jay McPherson, Board of Studies Inspector Creative Arts
- Deidhre Wauchop, Curriculum Manager, Creative Arts K-6, Department of Education and
Training and ACARA Curriculum Advisory Panel member
- Mathew Clausen, President Australian Teachers of Media New South Wales and Drama
teacher at Loreto Kirribilli
- Colleen Roche, President Drama New South Wales.

Seeing this line-up one would have to agree that the event was not to be missed, given the fact that
most of the presenters are the movers and shakers in the development of the Shape Paper.
Unfortunately the event gave me the feeling I was crashing someone else’s party. Although it was
referred to as an Arts Education Launch there wasn’t anything that really related to the Visual Arts. I
did have to ask myself “If you are holding a forum on the Arts Shape Paper with the lead writer (who
has done everything possible to state the major benefit of the Shape Paper is that it is all arts
inclusive) wouldn’t you go out of your way to make sure that all 5 artforms are catered for in your
program?” It seemed not.

The main reason I had attend the event was for the presentation from the lead writer, Professor
John O’Toole, to find out why he was committed to overturning accepted curriculum practice. It was
for this reason I was hoping he and Linda Lorenza, would be able to sell me on the Draft Paper. As
a young teacher, who hopefully has many years of teaching before me, I needed them to make me
believe that this is a 21st century curriculum, it will be beneficial to my students and yes, I will enjoy
teaching the content and structure of what has been proposed. Unfortunately they did nothing of the
sort. Professor O’Toole seemed to lose his thread and presented with no clear understanding of the
contemporary school environment. There were collective jaws dropping when he made the remark,
“Creative teachers are more intuitive when it comes to teaching the arts and will therefore have a
better ability to teach across their disciplines.” I felt insulted to think that anyone who deems
themselves creative could then walk into a classroom and teach what I teach. What of
professionalism and subject knowledge? This notion of intuitive teaching will foster no
understanding of practice or discipline in any of the artforms. Every discipline will lose out here!

Jay McPherson noted that the NSW Board of Studies will be seeking extensive feedback on the
draft Arts Shape Paper. The BOS will be consulting with primary teachers during term 4 and in term
1 2011 they will be conducting face to face meetings with secondary teachers in the Arts. The BOS
also has an online survey that can be completed. Personally, I felt the event was summed up by
Matthew Clausen, who chaired the question and answer section, He said: ‘Can I have any other
questions from someone other than a Visual Arts Teacher?’ A question that left me feeling
convinced the ‘inclusive nature and connectivity of the arts’ may be something unattainable, even
for those pushing for it.
Nick Phillipson Visual Arts Teacher St Patrick’s College Strathfield

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 REFLECTIONS ON ACARA PRESENTATIONS
CURRICULUM LITE: MCGAW’S DREAMS REALISED IN ARTS EDUCATION

This week Professor Barry McGaw made a presentation at the Australian Association for
Research in Education Conference held at Melbourne University. I listened with interest as he
stated that “we [ACARA] are trying to keep the curriculum light”. I pondered the weight of his remark
about light curriculum content, especially in light of the heavy load I imagine Professor McGaw
carries as the architect of the Australian Curriculum and NAPLAN. This became even more
apparent as he explained that “the ministers have given the whole curriculum to ACARA”, just as
the NSW BOS gave the curriculum to McGaw in the late 90s. Visual Arts achieved outstanding
results in McGaw Review Weight-Loss Program, shedding an amazing two 3 unit courses and
avoiding the responsibility of carrying the extra load of an extension course.

McGaw’s Curriculum Lite program certainly generates many more opportunities for Visual
Arts to increase our curriculum fitness by reducing our footprint. The problem is that students keep
participating in Visual Arts across the nation. We are in crisis. Visual Arts clearly has an obesity
problem as the largest subject of any of the arts. Teachers disobey the national agenda in offering
rigourous and challenging programs. These are consumed greedily by students who seem addicted
to this diet of intellectual autonomy and challenge. This over consumption is a bit of a problem but
creatively solved with a well structured reduction program.

The opportunity for Visual Arts to again achieve outstanding results in contributing to the
agenda, of load reduction in Australian education, is supported by the strategic creative thinking of
Professor John O’Toole, the lead writer of the Draft Shape Paper for the Arts in the Australian
Curriculum. Luckily, the new role Visual Arts is to play as an artform in ‘The Arts’ means Visual Arts
is relieved of the weighty responsibility of having to identify as a discrete subject. Rather, Visual Arts
is blended in a new diet formula, which assists in controlling the appetite for the discrete study of
any artform. The fusion of specific Visual Arts content within a ‘one size fits all’ concoction, brewed
through the strands of generating, realising and responding- proposed in this creative curriculum,
abrogates the need to specify discipline specific content in Visual Arts. It lacks concepts, practices
or interpretive frameworks and only gains simple aesthetic participation. There will be no
developmental continuum, K-8 students will just play and scribble rather than learn conceptually and
practically. It seems, under this proposal, the desire for rigourous coherent has given way to the
idea of less work – why do one artform when you can slim line and integrate all five?

Dr Karen Maras VADEA Co-President

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 VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION OPINION PIECE
WHAT DO THE ARTS BRING TO EDUCATION?
Posted Tuesday, 23 November 2010 http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11265

In an article in the Boston Globe in September, 2007, Ellen Winner, Professor of Psychology at
Boston College and Lois Hetland, Associate Professor of Art Education at the Massachusetts
College of Art, expounded on a year-long in-depth study of five art classes in schools in the Boston
area school district. Both professors are researchers at Project Zero at the Harvard School of
Education.

They found that arts programs teach a specific set of thinking skills rarely addressed elsewhere in
the curriculum, and that far from being irrelevant in a test-driven education system, arts education is
becoming even more important as standardised tests (like the Australian NAPLAN tests) exert a
narrowing influence over what schools teach.
Such skills include visual-spatial abilities, reflection, self-criticism, and the willingness to experiment
and learn from mistakes. All are important to numerous careers, but are widely ignored by today's
standardised tests.

They stated:
It is well established that intelligence and thinking ability are far more complex than what we
choose to measure on standardized tests. The high-stakes exams we use in our schools,
almost exclusively focused on verbal and quantitative skills, reward children who have a
knack for language and math and who can absorb and regurgitate information. They reveal
little about a student's intellectual depth or desire to learn, and are poor predictors of eventual
success and satisfaction in life. … As schools increasingly shape their classes to produce
high test scores, many life skills not measured by tests just don't get taught. It seems
plausible to imagine that art classes might help fill the gap by encouraging different kinds of
thinking. …

Arts educators across the globe have continually talked about, written papers about, given
conference papers about, this specific set of thinking skills in an effort to extol the importance of the
arts in the school curriculum.

The implications of the importance of an education in the arts are very significant. It is significant not
only for schools but for all society. In Australia, as proposed in the new National Curriculum for the
Arts, the reduction of time for the arts in the school curriculum will probably result in our losing the
ability to produce not just the artistic creators of the future but importantly, innovative leaders who
improve the world they inherit.

In the study of visual arts classes Winner and Hetland found that while students learnt techniques
specific to the visual arts, such as how to make meaningful marks (draw), how to mix paint and
understand colour, or how to centre a pot, they were also taught an extraordinary array of mental
habits not emphasised elsewhere in school. They identified a number of what they called “habits of
mind” that arts classes taught, each one of which was notable by their exclusion from testable skills
taught elsewhere in the school curriculum.

Page 17
 VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION OPINION PIECE
One of these habits was making clear connections between schoolwork and the world outside the
classroom. We can see artworks that bridge those spaces between school life and “real life”,
between difference of “self” and “other”, between “new” and “old” lives in the annual exhibition of
HSC visual arts works, ArtExpress. The clear connections between “art and life” are evident in these
works. Standardised testing such as NAPLAN does not allow students to explore these kinds of
connections with the world past and present. Another habit was the ability to move beyond technical
skill to make artworks that expressed their own personal voice. In many art classrooms we see
works that are serious and personal investigations by students of their experiences of living - and
sometimes of dying. We see students exploring through art making what it means to be alienated or
displaced or frightened; however, in contrast to the stereotype of art education as mainly expressive
craft, the researchers found that “ teachers talked about decisions, choices, and understanding, far
more than they talked about feelings”.

Yet another habit was the sustained perseverance over a period of time needed to creatively solve
problems and work beyond frustration.

Other habits included innovation through exploration and reflective self-evaluation. In art classes
innovation generally means “to work outside the frame” - a skill I encourage in my own art classes
and which involves experimenting, taking risks and generally “mucking about to see what happens”.
The music students at the high school at which I teach tell me that they like “mucking about” with
other musician’s interpretations of classical music - a skill which could be seen by ill informed
educators as time wasting. Mistakes and accidents are seen as sites for more meaning-making
leading to unexpected and often successful results. Self reflection is essential to art class critiques,
as is evaluation of one’s own work and those of peers. Such judgments, “in the absence of rule”, are
highly sophisticated mental endeavours according to Stanford University’s Elliot Eisner, a noted art
education specialist.

In the instrumentalist and modernist national curricula, which is currently being adopted in Australia,
these specific thinking skills are anathema to the educational bureaucrats of ACARA and too many
parents unfamiliar with good arts education programs. These skills, which are sometimes seen as
chaotic and messy, are far more difficult to measure through the type of generic testing carried out
throughout our schools nationally. It is these skills that make a real and significant contribution to
the lives of students and which will equip them to respond creatively to a rapidly changing world.
It is time to value these skills as well as acknowledging how obsessions with national testing or
formal testing in general in schools can be destructive to a balanced educational system.

Dr Jane Gooding-Brown Conservatorium High School

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 VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION OPINION PIECE
Article on the benefits of sustained Visual Arts learning, published for Yr 12 exhibition

“ALL CHILDREN ARE BORN ARTISTS,

THE PROBLEM IS TO REMAIN AN ARTIST AS WE GROW UP.” PICASSO

The Body of Works (BOWs) created by our 2010 Visual Arts student’s represent two important
milestones. The first is signified by the now 50% completion of their Visual Arts HSC course
requirements. The second milestone is marked by the student’s sustained engagement, apparent
within their chosen artmaking process. Each of our students have applied and challenged their own
creativity and theoretical understandings of their chosen theme and concept. Through the exhibited
work we are treated with glimpses into our students own private worlds, intrigued by their
appropriation of contemporary events and even confronted by their maturity in dealing with
challenging issues.

The results, our students have achieved, stem from a course that asks its participants to define,
interpret, analyse and evaluate their own ideas and actions. This type of self reflective learning is
ignited in our students early in their secondary schooling career. The arc of growth our exhibited
students are now completing started back in the Years 7 and 8 Visual Arts Course. Here they were
provided with a curriculum that encourages awareness and understanding. It was a starting point
that allowed our students to gain a practical and theoretical knowledge base that crosses disciplines
and subject areas.
This important beginning point in our student’s visual arts learning is currently in danger. Phase 2 of
the National Curriculum includes an Arts Shape paper that will call for a ‘grouping’ or standardising
of what is taught across the art disciplines. It will see a curriculum for years K – 8 that will radically
reduce the hours offered to Visual Arts and see a loss in the conceptual component of what is
currently taught.

As it stands the New South Wales Government have not signed on for the implementation or
developed a formal agreement to introduce Phase 2 for the National Curriculum. It is imperative that
parents and the community are aware of what these proposed changes will bring to student learning
in the future. What is need is feedback and consultation from parents and community members
about the Arts Shape Paper. To help facilitate this The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and
Reporting Authority, ACARA, (the association empowered with the role of writing and implementing
the National Curriculum) offer a portal where Phase 2 and The Arts Shape Paper and can be
viewed and commented on.
Nick Phillipson Visual Arts Teacher St Patrick’s College Strathfield

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 VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION OPINION PIECE
Article on the benefits of having a Visual Arts education, used for school magazine
A TRUE EDUCATION IS A VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION
“First, we need the arts to express feelings words cannot convey. Second, we need the arts
to stir creativity and enrich a student’s way of knowing. Third, we need the arts to integrate
the fragments of academic life. Fourth, we need the arts to empower the disabled and give
hope to the disenchanted. Above all, we need the arts to create community and to build
connections across the generations.”
Dr Ernest Boyer, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 1994

With the increasing complexity and alienation present in the post-modern world, the value of the
Visual Arts to the individual’s spirit is of significant importance. The Visual Arts provide keys to the
future; a future that should be planned, visualised and understood, not left to develop haphazardly.

Through Visual Arts education, the next generations can learn to read the visual complexities of
their world; sort the significant from the incidental and respond with aesthetic sensitivity. A Visual
Arts education allows students to contribute to the social and cultural life of schools and their
communities. Each student is capable of a personal vision, of insight and creativity and Visual Arts
engages and fosters an imaginative and exploratory approach to learning that encourages self
awareness, personal expression and interpretation. Through Visual Arts education, students come
to understand and value cultural and social differences and the ways in which our lives are enriched
by diversity and difference. Through study in the Visual Arts students gain access to and knowledge
and understanding of the visual language by which our changing world increasingly communicates.

The concept of teacher directed and student’s personal research are an important part of Visual
Arts education programmes. This approach gives students a method or sequence for producing
quality work upon which motivation and innovation can be built. Visual Arts learning is designed to
lead to the gaining of excellence in the Higher School Certificate and the foundation of skills leading
to tertiary study and career options in related fields.

The Visual Arts and spirituality have had a strong bond throughout human existence and have
frequently been intertwined and mutually reinforcing. Art, inspired by spiritual concepts has
addressed humanity's most profound needs and life's greatest mysteries: beliefs about death and
an afterlife, the nature of the universe and humanity's place in it and the moral codes that guide
private and public behaviour. Through Visual Arts study, students have opportunities to explore the
bonds between art and spirituality and to examine their own spirituality in artmaking and art
studying.

The Visual Arts are neither core nor ancillary to other subjects in the curriculum – they are partners
in the development of critical ways of thinking and learning. Key elements of what is explored within
the Visual Arts often complement students’ understanding in other learning areas. Critical and
creative thinking are life skills that transcend the classroom. Our students are our future and it is our
responsibility to direct them carefully in their lives; spiritually, morally, behaviourally and
intellectually. Joanna McKeown Visual Arts Coordinator St Patrick’s College Strathfield

Page 20
 MEDIA ACTION
An example of a short Media Release

DUMBED-DOWN CURRICULUM TURNS ART CLOCK BACK17 June 2010

A “dumbed-down” Australian Arts Curriculum will sell NSW junior students short and undermine the
foundations of one of Australia’s toughest Year 12 Visual Arts programs.

The Australian Curriculum Arts: Initial Advice Paper is ill-conceived, trivial and unacceptable.

Dr Karen Maras, Senior Lecturer from the Australian Catholic University and Co-President of the
Visual Arts and Design Educators Association NSW (VADEA) said Visual Arts is no soft option in
NSW. Visual Arts has world-class syllabuses that demand intellectual rigour in artmaking and in the
study of the Visual Arts from senior students and this foundation is laid down in junior years.

The Advice Paper suggests slashing the time available to teach Visual Arts in NSW schools in
Years 7 and 8 by a savage 80 per cent to just 20 minutes a week, compared to 100 compulsory
hours now. It forces a common approach on the Arts by lumping the Visual Arts, Music, Drama,
Dance and Media Arts together. This approach distorts practice in the Visual Arts and downplays
the value of knowing in the discipline. It also sets up competing demands for space in the timetable.

Visual Arts teachers and academics in NSW have spent decades developing scholarly and rigorous
programs, which challenge the top students theoretically and practically. 9665 students elected
Visual Arts as an HSC subject last year.

There has been an error of judgement in how the Arts Learning Area has been conceived. Visual
Arts should be established as a Learning Area in its own right, similar to what has occurred in
subjects like History, English and Mathematics, Dr Maras said The proposed curriculum would
quickly turn the clock back.
Dr Karen Maras VADEA Co-President

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 MEDIA ACTION
Liverpool Leader, 23/11/10, ‘Art Teacher Fears Proposed National Curriculum’, by Alex Ward

http://liverpool-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/art-teacher-fears-proposed-national-
curriculum/

A National Curriculum will make students bland, Liverpool Girls’ High visual arts teacher Kate
Coleman has claimed. She is one of many teachers angry over proposals for a K-12 national
curriculum.

“Students sitting in a Liverpool classroom shouldn’t be learning the same things as students in
Darwin,” Ms Coleman said. “Having state curriculums allows us to have differences; otherwise we’d
end up with bland students across the whole country.”

About 25 teachers met recently at Liverpool Girls’ High School to discuss the proposals made by
the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). “Not enough teachers
know what’s happening and we need to warn ACARA that the national curriculum is not what we’re
after,” she said.
Proposed changes include grouping the arts (visual arts, music, drama, dance and media arts) into
one program.

“We are angered by the assumption that the arts will be integrated into one subject for years K-8 in
the future curriculum,” Ms Coleman said. Face-to-face arts teaching hours will also be significantly
reduced. “ACARA is proposing 160 hours teaching the arts from K-8 which is about 13 to 14 hours a
year,” she said. “In comparison, we teach 100 hours a year now in year 7 and 8.” Teachers can
comment on the draft paper until December 17 and Ms Coleman hopes art teachers will fill out the
online response form. “If we don’t take the time to respond then there will be massive changes
affecting everybody,” she said.

“From the meeting we hope teachers will share the information with their colleagues. “NSW has a
wonderful curriculum, so it’s a real shame.” ACARA chief executive officer Dr Peter Hill said “in the
past some students have missed out because the curriculum has been focused on one or two art
forms. We want each young person to develop an appreciation and an understanding of each art
form”.
Kate Colman Quoted Visual Arts Teacher

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
VADEA wishes to acknowledge our strong and passionate members who have all contributed in the
discussion on the National Curriculum for The Arts. The development of dialogue, and sharing of resources,
allows our members to become empowered and aware of curriculum decisions that will shape the future of
our discipline. The development of this document has been driven by the efforts of VADEAs co-presidents,
Dr Kerry Thomas, Dr Karan Maras and Karen Profilio. All articles, responses and blog posts have been
made by VADEA members. This document is their voice and their resource. Publication, the collection of
resources and the synthesisation of documents has been conducted by Nick Phillipson, VADEA Executive
member and Visual Arts Teacher at St Patrick’s College Strathfield.

VADEA members are encouraged to use this document for their own professional reading and further
advocacy for the Visual Arts.

Contributing Authors
Dr Kerry Thomas VADEA Co president
Dr Karen Maras VADEA Co President
Nick Phillipson Visual Arts Teacher
St Patrick’s College Strathfield
Claire Harrison Visual Arts Teacher
Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College
Sophie Lampert Visual Arts Head Teacher
Oxley College
Francis Hanna Visual Arts Head Teacher
All Saints Grammar
Gwenda Maude Visual Arts Teacher
La Salle Collage Bankstown
John Phillips Pre-service VA Teacher
ACU Strathfield
Dr Jane Gooding-Brown Visual Arts Teacher
Conservatorium High School
Joanna McKeown Visual Arts Coordinator
St Patrick’s College Strathfield
Kate Colman Quoted, Liverpool Leader, 23/11/10
‘Art Teacher Fears Proposed National Curriculum’
LisaA Online Contributor
Sally Online Contributor
Michele Online Contributor
Techer_gal Online Contributor
A Pre-Service Art Teacher Online Contributor
Beware of Blancmange Online Contributor

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