(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Image language is not part of the general education in Norway today. Children learn to read and create images through social media because their mobile phones have camera function. They see so many pictures every single day that they know more about pictures than their parents and teachers combined. But we allow our children to be self-taught in imagery, even though society communicates with images every day, all the time. The importance of the image. The National Center for Arts and Culture in Education invited, in 2010, the Australian professor Anne Bamford to Norway to conduct a research study on arts and culture in basic education. The research results were presented in the report Arts and Cultural Education in Norway in 2011. Here, Bamford investigates what is being done in the arts and crafts profession in Norway, how the quality of the profession is, and what opportunities and challenges the profession has today and for the future. The report shows a school day where almost a tenth of the school time is devoted to practical subjects and to arts and crafts. The learning objectives and assessment criteria are vague. Students learn little or no art history, and they do not know the breadth and quality of classical and contemporary art. Only a few of the subject teachers have sufficient expertise. If this were the result of a report on the maths subject, anyone would call the situation absurd. Now it concerns the aesthetic subjects, and the reactions are, to say the least, muted. It is primarily the arts and cultural milieus that have expressed a kind of relief that it has finally been proven that the aesthetic subjects in the school are so poorly done. Chronicles and articles have regularly expressed since the report was published that we are more people who want to change the situation of the art subjects in the school. But little has happened. Really nothing. Minister of Education Torbjørn Røe Isaksen responded to Statistics Norway's 2014 survey on the competence of primary school teachers. There, it was found that 80 per cent of mathematics teachers in the small school had relevant academic specialization, while only half of the arts and crafts teachers had it. The Minister emphasized that there is now a requirement for a specialization in mathematics for new teachers. The arts and crafts subject was not mentioned in a word. Teacher private initiative. Professor Bamford points out a school that does not offer the student knowledge of art and culture or skills in the arts. The responsibility for building up the children's picture competence is placed with the Norwegian teacher, but he or she has no imposed requirements for his or her own competence in picture comprehension. Then it is up to each individual teacher to make the best of the situation and assess whether further education is needed or not. When more than half of the educators are set to teach a subject they themselves are not required to have a professional specialization in, it is appropriate to say that the image training in primary school is not followed up seriously enough. Professor's recommendations. Bamford confirms that the requirement for the arts and crafts teacher should be kept to a minimum. She further argues that long-term and sustainable learning goals must be developed for the arts and crafts subject, and that artists and cultural institutions should play a greater role in everyday school life. SFO and the cultural schools should also be strengthened. These are relatively simple goals to implement, because it has been proven through studies from other countries that it works – and that it results in more satisfied students and better results overall. The assessment criteria in the arts and crafts subjects must also be strengthened, the report states. But here it is not as simple, and moreover, it presupposes research in the field. For how do you evaluate students' work in arts and crafts? Creativity must enter the classroom, Bamford argues, and teachers must develop a pedagogy that allows for it. But how do we open up for creativity? Obstacles in the way. Creativity means creative – creation and wealth of ideas, and it is often associated with the arts and crafts subject. It is in the arts that you can go beyond the established, you can break rules and go beyond what is generally accepted. We find this general agreement again in the formulation of the competence goals for the arts and crafts subject: It is stated, among other things, that the students should «talk about the experience of how artists at different times (…) have expressed themselves (…), and use this as a starting point for own work ». Why should one talk about the experience of how artists have expressed themselves? In the competence goals for the Norwegian subject, one must «account for linguistic tools in modern forms of communication and use these in one's own text production». Why is it not possible in the arts and crafts subject to explain pictorial means in modern visual art and use these in one's own image production? The idea of the creative arts is a noise factor for the development of arts and crafts. And in the worst case, it stands in the way of incorporating the visual language as part of the general education in the Norwegian primary and lower secondary school. Because why are we not in the process of improving the arts and crafts subject already? It appears to be a win-win situation, the students become better and happier and the art and cultural life gets to take part in influencing the basic education of the citizens of the future. Cultural life is skeptical: Where does artistic freedom go when the assessment criteria are tightened in the aesthetic subjects? The journalists ask relevant questions about why the school should spend time teaching students a language they already know. Nobody says so much, because here the artists have to be on the field themselves, right? After all, they know the subject, they are the bearers of competence. But what do the artists say? They take care to emphasize the importance of artistic freedom and creativity. Visual artist Ane Hjort Guttu tells Kunstløftet in 2014 that «the art subjects can give children aesthetic competence, but they also represent exercises in critical thinking and independent utterances. It needs children. And adults must learn to listen to what children say, not least in school. " We listen, applaud and nod. But nothing happens. The competence of the artists. The vast majority of visual artists have a solid visual competence, with craftsmanship, technical and formal skills, theoretical professional knowledge, historical professional knowledge and specific professional technological knowledge. This competence will be essential in the development of the arts and crafts subjects of the future. All too often, this competence falls in the shadow of the artistic provocation. In meetings with the general public, "spirituality" can stand in the way of the invitation into the political spaces where basic discussions take place and decisions are made. The artists and the art life's supporters must become more aware of emphasizing the entire content of the artistic competence. It consists of both the technical and the critically reflective. Pictures on the syllabus. Do you remember the children's book by Tomi Ungerer, The three robbers in Kjartan Fløgstad's translation? The one with big, thick and finger-friendly sides, clear colors and warm lines in a cold and scary world? The book is first and foremost pictures, and the text serves as an illustration for the pictures. Why is it not the curriculum in 5th grade? Why can students not learn color in 1st grade, the difference between illustrative and narrative pictures in 2nd grade and composition in 3rd grade? And why is art history a well-kept secret until you examine the study offer at universities and colleges? Students are ready to learn the imagery. They are hungry for tasks and thirsty for knowledge. They practice all the time, they snap and edit, they compose and compose, they are already far gone on their way into the future. When are we going to come to our senses, get hooked and enable the school to give the children the general education they are already in the process of creating for themselves? Mølster introduced under the title "Are we visually illiterate?" at the seminar Visual illiteracy at the House of Literature in Oslo 4 May - an event organized by Oslo School of Photographye. Mølster is a philosopher, writer and has taught and supervised art theory at art colleges and colleges since 2001. Program manager for the bachelor program in visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts at the Oslo Academy of the Arts.
