On Equality, Visibility, and the Fine Arts Program in a Black Elementary School

ABSTRACT

Because of the relative dearth of examples of educational criticism, proponents and critics of this controversial inquiry genre are often forced to speculate on its merits and demerits in the abstract, without benefit of particular referents. This article contains such an example and is presented as an invitation to a dialogue concerning the educative and miseducative potentials of educational criticism.

The criticism emphasizes the portion of an elementary school arts program presided over by the arts and music specialists. Portraits of the activities show they largely avoid two hazards in teaching the arts to elementary black children: a monocultural curriculum that neglects the Black artistic heritages and a mechanicism that disconnects skill mastery from personal content. This portion of the arts program suggests a tentative solution to a central dilemma of the modern Black American experience by fostering tendencies toward both racial equality and individual visibility. The program made students conversant with a portion the dominant white culture, while it also preserved a reverence for the artistic heritages of their own peoples. Secondly, the arts activities are pictured largely as celebrations of a precious union of personal lives with the asthetic motive, and therefore as representing a victory over the life-reducing forces that promote empty technique and tendencies toward conformity and docility.