4.2. Arthur Efland

What we should remember:

➢ The media has often a negative contribution to the way youngsters value things –they have determining values and perspectives based on the media's opinions on how we should live our lives. Therefore, art education should help children develop their sense of what a value is and what kind of perspective to live life by instead. ➢ It is important for children to pay attention to their own judgements towards art to develop a productive communication that keeps individuality, think critically as opposed to simply agreeing with everything the other says –expand, question, further the thinking and reconstruct the thoughts, thus making a meaningful conversation. ➢ Be aware of the individuality of your students and accommodate their teaching to the situation.

4.2. Arthur Efland

Efland was a leading figure in the field of art education. He embraces an integrated theory of cognition, which holds that each individual constructs his own view of reality in the light of his personal, social, and cultural context. According to this integrated theory, each of us is guided by our own interests and purposes in seeking to understand the world through our experience of it. Yet,we inevitably employ the cognitive tools provided by the culture in which we live, tools ranging from language to a body of scientific knowledge. In principle, therefore, while Efland recognises the crucial influence of cultural context, he does not deny the efficacy of the individual as a thinking and acting being. Efland traces the related emergence of three major traditions in cognitive theory: 1) symbol processing, 2) the sociocultural or situated tradition, and 3) the constructivist tradition. He also lays the foundation for advancing his own modified constructivist theory of learning through the arts(Efland, 2002). The social Reconstructionist current is the third approach in art education. According to Efland,artisticproduction was at the service of society's needs, that is, Art had a social role

of intervention and could contribute to improving people's quality of life. Everyone had the ability to create. The experience of creation was itself a learning process with others. Project work is the most explored methodology in the teaching–learning process. Teamwork is valued, giving importance to the consensual construction of an artistic team proposal. Creativity, critical sense, team spirit are strongly encouraged.

ʻThe understanding of a work of art requires it to be grasped in relation to the social and cultural realms in which it took form and reciprocally helps the learner to comprehend the social and cultural worlds it mirrors.ʼ (Efland, 2002, p. 166)

29