Discipline-Based Art Education or DBAE for short was created in the 1980’s at the Getty Center for Arts. DBAE was a game changer in the academic world because before the DBAE program, there was no structured curriculum for art education. DBAE can be defined as “an approach to instruction and learning in the art that derives content from four foundational disciplines that contribute the creation, understanding, and appreciation of art” (Dobbs, 1992). The DBAE program came with its group of supporters and critics alike, however, DBAE pulled together art education as four interrelated disciplines: art production, art criticism, aesthetics, and art history.
At the foundation of DBAE, the goal is to provide students with a more well-rounded education. The ideals of DBAE are pulled from several educational theories such as VTS, Visual Thinking Strategies, and the New Museum Model. The big push for DBAE came from the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. In this Act, the arts were identified as a core subject for grade K-12 and incorporated into curriculums as mandatory pieces of K-12 education. DBAE is a form of inquiry-based training which means that the focus of the training is on the students and their interests, judgment, reasoning and critical-thinking skills. There were several pioneers that helped to mold DBAE into what it is today. One of the first pioneers was Elliot Eisner, “a writer, curriculum designer, and art educator” (Bates, 2000). According to Eisner, art invited students to look and evaluate what they were seeing, art develops multiple forms of literacy and allows access to cultural capital, and art provides opportunities for children to use their imaginations (Bates, 2000). Eisner felt that art education opened-up a student’s thinking, expanded their knowledge, sparked their creativity, and opened them up to a world of culture that they may not have been introduced to if art had not have been a part of their education. Howard Gardner also shared Eisner’s belief on the impact of art education. Howard Gardner is a “psychologist and educator noted for his research in multiple forms of intelligence” (Bates, 2000). Dr. Gardner studied the origins of creativity, the development of thinking abilities, and the promotion of critical judgment in his work with Project Zero (Bates, 2000). The focus of the project was to learn how humans learn in and through art. At the end of the study, some of the results differed from DBAE, but they still had focused on common goals that supported each other: the importance of art in education. Another pioneer that helped to shape DBAE was an anthropologist named Ellen Dissanayake. She viewed art as basic and species centered (Bates, 2000). Art is something that connected all species, all over the world. Finally, the last pioneer is Peter London, “a writer, art therapist, art educator, and a leading proponent of child-centered art education today” (Bates, 2000). London defined art as a “category of human activity” and evolved DBAE into CBAE, a community-based art education approach (Bates, 2000). DBAE has played a crucial role in creating a foundation for art education today. As an art teacher, having guidelines and models to follow keeps me on track to make sure that I am teaching kids material on their level and that they are getting what they need from the course. Art is an essential element for a student to have a well-rounded education. Reference Bates, Jane K. Becoming an art teacher. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2000. Dobbs, Stephen M (1992). The DBAE Handbook: An Overview of Discipline Based Art Education. The J. Paul Getty Trust
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AuthorMy name is William Davidson and I am the Art Teacher at John Herbert Phillip's Academy and at Lawson State Community College. ArchivesCategories |