Grades 9 To 12 Visual Arts - Province Of Manitoba

OverviewWhat Is Visual Arts Education?Why Is Visual Arts Education Important?Visual arts education draws from a broad field of visualarts practices that include drawing, illustration, workin paper, canvas, wood, and other materials, painting,sculpture, architecture, ceramics, installation art, digital art,printmaking, photography, filmmaking and video-making,animation, craft, urban art, media arts and emergingtechnologies, folk art, textile art, calligraphy, stained glass,jewellery, graffiti, mosaic, graphic art, environmentaland industrial art (Markus et al.; Mittler; National ArtEducation Association), and other forms that are not yetknown, envisioned, or articulated (Gude, “New School ArtStyles” 7). These practices offer multiple ways for learnersto engage with, connect with, and respond to their worldthrough various approaches and in diverse visual artseducation contexts.Visual arts education develops important disciplinary andcross-curricular competencies for learning and living welltogether in an interconnected world. Research indicatesthat well-designed visual arts education contributes tolearning engagement, self-efficacy, and a wide range ofpositive academic, social, and emotional effects. Visualarts education offers learners diverse, unique, andpowerful ways of perceiving and making meaning aboutthe world.Visual arts education is important because . . .1.The visual arts have intrinsic value.The visual arts are a vital, integral part of all humanexperience, culture, and history, and have expressedand enriched life since the beginning of time. Thevisual arts help develop understanding of self and theworld. They profoundly engage body, mind, and spiritto communicate ideas and feelings that often cannotbe expressed by any other means.Visual arts education is not just about learning thelanguage and practices of the visual arts, “it is aboutaddressing who we are as people, embracing difference,encountering numerous cultures, interacting andcollaborating with others, and inviting response” (Sansom215–216, referring to dance education, but also applicableto visual arts education).2.Visual arts education develops creative, critical, andethical thinking.Creative processes, imagination, and innovationdeveloped through visual arts education are importantfor both artistic and everyday creativity.* Critical andcreative thinking are uniquely positioned in visual arts*See Glossary.Overview3

education and are essential for learning in today’sworld.learners’ repertoire of literacies needed to makeand communicate meaning in diverse and evolvingcontexts. Ways of knowing in the visual arts areunique and powerful affordances* and resources formaking meaning that are not always possible throughother representational forms.Visual arts education provides space and opportunitiesfor learners to explore and communicate complexideas and emotions. Learning in the visual arts invitesopen-ended, emergent, and dialogic thinking. Whenlearners seek possibilities, and envision and consideralternatives, they develop capacities for toleratingambiguity and uncertainty. Learners become awarethat questions have more than one answer, thatproblems have multiple and sometimes unexpectedsolutions, and that there are many ways to conveythoughts and ideas.In this shifting and complex world, literacies areinterconnected and codependent. Since all literaciescontribute to meaning making in different ways, it isimportant for learners to develop a diverse range ofliteracies, including artistic literacies, from which tochoose, depending on meaning-making needs andcontexts.Through the visual arts, learners critically observe,analyze, and act in the world. Critical thinkingand reflection in visual arts education support thedevelopment of ethical thinking. By identifying anddiscussing ethical concepts and issues related tovisual arts education, learners apply ethical principlesin a range of situations.3.A wide range of available literacies createsopportunities for learners to make meaningful literacychoices and to produce and consume new formsof texts by combining and recombining literacyresources.Visual arts literacy empowers learners with newmeaning-making resources and facilitates ways ofknowing in other forms, such as print-based literacyand numeracy.Visual arts education expands literacy choices formeaning making.4.In today’s multi-faceted world, literacy is defined asmuch more than the ability to read and write printtext. The texts that fill the world of today’s learnersare multi-modal and combine print, digital, physical,aural/oral, gestural, spatial, and visual texts, along withmany more.The visual arts discipline is considered an expressiveform of literacy with a unique set of language,skills, knowledge, and practices. The visualarts are important ways of knowing that expand4Visual arts education contributes to identityconstruction.“The ability to define oneself rather than allowingothers to do it for us is one of the advantages offeredby the arts” (Canada Council for the Arts).Through visual arts education, learners have profoundways to define themselves and to construct personaland artistic identities. Developing artistic identity as a*See Glossary.Grades 9 to 12 Visual Ar ts: Manitoba Curriculum Framework

member of a visual arts community promotes a senseof belonging, unity, and acceptance.beliefs. By engaging hearts and minds, the visualarts cultivate empathy and compassion for self andothers. Understanding how others think and feel isnecessary for intercultural awareness and competencyand for navigating and negotiating the complexitiesof the world. These qualities are key to developingleadership, social responsibility, and active democraticcitizenship.Learners explore, negotiate, and express personaland artistic identity through creating, consuming, andresponding to art. Learners examine the ways thatthe visual arts reflect, shape, and comment uponsocietal and cultural beliefs and issues to developunderstandings about social and cultural identity.The visual arts offer individual and collective means ofself-expression—ways of illuminating the inner worldand connecting to the outer, and ways of expressingthe intangible.5.7.Visual arts education can improve and enhancesocial, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-beingand resilience. Well-being and resilience are vitalfor positive interpersonal relationships and learningengagement.Visual arts education develops communication andcollaboration competencies.The capacity for visual arts education to deeplyengage learners can enhance self-belief and selfesteem, and sustain perseverance and commitment.These qualities lead to improved school attendanceand successful learning.The visual arts provide unique and powerful tools andprocesses for communication and collaboration thattranscend time, place, language, and culture. Thecollaborative nature of visual arts education nurturespositive relationships and interactions. Learners areable to communicate emotion and ideas through anexpansive and powerful repertoire of non-verbal artlanguage and practices.Using visual arts tools and language, along withinformation and communication technology,generates opportunities for learners to build anddeepen relationships with other learners, artists, andcommunities.6.Visual arts education develops interculturalcompetencies.Through visual arts education, learners developintercultural understandings as they engage withand learn to value others’ cultures, languages, andVisual arts education is essential for well-being.The visual arts offer unique ways and safe spacesfor learners to examine and give voice to ideas andfeelings that cannot be expressed by words.8.Visual arts education supports sustainabledevelopment.Visual arts education offers opportunities for learnersto engage in issues of cultural, social, political,environmental, and economic forms of sustainability.Visual arts education plays an important role inManitoba’s goals for sustainable development. Thedocument Education for a Sustainable Future: AResource for Curriculum Developers, Teachers, andAdministrators (Manitoba Education and Training)Overview5

highlights community and culture, the economicviability of arts and cultural enterprises, and thepreservation and nurture of heritage and culture ascrucial sustainability issues. Cultural sustainabilityand social well-being are essential and integratedcomponents of an equitable quality of life and asustainable future for all Canadians.9.Visual arts education brings joy to self and others; itilluminates, deepens, and enriches learning and life.What Is Quality Visual Arts Education?Social and personal competencies developedthrough visual arts education foster leadership,social responsibility, and environmental and globalawareness, which are crucial for the successful futureof sustainable development.Quality visual arts education is defined by understandingsand beliefs about education informed by current research,theory, and practice. These understandings and beliefsare brought into focus through the lenses of learning,curriculum, learning environment, and assessment.Visual arts education is transformative learning.The Learning LensLearning in the visual arts has the potential to fostertransformative learning (Mezirow, “TransformativeLearning Theory” 19) and change the ways peopleview the world. Transformative learning draws onnew ways of knowing and being so that learners areempowered to challenge assumptions and developagency, identity, and self-direction for their lives.Arts-based processes have powerful transformativepotential “because they tap into embodied knowing,honor emotions, and create spaces for rehearsalfor action . . . . and imagining of alternative realities”(Butterwick and Lawrence 44).The transformative power of visual arts educationinspires learners to be leaders, innovators, andcommunity builders, and to address critical challengesof their times.610. Visual arts education fosters human flourishing.The learning lens highlights key understandings aboutlearning that inform quality visual arts education practice.LearningQQis an active, embodied, and social process ofconstructing meaningQQis recursive and shaped by the dynamic interaction ofprior knowledge and new experiencesQQis uniquely constructed according to personal, social,and cultural ways of knowingQQis personalized so that not everyone learns the samethings at the same timeQQis engaging when it is personal, relevant, and authenticQQis meaningful when learners have opportunities to reflecton and guide their own learningQQis both individual and group knowing so that individual,personal knowing is enfolded in and unfolded fromGrades 9 to 12 Visual Ar ts: Manitoba Curriculum Framework

collective knowing and experience (Davis andSumara, Complexity and Education 65)QQQQis equitable and ethical when barriers* that limit learningare understood and eliminatedQQcommunities of learners and educatorsQQsituated contextsQQcurriculum structuresQQartistic and cultural communitiesQQdisciplinary ways of knowingand being(See adjacent illustration.)Curriculum StrucSituated Contenities of LearnersanerThe Artist Learnxtstorsd u cadEmuComt ur esmmunigthe individual learnertiesQQArtistic and Cultural CodBeinis shaped by relationships and interactions betweenmultiple nested levels (Davis and Sumara, Complexityand Education 91) that includeDisciplinary Ways of Knowing an*Barriers, biases, and power dynamics that limit prospects for learning may berelated to “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, race, ethnicorigin, religion, socio-economic background, physical or mental ability, or otherfactors” (Ontario Ministry of Education, Equity and Inclusive Education in OntarioSchools 6).Overview7

The Curriculum LensThe curriculum lens highlights essential aspects of qualityvisual arts education that are illuminated through13 recursive learnings. Grades 9 to 12 recursive visualarts learnings are developed, recombined, elaborated,and transformed across novel and varied contexts so thatlearning becomes more sophisticated, more complex,deeper, and broader with time and new experiences.Recursive learning is more than repetition, iteration,accumulation, or the notion of a spiral curriculum. Theword recursive comes from the Latin verb recurrere, whichmeans “to run back” or “to return.” Through the processof returning and reflecting back on previous learning—“asecond looking—transformation, growth, developmentoccur” (Doll).Recursive learnings in the Visual Arts FrameworkQQQQQQ8focus on why visual arts learning is important, whatunderstandings and meanings visual arts languageand practices can communicate, what the visual artscan reveal about culture and identity, and what purposeand meaning the visual arts have for individuals andcommunitiesbuild on prior visual arts learning in a reflective,recursive process so that new possibilities emerge andunderstandings and relationships grow over time andthrough experienceare sufficiently rich and substantive to generate deepconceptual understanding and learningQQafford a diverse and broad range of visual artsexperiences, participatory approaches, and ways ofthinking about, knowing, making, responding to, andrepresenting the visual artsQQafford opportunities for transformative learningQQconnect to the wider visual and other arts communitiesQQare integrated across essential learning areas to developconcepts and skills with meaning, coherence, depth, andcompetencyQQmay be assessed and evaluated using the ConceptualFramework for Learning Growth in Visual Arts Education(see Appendix)The Learning Environment LensQuality visual arts learning takes place in diverseenvironments that include physical, pedagogical, andsocial/cultural spaces in which learners and teachers learnand live well together.Physical spacesQQare safe, healthy, and appropriateQQhave sufficient material, structural, and technologicalresourcesPedagogical spacesQQare safe environments for risk takingQQinclude opportunities to explore creativity, imagination,flexibility, ambiguity, uncertainty, and student choiceGrades 9 to 12 Visual Ar ts: Manitoba Curriculum Framework

QQinclude multiple approaches to visual arts educationThe Assessment LensQQprovide learners with opportunities to inquire, question,dialogue, analyze, interpret, reflect, evaluate, andconstruct and share meaning through multipleperspectivesAssessment as part of teaching and learning is essentialto quality visual arts education. Assessment enhancesteaching and learning when it is designed toQQinclude collaborative, diverse knowledge building as itworks in the world (WNCP 9)QQinclude purposeful assessment for, as, and of learning(Earl, Katz, and WNCP)QQrequire sufficient time to explore all areas of the visualarts curriculum in substantive waysQQensure that assessment as and for learning is timely,ongoing, and central to all visual arts learningQQensure that assessment of learning is based on best andrecent learners’ work and on most consistent patternsof learning over time, using shared and/or co-createdcriteriaQQbe equitable, fair, transparent, and clearly communicatedQQbe meaningful and congruent with curricular and learninggoalsQQenable learners to construct and co-construct individualand collaborative learning goals and criteria forassessmentQQprovide learners with multiple and various opportunitiesand ways to demonstrate learningQQbe varied and include a broad range of assessment toolsand strategies (e.g., portfolios, interviews, journals, logs,conversations, observations, products)QQencourage rather than limit artistic and creativedevelopmentSocial/cultural spacesQQrespect and value the diversity of all learners and allways of knowingQQsupport the emotional and social well-being of alllearnersQQpromote interaction, collaboration, and a sense ofcommunityQQvalue the individual and collective voiceQQsupport positive human relationshipsQQensure equitable and ethical learningOverview9

Visual Arts Education in Manitoba SchoolsManitoba offers a distinct framework for four artseducation disciplines: dance, dramatic arts, music, andvisual arts. Schools have the flexibility to offer the numberand combination of arts courses appropriate for theirlocal context, resources, and needs. The number of artsdisciplines and courses offered in a school will depend onavailable resources, allocated instructional time, staffing,and the arts implementation approach used in the school.The Visual Arts Framework provides flexibility forimplementation of a variety of visual arts educationcourses, strands, and approaches. Schools may offer artsdisciplines individually, in combination with each other,and/or integrated with other subject areas.Full and half credits in visual arts education are basedon full implementation of the Visual Arts Framework. TheVisual Arts Framework is considered fully implementedonly if all four essential learning areas are explored incomprehensive, substantial, and interconnected ways. Thebalance and weighting of the four essential learning areasare flexible and depend on the focus and situated contextof each visual arts education course.Further information about course codes and credits can befound in the Subject Table Handbook (Manitoba Educationand Advanced Learning) and on the Manitoba Visual ArtsEducation website.Specialist education, pre-service and in-service education,and other professional learning opportunities are importantfor quality arts education implementation.Manitoba students can meet optional graduation creditrequirements by taking arts education courses designedusing the Grades 9 to 12 Visual Arts Framework. TheConceptual Framework for Learning Growth in Visual ArtsEducation (see Appendix) may be used to develop visualarts courses, to plan for and assess learning in visual artseducation, and to distinguish course credits for each grade.10Grades 9 to 12 Visual Ar ts: Manitoba Curriculum Framework

The Visual Arts Learning LandscapeIn the Visual Arts Framework, the landscape metaphor isused to convey the understanding that learning is dynamicand always in the process of being constructed. New waysof thinking about curriculum involve ashift in the images we use, away from knowledge picturedas fragmented pieces put together, one piece at a time,in a linear fashion on an assembly line, to an image ofknowledge as a complex organic network organized intoliving fields, territories or “landscapes.” (WNCP 6)*Visual arts education in Manitoba is conceived as alearning landscape that represents a relational space.In this space, the learner along with other learners,educators, Elders, and the larger visual arts communityinteract and learn together in the dynamic, complex, livingfield of the visual arts. Knowing in the landscape of thevisual arts “requires a network of connections linking theindividual’s location in the landscape to the larger space”(WNCP 20).The visual arts landscape provides multiple locations fordiverse learners to enter, and offers various trajectoriesalong which to journey and to continue lifelongtransformative travels.*Landscape Metaphor and ImageThe Manitoba landscape photograph that appears as a background image on this page, and elsewhere in this document, is used with the kind permission of Stan Milosevic.The landscape metaphor illustrated by the panoramic Manitoba landscape repr

The Visual Arts Framework addresses the purpose, nature, and importance of quality visual arts education in Manitoba schools from Grades 9 to 12. It explains the use of the butterfly as a metaphor for learning within the visual arts learning landscape and for representing the interconnected parts of the visual arts curriculum. The curriculum