Abstract:
The primary purpose of this study is to find out the art teacher’s awareness of the goals of art education in a junior secondary school. The practice in some schools where emphasis is placed on art making to the neglect of art history and art criticism, does not indicate an awareness of the goals of art education by the teachers.
The goals of art education seek to create opportunities for pupils to achieve self-fulfillment through art, become aware of their artistic heritage and conscious of the role art plays in the society. The teaching of art for the purpose of general education, for which the junior secondary school caters, should embrace the three domains of art production, art history and art criticism.
The study monitored the art teacher’s awareness through the direct observation of his teaching in the classes over a period of four weeks. This was with the view of seeing how they, through their lesson objectives, contents, activities, methodologies and evaluation techniques, strive to achieve the goals of art education.
One class from each stream of the junior secondary school section of queen of the Rosary Secondary School (QRSS), Nsukka, was used for this observation. Each class was observed fro four weeks. Recording on paper, of each art lesson was made using the anthropological approach in which events are recorded as they occurred. The observation report was analysed to see how the teacher/learning activities of the class reflected the goals of art education.
From the findings, it was seen that the earlier impression that art teaching was concentrating only on art making, did not hold in this school. Theory was taught alongside some art making activities. But the theory being taught, concentrated on definition of art terms. it was also deduced that the emphasis on definition of art terms was to prepare pupils for the State’s Junior Secondary School examination. Pupils were being prepared for examination purposes. Such theory did not give pupils room to express themselves through art, respond to visual stimuli and seek ways through which art could contribute towards the development of the society.
There is therefore the need to improve the art teachers’ awareness of the goals of art education. The art programmes of the teacher training colleges, colleges of education and institutes of education, need to be reviewed to ensure that potential art teachers become aware of these goals. Art teachers who have as their goals the personal fulfillment of pupils’ through art, their awareness of their artistic heritage and the role art plays in the society will bring up useful citizens that make for a better society.
