History+of+Creativity+in+Art+Education

Creativity has played a prominent role in art education since the Lowenfeld era during the 1960’s and 1970’s with the focus on creative self-expression in the art classroom (Zimmerman, 2010, p. 84). All students were encouraged to explore their artistic abilities and let their creativity naturally develop. Teachers allowed students to freely explore and play with art materials to share their feelings, allowing their experience to lead to student growth. Zimmerman explains that students must “find personal meaning through his or her study and making of art in which processes and outcomes are socially relevant and allow for creative expression” (p. 84). Although this idea is present in the modern art classroom, there were some obstacles to overcome before creativity was brought back into the classroom.
 * Brief History of Art Education (post 1960) **

In the 1980’s, the focus of art education shifted to a more socially concerned curriculum where students explored large topics and subjects rather than pure self-expression and creative development. Later, a major movement that completely changed the field of art education was Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE) in the 1980’s and 1990s. The focus of art was now on four core disciplines: art making, art history, art criticism, and aesthetics. Creativity was pushed aside for a more “academic” approach to teaching art where students spent equal amounts of time learning about each of the four disciplines. This movement gained a lot of support because of sufficient funding from the Getty Foundation, which was able to distribute materials and hold workshops teaching educators how to educate students following a DBAE curriculum. After the late 1990’s, the field of art education has seen many different directions and has been constantly shifting focus. Visual Culture Art Education, multicultural art education, and community-based art are all different topics and movements that have been prevalent within the past ten years. Most recently, the focus of art education has turned back to creativity with conferences and numerous articles focusing on how to teach for creativity.

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