Our world today is filled with new technology. From communication satellites to digital cameras, fax machines to music videos, sound synthesizers to video games, electronic circuitry and silicon chips have combined to become an increasingly powerful force in everyday life. It is against the backdrop of this technological blitz that arts teachers must begin to reevaluate and reassert the role of the arts in the general education of our children. In rethinking the purposes and goals of arts education, there are at least four reasons for linking the learning outcomes of school arts curricula to the expanding presence of technology in our society.
First, the integration of new technology into school arts programs permits students to engage in unique and exciting forms of artistic expression and learning with contemporary media rooted in their everyday lives. This is not to say that "older" more conventional media technologies such as crayons, clay, film, paint, radio, records, slides, wood instruments, and the like are any less worthy for their age. All media technologies have a place in school arts curricula provided that they can help to promote the ends of arts education. It is simply that newer technologies such as computers, digital cameras, synthesizers, and video deserve special attention in that they collectively constitute a new genre of contemporary art forms that are dramatically altering our cultural landscape. Recognizing that electronic media provide a direct link to the non school culture of students, arts teachers can (and should) make use of these new tools to bridge the gap between what happens in the classroom and what is happening in the real world. At the very least, the availability of new technology in arts classrooms may attract students who currently find little value or interest in the arts.
Second, the use of new technology as expressive arts media in schools provides many unique and significant opportunities for fostering the literacy skills required by our technological culture. A child's need to comprehend and participate in our technological culture goes far beyond the scope of what is commonly referred as "computer literacy." To be able to program or use a computer is not enough. To be "literate" in our technological culture demands a deeper understanding of all media technologies and their potential for human interaction, communication an expression. In this sense, a truly literate person today must not only be able to create and communicate one's own messages with new technology tools but also be able to analyze, interpret and evaluate the messages that one receives in a technology-mediated environment. Gaining such literacy skills requires education.
In order to communicate and think effectively with electronic media tools, students must learn how to manipulate the language of new technology. This language--images, sound, movement, voice, drama, and text--is also the language of the arts. It is incumbent on arts teachers to build on this connection by helping students exploit the expressive potential of electronic media and by educating them to become active, critical consumers of its messages.
Third, the introduction of new technology into arts classrooms provides a unique training laboratory for helping students to meet the high-tech occupational demands of the twenty-first century. Innovative arts curricula in computer animation, desk-top publishing, electronic music, video, and multimedia production enable students to harness the power of technology through the discipline and vision of the creative process. Classroom arts projects involving computer-based networks, instructional television, videodiscs, and CD-ROM allow students to discover the potential of technology as an informational resource which they can use to make new connections between people, places and ideas. Students who have had first-hand experiences with the creative possibilities of electronic technologies and who are able to use new technology tools for accessing information and interpersonal communication will undoubtedly be an invaluable resource in the coming age. In the words of John Scully, Chairman and CEO of Apple Computer: "As a chief executive of a technology company that thrives on creativity, I want to work with people whose imaginations have been unleashed and who tackle problems as challenges rather than obstacles. An education enriched by the creative arts should be considered essential for everyone."
Lastly, the arts themselves serve as a counterbalance to the infusion of new technology into our daily lives. The "computer revolution" of the 1980s brought about dramatic changes of many aspects of contemporary society and more changes are inevitable. It appears that a new wave of technology is coming at us as the fields of computers, consumer electronics, cable TV, and telecommunications merge together. This onslaught of super gadgets and electronic services, according to industry experts, will transform all of our lives for the better. Yet, in spite of all the promises and benefits of high technology, its potential drawbacks are too great to ignore. In particular, its potential for fostering glitz over substance, speed over sustained effort, and entertainment over critical reflection should be of concern to all of us--especially as arts teachers.
If the intent of public education is to prepare children to become thinking, contributing members of the twenty-first century, we must not allow technological advancement to overwhelm them, to numb their aesthetic sensibilities, or to dictate their personal identities. Rather, we must help children sustain their humanness in a highly technologized world. As John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends, suggests, ". . . whenever new technology is introduced into society, there must be a counterbalancing human response--that it, high touch--or the technology is rejected."
In this context, the arts are a curricular necessity for they provide fertile ground for cultivating in children those "high touch" sensibilities and values that we intuitively feel are essential for living full and productive lives in an increasingly artificial "high tech" environment. Some of these uniquely human qualities nurtured in arts classrooms include: the willingness to take chances, challenge convention, and explore the unknown; the desire to work honestly, with self-discipline, while acknowledging the success or failure of one's endeavors; the ability to appraise and defend what is personally and socially important; as well as the capacity to appreciate the warmth of a cello being bowed or plucked, the gracefulness of a ballet dancer, the unpredictability of watercolor paint being applied to a wet surface, the pliability of clay being formed on a potter's wheel, and the excitement of a live dramatic performance.
In the end, whatever technologies are brought to bear on the arts learning process, children must learn to use the tools they have available to think, to imagine, to create, to take on the impossible, to play with ideas, to explore, and to feel what it means to be human. As arts teachers, seeing to it that this kind of authentic learning takes place in our classrooms may be the greatest investment we can make in our children's future.
© Copyright 1994 Craig Roland University of Florida
Artwork by Amye Adkins of Edgewater High School in Orlando, Florida.