Art history classes - perception of a teacher

This article do not attempt to focus on anything specific, but a rather generalized view on the teaching pattern, the modus operandi of a teacher in class, student –teacher relationship/rapport, and our orientation towards education. The relevance for discussing it here is that these observations grew largely from the (art) theory classes of two people – my friend Sampurna Chakravorty and I – both of who are now into teaching. This essay, thus, owes a lot to Sampurna, who had recently called me up, deliberately seeking help as to how to tackle an unruly class, which is extremely callous to the patience of a teacher, and exceedingly impenetrable.

Sampurna teaches art history at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata, which offers a Diploma in the Fine Arts. The entire curricular for the 1st year reads: 1) Prehistoric Art; 2) Egyptian Art; 3) Sumerian Art; 4) Indus Valley Civilization – that rounds it off.
With such a meager list, a teacher is sure to think it’s inconsequential and s/he will have lot of exciting things to do with the pupils once the syllabus is over. Unfortunately such dreams come to an abrupt and dismal end when at the end of each class while recapitulating; the teacher finds that nothing material has reached them. They can’t grasp what they had been taught for the last 75 minutes. They cannot fathom which part of the world art had been addressed. What time-line they should follow. Or why at all they are being taught such a subject. They are so lacking in a comprehensive knowledge. Their whole sense of education seems so dispassionate and so detached from the system, it appalls the teacher. Worse still is their abominable orientation towards scoring pass marks and getting away with that. (As) Though education is something that one should run away from, the moment one sees it. Added to this is their irrational demand on the teacher to spell out every word that comes their way (this practice wears him down completely). Nearly all the time they are under oblivion as to what the very word ‘curricular’ at all means. As a result it’s always a fragmented vision that they experience.

Basic questions such as what is meant by AD and BC would certainly be followed by this formula answer: “Hmm…BC… means before Christ, and AD….AD…after death?” Or asking them about the timeline usually is answered in muffled voices, expressing doubts about which calendar do they follow. Often, telling them that we follow the Roman calendar appears to be a revelation.

My own experience in the beginning proved oddly enough. I had seen most of my classmates, too, falling in the same trap, without having a comprehensive knowledge of the papers that correspond the subjects (e.g. Paper I – Western Art, etc.), they would write out on their exercise books the names of the corresponding subject teachers on the top of each page. Consequently, a page marked with ‘Shreyasi Madam’ would indicate a class on Western Art; a class on Indian Art would be indicated with ‘Krishna Madam’ written on the top of their books. At the end they would go gaga over playing jigsaw puzzle over these pages, trying to pair each page with the corresponding subjects/papers.

However, the fault lies not entirely with the students. The education system under a government that has run for more than thirty years at a stretch has come to stagnation. Students receiving education in the schools run by the State Government are in a way taught to settle for a smaller choice. Quick fix methods of teaching are certainly a more popular choice. As a whole it’s always been like replacing meals with vitamin tablets/food supplements. This epidemic spreads soon among the others, as human beings are more prone to a kind of herd attitude. Socio-economic factors, unfortunately, are a major cause (which makes many of these students settle for jobs at offices at the earliest).

Having said that, I guess we have located the problem. Let us now be clear to ourselves. It’s for us teachers to provide them with a guideline that would at least help them have a better view of the curricular. I guess it just takes one class in which we can explain them the some of the fundamental ideas. One thing, I believe, we should all agree upon, - visual communication works better and certainly leaves a deeper impact on the students. Diagrams, charts, using the black board for a better analysis of compositions, (and using coloured chalks with slight degree of enthusiasm) – all go a long way. After all, I guess teaching art history at the preliminary level can effectively be dealt with visuals (even if showing slides prove to a trifle too expensive, books – as many of them as possible is indeed just as good an idea). By it all I mean to say – it takes a little bit of understanding on the teacher’s side to make classroom teaching a bit more innovative. Art is just all about that, isn’t it?