summary: "This article based on my doctoral thesis examines the Basic Arts Education system in Finland, focusing on Basic Crafts Education and its description through action concepts. The main task of the study was to create a concept model. In the first part of the study a concept map was created from the practice of Basic Crafts Education. The aim of the second part of the study was to specify the concept map and to ground a concept model, which describes the reality of BasicCrafts Education. Basic Crafts Education, which I define as craft-art, is examined from the viewpoints of art education, socio-cultural education and education for the future. In addition,craft-art is explored as a basic human activity as defined by the philosopher and theorist Hannah Arendt. In the study the Delphi Expert Method was used and carried out through question rounds by email. The empirical data consists of expert knowledge where experts represent differentcrafts fields and areas in Basic Crafts Education such as pedagogy, education and administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]"
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I'm a big fan of the involvement of craft in art education discussed here. My sister is a Handwork teacher at a Waldorf school up north for a range of ages, and she's told me how remarkably genderless that subject is to them. Work that has traditionally been thought of as "feminine" acts as a genderless outlet for these kids to engage in work that merits a rewarding outcome.
ReplyDeleteI think that how Hannah Arendt discusses the three fundamental human activities ties pretty well into this notion. Karppinen writes, "She [Arendt] wants to consider humanity through the things that people do, and make sense of our life- world (labouring to sustain ourselves, creating artefacts, and acting to promote inter-dependent activity and a meaningful life)."(86)
She divides the three activities as labour (creating what sustains us), work (creating artifacts), and action (creating between individuals). By implementing craft in a school setting, children are allowed to exercise these ways of creating that can help them express and think in ways they couldn't otherwise, which is pretty cool.