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“I Feel Like I'm Going to Take Off!”: Young People's Experiences of the Superordinary in Dance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Karen E. Bond  and
Susan W. Stinson
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Extract

Work by children in every art form has been both romanticized and criticized by adults. Child art has been emulated as “natural” by artists seeking to free themselves from social and historical conventions (Lowenfeld and Brittain 1987; Read 1957, 1973) and to reconnect with qualities of purity and simplicity (Coleman 1998). Such values have been challenged by those seeking a rationale for instructional programs in the arts (Clark, Day, and Greer 1987). It often seems that educators view children as incomplete adults, in need of education and training to make them mature as well as civilized (Torgovnick 1990). This may be why the ideas and opinions of children are rarely found in research literature, even in education.

Similarly, books about how to teach young people rarely include the perspective of the student. Except in child-centered programs for young children, teachers and educational administrators generally decide what children should learn and then, at least sometimes, assess to see if it has been learned. Very little is known about how young students experience the educational activities designed by adults or construct meaning from them.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Winter 2000 , pp. 52 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2001

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