What is art education actually?

I love art.

I enjoy the world of making, creating, and producing artifacts, even I am not very good at it. But I do like the feeling when I immerse myself into the process of creating. I feel happy and satisfied.

I had art classes in elementary, junior high, and senior high schools. Art in Taiwan is a required subject which every student has to take for aesthetic development. In art classes, students learn how to draw, scratch, paint, carve, and etc. Teachers give guidelines and topics for students to create. Actually, I do not quite aware what I learned in art classes, but I think I learned how to mix colors, functions of different tools, and space arrangement. I just enjoyed the experience of expressing myself into the creation. However, for many parents or teachers, this kind of experience does not count as learning and does not bring benefits on academic performance. Learning art is seen as having fun, not learning. Many private schools sacrifice art classes for course subjects which will be tested. Art wastes time. In addition, what kinds of benefits will art bring for students’ career? Art in Taiwan is seen as a luxury activity with high but also low values. Within big Culture, art such as paintings in museums, dancing and performance in theaters are valued as higher culture. But on the contrary, art students in vocational schools sometimes are labeled with low academic performance. What art education can bring to students?

Regarding the content of art classes, art usually is taught separately and independently. What I learned from art classes sometimes might not relate to my life, just an assignment I had to submit. Could art be integrated into content of other courses? Especially within the age of Web 2.0, how can students learn art though computer games, media art, and interactive media? How can teachers create a space for students to use creativity to brainstorm new forms of art and to learn from the process? What art education actually is? And for what purpose? What do educators expect students to learn from the process? I am not quite familiar with art education, but I think educators and researchers should pay attention on learning and curriculum design in art classes.

Programming is not just for engineers.

“Programming is not just for engineers” (Reas & Fry, 2006).
For me, it is. I am the person who maybe have some computational literacy but without fluency and flexibility. I use software which programmers have already designed for me to use, and I use what I can get from software. When the software cannot do what I want to make, then I will give up my original thoughts if I cannot find solutions to fit my purpose. When reading articles of this week, I felt encouraged even though I still thought that the way to reach flexibility is far away.

By self-reflecting, one reason that I cannot reach fluency and flexibility is the belief that programming is for engineers or computer professionals. Programming for me is like mission impossible because I do not believe myself in building any programs which can benefit anybody. But I think I misunderstand programming or I am too ambitious when thinking creating programs like Microsoft office. Thinking my experience in Scratch and Lilypad, I indeed programmed something! However, this belief really keeps me away programming. Another reason is “programming anxiety” (Gos, 1996). The unfamiliarity and uncertainty in programming language and system increase my rejection to programming. The anxiety and frustration build higher affection filter between me and programming.

After reading articles of this week, I indeed feel encouraged and think that how to transform my view of programming as playing with mud. Program designers try hard to make software or programming easy to adapt and make it available as many people as possible to create and use for personal use. Scratch and Processing seem to have similar characteristics and goals which provide basic formats of programming language for people to create, design and learn from the process. The idea proposed by Resnich (2004) about the integration of the digital and physical worlds is a good beginning, and I will be working on viewing programming from a different point of view as well.