As in any social or cultural enterprise it is virtually impossible to predict the future. The only thing we can know for sure is that we cannot know what the future holds. Futurology, perhaps the vainest of vain enterprises, tells us that while we can’t predict how society and culture will change, we can predict that it will change and at exponentially more rapid rates. So, the unknown is upon us.
In order to prepare for this future, institutions of art education must develop a flexible and experimental approach to curricular development. Certainty and dogma will be liabilities in the world to come. To respond, or even anticipate, the needs of the emerging student population, institutions should be willing to take risks, to embrace what the corporate world has come to call, “fast failure.” Intuit opportunity, test models, and—if necessary-- accept failure. Just do it fast, and move on. In short, schools will need to embrace something of the studio culture of rapid iteration that they themselves inculcate.
Balancing the need for experimentation to engender new curricular opportunities, schools would be wise to refrain from jettisoning too soon education in more traditional approaches to art practice. Over the past decades artists have shown us that relevant contemporary expressions need not be manifest only in cutting edge techniques and forms. Indeed, some of the most interesting developments in contemporary art and design involve the persistence or integration of traditional techniques and forms.
Besides fostering curricular innovation and cultivating embedded expertise , institutions of art education will benefit from enhancing their pedagogical approaches by incorporating research-proven methods of educational practice. Specifically, institutions would be wise to educate their own educators in approaches to engaged learning that have been shown to stimulate greater student success. Empowering students to collaborate with faculty in developing their own learning outcomes and criteria will do much to demystify the educational experience and blur the engrained hierarchy between teacher and student. Finally, art education institutions can be of service to the broader field of higher education by attending to the unique effectiveness of the critique model. As a means of dialogical inquiry, collaborative learning, and rapid assessment, the critique is a special competency of art education that could have broad ramifications for engaged learning in other disciplines.
Larry Rider
Larry Rider is director of Berkley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California.
