Transforming Lives, Changing Communities: Analyzing individuals' journeys in supportive community action participating in Arts in a Learning Environment

• In Event: Cultural context of transformative teaching and learning

Abstract

Let me begin with an overall observation of education in my homeland of Taiwan. A relatively new democratically based culture,the subject basics have been influenced by mainland China. Traditionally,learning was delivered with the teacher offering statements and facts in the form of lecturing, while the student listened.The listener was then expected to accept the facts as they were given.The student was expected to implement the facts fed within the structure of learning for life’s survival. This can be referenced as a “banking” method of education, as Paulo Freire (1993) termed the concept in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Freire describes two distinct approaches to education: the “banking” approach, in which students are seen as “empty vessels” to be filled with knowledge by the intellectually superior instructor, and the “problem-based” approach, in which teachers and students are seen as equal participants in an active dialogue about a particular problem. Freire believes the "banking" approach to education could lead to dehumanization, the act of making a person feel less human by taking away their identity.

Further observation demonstrates how Freire goes on to describe how the problem-based approach can be implemented through the art of praxis, a combination of dialogical reflection on reality with tangible action to change that reality.He uses the example of his own work with oppressed laborers in Brazil, describing how, rather than immediately beginning to teaching his own ideas of liberation,he first spent a long time attempting to understand their culture, language use, ways of thinking, and stories so that he could engage them in dialogical reflection and action in ways that allowed their voices to be heard.

American trends and thoughts originally bring a built-in growth pattern to the educational institution.Growth is the nature of the country, American culture being a pioneering one.Public educational institutions are not always equipped to offer the arts in a formal setting due to budget constraints.Education in the arts outside of a formal educational setting is an ideal offering to all adolescents in becoming exposed to the arts in a realistic form and display a pioneering outlook on education. Since 2004 I had the privilege of working with individuals from the Philadelphia Mural Art Program.I became familiar with a number of students from diverse ethnic/racial and financial backgrounds of families in Philadelphia, who by the nature of their low income background, are at a potential risk of not being exposed to the formal training in the arts specifically because of the pending cuts in the schools regarding the arts.

My research explores how mural art exposes the participant to knowledge and skills in using a multitude of materials as tools for exposure and cultural experiences for the development of the medium of public art and leadership opportunities.In this proposal,I argue that in order to define and measure the intrinsic and instrumental effect that the program will have on individuals and the community by offering the scholarship that is needed that will help to inform the scope of how community arts educators can deepen their work to better design and assess their programs. My observations are that the best designed projects, as I explore here, are those that best serve young people’s development into healthy, caring adults and human beings who have rich arts and cultural experiences, both as individuals and as active members of their communities.My objective of paper then is to explore how the Philadelphia Mural Art Program has influenced young adults so that I may be able to serve as a cultural translator between the U.S. and Taiwan, where community-based art programs are just beginning to be used with the youth population.

As part of American culture, I see my goal and destination as an educator whose teaching and researching may be related to issues explored in my investigation; moreover, my paper contributes to the field of education and educators who wish to have community involvement and creativity through art as central components to a good learning environment. My objective then is to explore how the Philadelphia Mural Art Program has influenced young adults so that I may be able to serve as a cultural translator between the U.S. and Taiwan where community-based art programs are just beginning to be used with the youth population and those at risk and/or in crisis.

Author

• Kuo-Pin George Lin, Plymouth State University & Dartmouth College