Aesthetic and Teleological Judgements: The Connection between Arts and Thinking

It has been well described that the processes involved in undertaking Arts activities involve critical thinking (Eisner, 1965, 1966, 2002) and that critical thinking requires the use of judgement (Ennis, 1962, 1985, 1991, 1996). To further understand the ‘faculty’ or ‘power of judgement’, Immanuel Kant’s influential theory describes it as having two roles, ‘determining’ and ‘reflecting’, which Kant further divides into ‘aesthetic’ and’ teleological’ judgment (cited in Ginsborg, 2005). Aesthetic judgment relies on the ability to discriminate at a sensory level and uses a combination of intellectual opinions, will, desire, preferences, values, subconscious behaviour, conscious decision, training and sociological institutions (Ginsborg, 2005). Teleological judgment is the practice of evaluating a decision against the criterion of whether the outcome achieves the original goal, characterised as “purposive or functional” (Ginsborg, 2005, p. 3) Teaching art forms, either visual or performing arts, requires the teachers and students alike to embrace the concept of aesthetic judgements, by tacitly connecting learning to social and personal life, building their thinking dispositions and developing cognitive capacity (Efland, 1996, 2004; Eisner, 1985; Lowenfeld & Lambert Brittain, 1970). Further to this notion, Richmond (2009, p. 104) suggests that art education assists in the ‘emancipation’ of students by allowing for a “more independent vision, which is the basis of personal action and the subsequent shaping of a life of one’s own”. This proposition has been suggested by Richmond (2009, p. 104) to also extend to community life as students’ knowledge of self-awareness is increased with community involvement by allowing “self-expression, informed by a rich vocabulary of ideas…to enable dialogue about the things that matter…not just the artist…but also the life of a community”. The sense of ‘liberation’ that art provides teachers and the students is central to the ways of belonging and being in the school environment (McKenna, 2013). Personal ‘rules’ in art making needs to be encouraged in each student, thus allowing individual style and virtuosity. The teacher’s goal is to guide the development of individual style and virtuosity to enable the student to demonstrate the accomplished specialised skill (McKenna, 2013). Students who are involved in creative arts activities practise aesthetic inquiry and reflective thinking (Lampert, 2006) and to enhance these areas within the process of education, it is suggested that education be infused with the arts (Anrezejczak, Trainin & Poldberg, 2005; Burger & Winner, 2000; Burton, Horowitz, & Abeles, 1999; Deasy, 2002; Grierson, 2006; Luftig, 2000; Richmond, 2009; Robinson, 2001, 2006; Smithrim & Upitis, 2005). Art fulfils the psychological need for sense, imagination, feeling, spontaneity, language judgment and self-awareness (Caldwell & Moore, 1991; Efland, 2004; Mishook & Kornhaber, 2006; Nilson, 2008; McKenna, 2012; Richmond, 2009; Russell & Zembylas, 2007). The question here is whether the current and proposed Australian Arts Curriculum structures have acknowledged this ‘truth’ through adequate consideration to staffing in terms of specialist Arts teachers and suitable and sufficient resources to provide for the Arts, which consists of five subject areas. A further important question relates to the adequacy in skills of the primary generalist teacher, to teach the Arts. Providing children with the opportunities to satisfy these needs through the experience of creative arts means pre-service primary generalist teachers need to be prepared with the skills to teach across all arts subjects in the Australian Curriculum. To date, there is evidence that the arts have not been taught adequately in the pre-service teacher education courses and that there is little mentor support and professional development available once teachers graduate and are in the workforce (Alter, Hayes & O’Hara, 2009, 2009a; Dinham, 2006; Dinham, 2007; Ewing, 2010; Garvis & Pendergast, 2012; Garvis & Riek, 2010; McKenna, 2012; McLean Davies, Anderson, Deans, Dinham, & Griffin et al., 2013; Temmerman, 2006; Torzillo, 2013).