Summer task

concrete table

  

Summer task

AUGUST 25, 2014 / ANTTI LOKKA TACE 2014

Writing process: The Article was interesting and fresh although it was from the 1980’s. I tried to write straight in to the English but it was difficult. With some words the dictionary was necessary and there is still many problems with the grammar. My idea was to compare the article to the art education because it’s my daily problematic and normal issue. There were some parallel lines with cultural anthropology, language, teacher-student interaction etc. Timetable was finally too busy because I started too late. The summer task itself was interesting and it was to fine start the autumn with the TACE.

POSITION PAPER ON FINNISH ART EDUCATION DISCUSSING WITH G. HOFSTEDE ́S MODEL

INTRODUCTION

It has been said that we are living inside the visual culture. My education is M.A. from Art Education, Aalto University. My art education lectures are dealing with the theory of visual expression, visual perception and visual communication. Normally my task in is to provide my students with ” the reading glasses” to get the idea of the world of the visual images. Some of my lessons during the academic year could be multicultural with university’s exchange students. I have experienced many different kind of aspects of the visual culture with them. As a full-time lecturer in the Department of Teacher Education I am able to be in interaction not only with students of the University, but in some occasions with the schools and the classroom teachers around the Jyväskylä City. For the TACE ”summer task” I read G. Hofstede’s article ”Cultural differences in teaching and learning ”. In this writing I will expose the experiences during my career as a teacher with some other written sources and compare these with G. Hofstede.

     

SCHOOL ART OR ARTISTIC SCHOOL? .

Art education in Finnish school system is largely based on traditional drawing skills; during the course the students individually do crafts, sketches, paintings and clay modelling. We could approach the art from the students’ own visual culture and values, with a more coherent connection to their needs and daily lives. If we learned how to take photos and how to manipulate them with a simple computer software, if we got out of the classroom more often, made graffiti or even videos, organised different kind of events, we would probably give to the boys and the girls a collective way to see the benefits of the art and the importance of the self-expression to their lives. The Individualism as a characteristic for a culture opposes the Collectivism (Hofstede1986, p. 307). The teacher ‘s traditional sense of art usually emphasises the “neat” pieces of work, which are made individually by the schoolchildren, and which the parents like to put on display at home for instance on the refrigerator’s door. Media culture needs more collective skills, for instance a school video production is ideally done by a group of four, the first taking care of the whole production as a mentor, the second is a camera man, the third is acting, and the last but not the least is responsible for editing. There could be some connection with cultural values seen in the article. ( Hofstede 1986, p. 313, table 3 & 4.) In my point of view the cultural values are telling how we generally respect the teachers work, as well as the the students attitude to the subject. In addition, the pair Masculinity – Feminity is clearly visible in the art-classroom as my colleague from the USA says: ”Boys like things like blood, bombs, action figures, robots, spaceships etc., while girls like flowers, horses, dolls, puppies, Cinderellas and princess stories. On the other hand, both try to draw cartoon characters influenced, for example, from media culture.” ( Insea Budapest 2011 ). What the men are expected to do or the women expected to do can be seen in the art products made in the very early years. Certain regions and countries are traditionally and culturally more masculine than the others. (Hofstede 1986, p. 310, Figure 2).

THE 4-D MODEL of CULTURAL DIFFERENCES in ART EDUCATION

1. Individualism – something is bubbling under – social media tribes etc. 2. Power Distance – Mediterranean – Northern countries are different
3. Uncertainty Avoidance – art education can “teach” UA in many ways 4. Masculinity – art education curriculum is equal

Elliot W. Eisner, author of the acclaimed publication The Arts and the Creation of Mind, takes us in to the world of understanding Art Education. According to Eisner, “We need information groups as well as about individuals. It would seem that the tribal artist is secure so long as he or she is with the tribe and share their values.“ (Eisner, 2002, p. 29). According to PISA, Finnish elementary schooling is a first class educational system, yet Finnish children do not enjoy the school. Based on extensive research by the Ministry of Education, the elementary school results in fine arts did not enjoy first class status either (Laitinen et al 2011). On the other hand, the appreciation of the teacher is due to the general perspective of society, and children do bring the values learned at home to school.

CONCLUSION
Four different Corresponding Role pairs in Human Institutions with media culture are:

              Institution Role Pair             Media culture “role”pairs


Family    Parent – Child                   Fact – Fiction

School   Teacher – Student            User – Maker Job         Boss – Subordinate          Local – Global Community Authority – Member     Verbal – Visual  One – Way – Interaction I argue media culture roles because User – Maker, Teacher – Student or Parent Child roles are upside down in many places, not only in the negative way. (Luukka et al 2001). In the matter of fact, our media culture is blurring all the time. The Teacher – Student interaction of four Role patterns is visible in the classroom. In addition, all of four role pairs can be seen in teachers workplace. Every country and every continent has different culture what kind of language or interaction teacher should have. (Hofstede 1986, p. 302). Bridging the cross-cultural teching gap brings me back to basics. Perhaps the focus of the Art Education could be the co-operation by getting the international students with their different kind of cultural values to study together. The focus of the teacher`s training should be on learning about his / her own culture (Hofstede 1986, p. 316). At the same we can think what is our tribe as a learner, tutor, student or teacher. REFERENCES Laitinen, S.; Hilmola, Antti & Juntunen, Marja-Leena, The education’s follow-up report 2011:1 Primary/Middle school’s music, fine arts and crafts evaluation results of students in grade 9. OPH 2011 Hofstede. G. (1986) Cultural differences in teaching and learning. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10, 301-320. (http://jyutace.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Hofstede-

1986.pdf) Eisner, Elliot W. (2002) The Arts and the Creation of Mind, Yale University Press. Summa Summarum, InSEA Budapest document https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=Sp7OLurEYbY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp7OLurEYbY) Luukka, Minna et al. (2001), Mediat nuorten arjessa. 13-19 -vuotiaiden nuorten mediakäytöt vuosituhannen vaihteessa. Jyväskylä SOLKI.     concrete table