Art Education Australia Inc.

150 Palmerston Street, Carlton, VIC 3053 Australia

Phone: (03) 9349 5188 Fax: (03) 9349 3389
Email: marian.strong@arteducation.org.au

Friday, 12 November 2010

Dear Minister,

Art Education Australia (AEA) is the national body of Visual Arts Educators concerned with the
scholarly exploration and promotion of art education practice, research and theory. AEA represents
the interests at the national level of over 2000 art educators as members of state professional
associations in Victoria, NSW, Queensland, ACT, Tasmania, WA and SA along with those interests of
art education researchers from universities and schools across Australia. AEA acts as an advocate for
the Visual Arts and fosters collaborations amongst art educators and industry groups, locally and
internationally.

All affiliates of AEA advocate for a high quality education in the Visual Arts as a necessary entitlement
in the Australian Curriculum. The inclusion of the Arts is an important investment in Australia’s future
in the Visual Arts and Design and related fields of practice. This investment also contributes to
Australia’s artistic, cultural and economic identity and the recognition afforded to Australia in an
increasingly globalised world.

As you would know, AEA is currently contributing to the development of the Australian Curriculum in
the Arts. In this context we believe it is important that we highlight for you the serious concerns that
are emerging about the quality of the draft curriculum as proposed by ACARA in The Australian
Curriculum: The Arts - Draft Shape Paper. Currently the Draft Shape Paper does not draw on existing
best curriculum practice in Visual Arts education or provide a curriculum framework of any rigour. In
fact, the document is nothing other than a conceptual downsizing of existing curriculum provision in
the Visual Arts.

Recently AEA hosted the International Society of Education Through Art (InSEA) South East Asia-
Pacific Regional Congress, with the National Gallery Victoria. During the Congress AEA members
attended a Forum to discuss the proposals for Visual Arts in the Australian Curriculum. Serious faults
were identified in the The Arts - Draft Shape Paper. The 150+ delegates passed three motions as
outlined below.

1. We reject the draft Shape Paper for the Arts as presented.

2. We call for a substantial extension of time to allow for considered discussion and debate about the
structure, design and content of this curriculum.
3. We call for a return to the name of the ‘Visual and Performing Arts’, as proposed in the Melbourne
Declaration of Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008) rather than ‘The Arts’.

AEA believes that the draft Shape Paper is offensive and unworkable. We have developed a
constructive working model that indicates the serious problems in what has been proposed and lays a
superior conceptual framework for the development of the curriculum.

We trust that you will attend to the issues as raised and we look forward to meeting with you and
discussing these points in more detail.

Yours sincerely,

Marian Strong
President Art Education Australia (Attached: AEA Position Paper & Tables 1 – 3)

VAESA  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
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 Art Education Australia Inc.
150 Palmerston Street, Carlton, VIC 3053 Australia
Phone: (03) 9349 5188 Fax: (03) 9349 3389
Email: marian.strong@arteducation.org.au

On behalf of

VAESA
Fiona Dace-Lynn Genevie Baker Ruth Flaherty
President Spokesperson: National Issues Public Officer
Visual Arts Network of Art Education Association of Visual Art Educators
Educators, Western Australia South Australia
Australian Capital Territory

Brian Ladd
Steering Committee
Visual Arts Consortium: Australian
Curriculum

Peta Collins Dr Kerry Thomas Dr Narelle Lemon

President Karen Profilio President
Tasmanian Art Teachers Dr Karen Maras Art Education Victoria
Association Co-Presidents
Visual Arts & Design Educators
Association NSW

VAESA  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
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 Art Education Australia Inc.
150 Palmerston Street, Carlton, VIC 3053 Australia
Phone: (03) 9349 5188 Fax: (03) 9349 3389
Email: marian.strong@arteducation.org.au

ART EDUCATION AUSTRALIA – POSITION PAPER

THE PLACE OF VISUAL ARTS IN THE AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM

PROCESS ISSUES

Support for an Australian Curriculum in the Visual and Performing Arts

1. AEA supports the development of an Australian Curriculum in the Visual and Performing Arts but
takes the position that the proposed curriculum should be an up-cycling of current practice, rather
than a down-cycling as is currently the case. It endorses a framework that identifies the
contribution of the Visual Arts and the Performing Arts to the education of students and the
Australian Curriculum (as per the Melbourne Declaration of Educational Goals for young
Australians, 2008). In this way the contribution of the Visual Arts to the curriculum is acknowledged
and valued.

Extend the timeline

2. We believe the timeline for the development of the Visual and Performing Arts curriculum should
be extended in order that a high quality curriculum is achieved. The complexity of the Visual and
Performing Arts as a learning area cannot be underestimated especially when this learning area
comprises five distinct subjects which each have a body of knowledge, practices, traditions and
trajectories that are not interchangeable. Consultation on the Draft Shape Paper for the Arts occurs
at the end of the school year having been significantly delayed by the 2010 Federal election.
Opportunity to engage in consultation has been minimal. ACARA is urged to extend the scope and
focus of consultation with different stakeholders in the artforms rather than accepting a generic
approach to the Visual and Performing Arts that undercuts the value of learning.

Involve state and national professional associations

3. AEA has throughout this curriculum change consolidated its relationships with state professional
associations and has sought to represent these voices in all forums. In the processes leading up to
the development of the Draft Shape Paper for the Arts there has been a lack of acknowledgement
of the huge commitment Visual Arts has made to the strength of the overall arts curriculum across
the nation. As the largest subject representing the largest cohorts of students and teachers, the
Visual Arts has much to contribute to the development of the curriculum. As a statutory authority
ACARA has sought involvement from national professional associations, most particularly a
national alliance of arts educators (NAAE) and some few industry representatives. In this context,
the voices of Visual Arts educators, including the state professional associations, are overridden.

The distinctions between the Visual Arts and Performing Arts has not been harnessed, cast aside
because of an equal weighting given to the smaller artforms of Drama, Dance and Media Arts who
are keen to have their entitlement in the curriculum. Decisions weighted in favour of ‘equity for all
the Arts and all students’ is deceptive in that few if any schools could in all seriousness teach
adequately in each of the Arts (given the time and resources made available) and the genuine
concerns of the largest and best theorised of the subjects in the learning area are marginalised by
an ideological position.

Involve primary and secondary art teachers

4. To date the focus has been on the suitability of the proposed curriculum for early years of
schooling. Non-specialist primary teachers have been involved in the development of the Initial
Advice and Draft Shape papers with little specialist input from secondary teachers. For example,
only one Visual Arts specialist secondary teacher advised the writer via the reference group on the

VAESA  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
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 Art Education Australia Inc.
150 Palmerston Street, Carlton, VIC 3053 Australia
Phone: (03) 9349 5188 Fax: (03) 9349 3389
Email: marian.strong@arteducation.org.au

proposals for Visual Arts. AEA supports the focus on the early years in Visual and Performing Arts
education from K-6. However the focus on a continuum from K-12 has been proposed without
adequate discussion of the impact on learning in the Visual Arts in the secondary years and
beyond. We assert that ongoing development of the Arts curriculum needs to include the expert
advice of specialist secondary teachers along with primary teachers, including those who
specialise in one or more of the artforms, to ensure that the high quality standards of existing
programs are maintained and enhanced rather than eroded.

Involve Visual Arts education researchers

5. ACARA has appointed a lead writer for the Arts curriculum whose background is in Drama
education and who favours a view of the Arts as an aesthetic domain. His approach privileges a
related arts approach which is valued over and above the subjects that make up the Visual and
Performing Arts in education. This approach is far from universally accepted. Qualified and
experienced academics in Visual Arts education, with proven success in curriculum design and
published research, have attempted to contribute constructively to the development of the
curriculum for Visual Arts. To date their contributions have been largely ignored.

AEA advocates that ACARA should invest in a more open debate anchored in empirical and best
practice research in the artforms and art education, rather than accepting an outdated related arts
approach that was discredited in the1970s. ACARA should address the theoretical and
developmental underpinnings of each artform in the Visual and Performing Arts curriculum and
recognise differences in how each is theorised. AEA rejects the current proposal and supports a
more robust conceptual framework for the Visual Arts and where possible, the other artforms.

Make the consultation submissions and outcomes public

6. Submissions made to the consultation on the Draft Shape Paper should be made public to ensure
open and informed debate about the directions for the Arts curriculum. Given the complexities of
developing curriculum for five subjects in the learning area it is essential that educators in each of
the artforms are apprised of the responses to ACARA’s claims regarding commonalities within and
across the artforms. AEA believes that the potential for the proposed curriculum to dumb down the
Arts should be avoided. It is critical that stakeholders understand the varying positions underlying
and informing further development of the curriculum for Visual Arts rather than accepting the one
size fits all approach that has been proposed to date.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND STRUCTURAL ISSUES

There is an overwhelming need for a stronger rationale and developmental articulation of content and
learning within the Visual Arts. A regressive and out-dated aesthetic approach has been adopted
which, if implemented, will undermine the current world-class standards of Visual Arts teaching and
learning that are celebrated in Australia and internationally (eg ARTEXPRESS (NSW), TopArts (VIC)
and Perspectives (WA).

The development of the Arts curriculum would be strengthened by a strong and clearly stated rationale
that justifies the value of learning in the Visual Arts and the Performing Arts and its contribution to the
curriculum and students’ education: Currently:
• There is no clear statement explaining how and why the nomenclature of ‘The Arts’ has been
adopted to subsume or obfuscate the identity of the Visual Arts as distinct from the Performing
Arts.
• There is no clear explanation of relevant content in the Visual Arts including media and
design.

VAESA  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
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 Art Education Australia Inc.
150 Palmerston Street, Carlton, VIC 3053 Australia
Phone: (03) 9349 5188 Fax: (03) 9349 3389
Email: marian.strong@arteducation.org.au

• There is no clear statement justifying the adoption of aesthetic knowledge as Visual Arts
knowledge. Existing curricula in different states, since the 1990s, have moved away from
aesthetic knowledge paradigms to more contemporary approaches to articulating what is
knowledge in the Visual Arts informed by different theories and beliefs, practices and
relational concepts associated with the artworld.
• There is a need to explain the decision to offer all five artforms from K-8 as an entitlement
particularly when resources in schools, teacher preparedness and availability vary widely
across Australia.
• There is a need to explain why the Arts is the only area in the Australian Curriculum that
nominates a learning continuum from K-8 rather than K-6 and then compresses the
expectations for students from years 3-8.
• There is a need to explain why the generic strands of ‘generating, realising and responding’
have been adopted given they are outmoded concepts that belie differences associated with
learning in each of the artforms and undermine the teacher’s role. The strands are only trivially
true and retreat to a process approach to teaching and learning that is ill equipped to deal with
content that is particular to the Visual Arts or the other artforms.
• A coherent developmental continuum describing how knowledge develops within each artform
is lacking. Without this, teachers are unsupported in how to articulate content for students of
different ages, particularly during the formative years, the richest developmental period in a
child’s learning and through to different stages in the secondary years.
• The lack of theory that informs the artforms learning negates the possibility for students to be
respected as theoreticians and practitioners. Students are more than capable of developing
increasingly autonomous intellectual stances enabling them to make reasoned judgements
about art, how it works and what it means. This is neglected in the current proposal.

We are concerned about the coherence of how the Visual Arts is represented in the Draft Shape
Paper for the Arts.

The centrality of the experiential learning process runs contrary to how students acquire knowledge in
art. Experiential learning paradigms favouring imagination and sensory negotiation of the world render
the role of the teacher redundant and mitigate against explicit teaching and learning. ACARA asserts
that national curricula will draw from existing best curriculum practice. This is far from the case.

AEA proposes that state systems and schools should offer the Visual Arts and one Performing art as a
minimum as Australian students’ the entitlement. This would draw on available resources, staffing and
local traditions, rather than ACARA mandating experience and study in all artforms, which limits
curriculum time and thus opportunities of quality and deep learning.

AEA advocates for explicit identification of design practice as a form within the Visual Arts
encompassing product, graphic and architectural forms amongst others.

AEA supports a clear mandate that film, video and digital forms of art remain located as legitimate
Visual Arts practices in line with contemporary practice.

AEA advocates the inclusion of the concepts of artists, audience, artwork and world to provide a
structural foundation for learning and teaching consistent with developmental progression according to
age. The concept of practice should also circumscribe learning in making and interpreting artworks.
Learning as the acquisition of knowledge and skills in conceptual and practical reasoning would also
permit a variety of interpretive perspectives and pedagogical positions to be articulated in the Visual
Arts curriculum. This would be more consistent with the practices in the fields of Visual Arts as
currently reflected in the visual arts education in schools across Australia.

AEA supports the development of a curriculum that clearly articulates knowledge, understanding and
skills that can be taught and assessed.

VAESA  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
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 Art Education Australia Inc.
150 Palmerston Street, Carlton, VIC 3053 Australia
Phone: (03) 9349 5188 Fax: (03) 9349 3389
Email: marian.strong@arteducation.org.au

Is this a conceptual framework for a 21st century, world-class curriculum?

Quite simply, no! The Draft Shape Paper represents a reductive and dated view of the Arts that should
not be countenanced in a C21 curriculum.

Conclusion
AEA advocates a curriculum that at best identifies the Visual Arts as a learning area or at least a
differentiated area in the Arts and recognises its distinct contribution to the curriculum and the
education of students for the C21. Content frameworks in this curriculum would be based on practice,
the development of relational concepts of the artist, artwork, audience and world, and a representation
of different domains of art that include concepts about spirituality, creativity, discipline, communication,
practice, visual culture, the interactive and networked. Each of these frameworks would be appropriate
to students in the early years of schooling as well as the later years. This curriculum in the Visual Arts
would provide a base from which to organise a coherently structured learning continuum K-12,
providing scope for common purposes while respecting local differences. The attached diagrams give
some shape to these concepts. (Tables 1, 2 & 3)

VAESA  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
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