Over the last few months I have been engaged on a study of the curriculum of the 16 to 19 age group, and its relationship with entry to C.N .A.A. Art and Design degree study. During this time articles have been published about this area of concern in a number of journals, and it is evident that there is a widespread interest in sixth-form education and the possibilities for its reform and development

Wolverson, Martin

English

Loughborough University Library: Open Journals

Design Education,The Sh ift from a Craft BaseOver the last few months I have beenengaged on a study of the curriculum of the16 to 19 age group, and its relationship withentry to C.N .A.A. Art and Design degreestudy. During this time articles have beenpubl ished about this area of concern in anumber of journals, and it is evident thatthere is a widespread interest in sixth-formeducation and the possibilities for its reformand development.Clive Ashwin in the 'Studio International'(Jan/Feb 1976) outlines the recent historyof the ill-informed distaste and suspicion withwhich the various sectors of Art Educationalfield, from Primary to Post-graduate, vieweach other. He stresses the scale of thewastage implicit in the successive 'diagnosticand remedial' strategies which begin theprogramme in each of the individual sectors.He identifies the current basic 'teaching'strategy in Art and Design degree educationas heuristic, being centred on student self-motivation. Finally he speculates on thelikelihood of change being imposed on thesystem as a result of Art and Design degreevalidation coming under the C.N.A.A.umbrella. What became increasingly evidentduring my investigations was that 'changeand reform' pre-date the C.N.A.A. merger,and though a considerable impetus in thischange came from the first degree and postgraduate degree sectors, a substantial impetusalso comes from the radical changes in thecurriculum spread, and syllabus depth in theschool general education programme.In a recent colloquium on crafts heldat the instigation of the Crafts AdvisoryCommittee an interesting debate was re-opened which recalls the earliest days ofArt Education at the beginning of thecentury. Van de Velde, Peter Behrens,Walter Gropius et ai, all tried to stress that'equality of esteem' should attach tothe disciplines of Painting, Sculpture,Architecture, the Crafts and IndustrialManufacture. They talked of the necessityfor society that these elements of the visualenvironment should be nurtured together.Conscious of the materialistic agnosticismof the current pol itical life in an industrialcommunity, they saw this concept as essentialif the man in the street were not to eventuallyinhabit an aesthetically, and culturallybankrupt environment. The difficulty thenas now, is that 'curriculum balance' is rarelyseen, or accepted as symmetrical with 'parityof esteem' either in or outside educationalinstitutions. Value judgements on curriculumtopics derive from all sorts of extracurriculasources, some within the private conditioninginfluences on individual staff and students,others implicit in the constraints imposed oneducational institutions by governments.The argument at the colloquium was thatdegree education in Design actively devaluedcraft education. The corollary was thatDesign students left their degree experiencelacking in 'traditional specialised craft skills'or a 'craft vocabulary'. Not only that, butthey had developed negative attitudestowards the crafts, and the notion of crafts-manship.Whilst agreeing with the speakers that thismay be true, I would not accept that this isa bad thing. One can accept that if degreelevel Design Education teaches somethingother than craft skill, then it may have builtinto it unfortunate difficulties for studentswishing to shift laterally from craft orientedvocational design programmes to degreestudy. This may be a bad thing if in all otherrespects the two courses share a lot ofcommon ground. One suspects however thatthis is not the case, and that the notion thatmovement from Vocational Design studyto d'egree study in Design is vertical is 'builtup prior to any enrolment on any course.However desirable it may be that lateralmovement should exist in Design Education,I'm sure that students know before enrol-ment that it is exceptional.A number of factors which shed somelight on this problem emerged from myinvestigations. On interviewing a large groupof C.N.A.A. students in the first year ofArt and Design degree courses about theirsecondary schooling, they identified thesignificant problem for them in makingchoices of specialism as the early age atwhich they were required to do so. Con-comitant with early choice went lack ofinformation on which to base choice. In theworst cases the choice was based on 'likingthe teacher', or successful performance in asubject at the time of choice. The curiousfeature of 'choosing' was that it involved adrastic reduction in the range of subjectsstudied without any compensating increasein the depth of the syllabus coverage inthose chosen subjects. Too often it amountedto a choice to spend 'more time' on a subjectthe student liked, irrespective of factors todo with study in an institution of Further orHigher Education. A depressing feature forsixth formers studying 'Art' was that formost of them it was a choice to leave the'general' or 'liberal' education core of theschool. This does seem to result in difficul-ties when a student re-enters such study aspart of his high level degree, or vocationalcourse programme.In the centre of this issue sits FoundationCourse. In terms of the normal routes of entryinto degree study, Foundation Course occursafter a students choice of specialisation.Although the publicity attendant onFoundation Courses stresses their diagnosticrole, this is an overstatement. More oftenFoundation Course tidies up prior choice,or it remedies a poor school situation. Itconfirms rather than initiates choice on thebasis of new information. This is valuable forstudents, particularly if it is done well, andit integrates well into the subsequent degreeprogramme, particularly those in Fine Art.It is a traditional part of degree educationthat the first two terms are spent in develop-ing student motivation from a relativelygeneral base. It should be remembered thatFoundation Courses, particularly one yearcourses, very rarely have general or liberaleducation components. Their theoretical 226content is usually both small and rooted inArt and Design history. From this oneadduces that at their best FoundationCourses have stronger affinities with theinitial stages of a degree programme thanwith the school.In its early days Foundation Course, as'basic design' had a major role to play in thenotional integration of Art and IndustrialLife. This was before the whole spectrumof Design Education moved on from thisworthy, idealistic position to a more com-plex relationship with Industry, Commerceand Technology. One cannot offer inductionprogrammes to students based on 'familiari-sation with new materials' with that samemagical optimism which permeated theBauhaus course. It is silly, since the studentsare already familiar with most industrialmaterials by virtue of living in a consumersociety. What is also important is that theyare aware of the complex moral problemsraised by the uncontrolled use of many suchmaterials. It is equally evident that thecrafts, and craft education cannot take onand support the role discharged by DesignEducation. The craftsman essentially, isproducing uneconomic objects for a devotedfew sharing his value judgements aboutobjects.One is surprised at the equivocation ofthe Post-graduate sector of Design Educationon this point, particularly at the RoyalCollege of Art. One hears of notions such as'craft vocabulary' and its seminal position indesign still being mentioned amongst othernotions which stress a diametrically opposedview that stronger links must be forgedbetween design education and industry. Thedrive to regenerate the crafts is countered bythe drive to extend a Design student's aware-ness of the wide range of technologies inindustry, not just to do with manufacture,but also to do with management andmarketing. The craft based view places'design', 'production' and 'marketing' inan ordinal relationship. Modern industryseeks to co-ordinate production, subject torevision from a wide variety of sources andviewpoints. This model is already in anadvanced stage of development in thebuilding, aerospace and car industries.To return to a point I made earlier con-cerning the drastic narrowing of the subjectrange when children start to specialise.Amongst the large group of students Iinterviewed the subject spread in their 11 to16 year curriculum was between 12 and 14topics. The range was only marginallydependent on the type of school attended,though there was some evidence that varia-tions in syllabus depth and examinationstructures correlated with the type of school.At 16 years if a child chose to stay on atschool, he reduced this total to 2 or 3. Tothis he might add a small amount of studyin subjects where he wished to retrieve anexamination failure. In a survey of sixth-form study published in 'EducationalResearch, 11/72' it was shown that thetypical pattern of sixth-form specialisationwas towards related subject groups, e.g. allSciences, or all Arts, or all Humanities. Itwas evident from my investigation that allArt and Design students (at Degree Level)make atypical choices of mixed subjectgroupings, usually centred on Art at 'A'level. Crafts were just another example ofthe atypicality of Art and Design Education,but followed the pattern in schools wherebychildren contemplating degree study do notoffer themselves for examination in 'practical'subjects. One can see that evaluating thisfact is of crucial importance to VocationalDesign and Craft Education.When one sees evidence that success in apractical, or any other subject is low, twoquestions need to be asked. What is the extentof study, and what value is ascribed to thestudy by tutors, students, and tutors respon-sible for entry to subsequent programmes?In th is case one saw that the incidence ofstudy in practical subjects was high, andbroadly spread, implying that it was thoughtvalueless by someone. The assumption wasthat it was thought valueless by tutorsresponsible for entry to Further and HigherCourses by the tutors and students in thesecondary sector.Given that there is confusion over Art andDesign degree entry in the minds of everyoneexcept admissions tutors interviewing appli-cants it would be profitable to look at thesort of bas~ which might be relevant forentry, and which might exploit the bestfeatures of the secondary school experience,and Foundation Course. The choice forDesign tutors, given the normal mode ofspecialisation in sixth forms, is between Artplus science options, or Art plus humanitiesoptions, or either of those options withoutArt. Putting the options together mayhappen at school, but I found some evidenceof it happening on Foundation Course. Inthis instance a student would complete asixth form 'A' level programme in scienceor humanities without any Art, then theywould take a Foundation Course. DesignCourses recruit students of great similarityto Architecture Courses by this route. Thetutors choice could also relate to their pro-gramme, and there is argument over whethera student needs the skills of numeracy toreally contribute to high technology productdesign. Architecture Courses universally say"Yes', some Design Courses want to, but seeevidence of a diminishing number of sciencesixth-formers being produced. There is also acase that Design Courses base some of theirprogramme on applied social science, andthey may therefore wish to see Humanitiessubjects amongst those studied by sixth-formers. At present no clear guidelines exist,and as a result craft teaching is becomingincreasingly undervalued in the secondarysector. To me this seems one main reasonwhy the crafts are becoming increasinglyneglected. The other main reason wouldbe that crafts, traditionally transmittedthrough fam~ies, or through tightly knitcommunities, are no longer transmittedthis way to any extent.The crafts are not the only practical sub-jects on the school curriculum, and in otherareas efforts are being made to revitalise thesubjects, making them more challenging tostudents, and to introduce into them skillswhich relate to career sequels. For exampleHome Economics and Nutrition now pointtowards the catering, and tourist industries,not just domestic efficiency. LikewiseCommerical Studies now comprises a groupof related subjects which point towardsBusiness Management, Economics and otherrelated career opportunities, rather thim justcopy-typing, or secretarial work. In initiativesof this sort craft education lags a long waybehind, and there is depressing conservatismand obsession with trivialities throughoutthe field. Perhaps this is to be expected in asociety so utterly dependent for its wealthon Industry, and yet still clinging to aWilliam Morrisian medieval philosophy withrelation to objects. The smoke-screen oftaste oriented judgements has completelyobscured the fact that British Industry hasgone brankrupt, and been bought up cheapby multinationals.The lack of esteem in which all practicalsubjects are held is a function of their lowstatus in E;ducational priorities, but notentirely so. The examinations in practicalsubjects are suspected both by tutors inacademic subjects, and more importantlyby Art teachers. All of them point tothe absence of accessible criteria, and acommon level of teaching and physicalresource provision. One can see that manycrafts do wither in the school situation, tothe detriment of many children who couldbenefit from learning them. If one acceptsthat Design Education at degree level mustset its sights on producing for manufacturingindustries the sort of well informed co-ordinator which Architecture Schoolsproduce for the Building Industry, thencrafts must produce a new generationprepared to take on a similar role to the FineArtist in society. The craftsman, in retaining 228control of his total production method,from a design idea, to finished object willneed a fuller 'craft vocabulary' than is atpresent the case, especially if he is to facethe rigours of occupying a position nearto the whim of the affluent. Protectiondoes exist, but only to a very limitedextent. One can point to CoSt RA and othergovernment agencies. Alternatively a startcould be made on the recasting of existingpriorities in fifth and sixth form education,jacking up the status of a whole range ofpractical studies of which the crafts form asignificant part. The effort could be made toshift esteem away from the non-vocational,and at the same time to make the 'vocational'more demanding. In this enterprise two ele-ments would be of paramount importance.One is a need for an increase in the subjectspread of a 'typical' sixth form programme.The second is a need for a restructuring ofthe 18+ examination system to give either awider choice of examination format, or, asingle format which possesses a wide rangeof multi-disciplinary options.

Design Education, The Shift from a Craft Base

https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/SDEC/article/view/798/766

Design Education, The Shift from a Craft Base

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Loughborough University Library: Open Journals