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Samantha Hughston
Art 130 Tues. & Thur.
Professor Ward
December 3, 2016

The Integration of Holistic Art Education

Abstract

The two articles I have examined are: Narratives as Revealing Portraits of Holistic Art

Education, by Virginia K. Freyermuth and Development and Learning in Art: Moving in the

Direction of a Holistic Paradigm for Art Education, by Karen Lee Carroll. The holistic approach

to teaching is when the educator emphasizes the development of the whole student. The purpose

of this paper is to explore how the holistic approach was used by Freyermuth and Carroll in the

classroom, and how the results which were achieved. Both of the articles have the common

theme of holistic art education and demonstrate how holistic practices were used by various art

education instructors to guide students in their learning process of art education. I am convinced

that the holistic approach to teaching art education has tremendous value. This approach creates

individuals that are well balanced and are able to continue to grow throughout their lives.

Introduction

The perspective behind the idea of the holistic approach is for an educator to find that

balance between cultivating the mind and the heart when teaching an individual. However, in

our society and educational system, educators almost exclusively focus on the mind. Educators

cultivate reason, logic and problem solving, more commonly referred to as the three Rs. In the

process they inadvertently leave out the intelligence of the heart. Heart intelligence is what gives
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a person the capacity to be completely genuine, present, associated and heart-coordinated in each

aspects of their life with the goal that can encounter more prominent levels of execution,

inventiveness, instinct and higher order thinking. By educating the intellectual mind and the

intelligence of the heart, it is the belief of the holistic educators that educating a student should

be about cultivating the whole person not just the academic side.

Application of Theory by both Authors

Virginia K. Freyermuth has been an art educator for thirty years and wrote the article

Narratives as Revealing Portraits of Holistic Art Education. According to Freyermuth (2006), I

define holistic art education as learning that honors and cultivates intuition, imagination,

creativity, intellect; awareness through the body and its marvelous array of senses; and the spirit

of the individual as he or she engages with this wondrous, surprising world (p. 64). The way in

which Freyermuth used her definition of holistic art education approach, was through the

observation of her students and their behavior in the classroom. The results of her observation

informed her on how to teach her students. For example, in her article one of the stories

Freyermuth discussed was about a young freshman in her class. As Freyermuth described the

young freshman, she said that the student in the first couple of weeks always worked with her

head down and did not socialize with any of the students. She continued to state that the student

rarely spoke to anyone including to Freyermuth when she would comment on the students work.

Then one day as Freyermuth was walking around the classroom she noticed the student was

struggling on a drawing she had been working on and offered her a technical suggestion.

Freyermuth did not expect the student to take the advice. Sometime later when she returned to

see how the student was doing, she was surprised to see that the student had taken her advice. As
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a result, the student had become excited about her work because the suggestion given to her

worked. From that moment on, the student would on ask more questions how to further her

work. According to Freyermuth (2006), Her self-confidence grew, her ability to think

reflectively about her work increased, her art evolved, she allowed work to be put on display, her

classmates encouraged her, and she eventually became known as an artist throughout the

school (p. 65). Because of the definition Freyermuth gives to holistic art education, she was able

to teach this student in a manner that allowed the student to feel safe in her environment, taking

advice and asking questions. Freyermuth concluded the story stating the students grades in all

subjects rose and returned to her class every year until she graduated. According to Freyermuth

(2006), Art opened her mind, nurtured her spirit, engaged her senses, expanded her self-image,

and offered a new vision of the person she could become (p. 65).

In the article Development and Learning in Art: Moving in the Direction of a Holistic

Paradigm for Art Education, by Karen Lee Carroll she explained how she was interested in how

[the] alignment of body, mind, and spirit [could] deepen engagement and learning in the context

of everyday art instruction. Because of her interest in how to implement holistic approach in a

classroom, Carroll shared the experiences of a few of her colleagues stories. One of the stories

was from D. Wittner who was an art teacher at a middle school. According to Carroll (2006),

Wittner gained insight into the social and emotional concerns that plagued her middle school

students, an assortment of somewhat humorous and serious issues (p. 19). Wittner decided to

have her students make gargoyles as protectors out of clay. By having the students make the

gargoyles she saw the students overcome their fears. The students emerged with a new sense of

self confidence through the art making and the reflective writing they had to do. Another
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example from Carrolls article comes from a student teacher who shared the experience of

teaching some middle school students. The student teacher had begun a classroom conversation

of a writing in which a resolution of a struggle led to a discussion. The students learned that each

of them had experienced some type of unresolved conflict in their lives. One of the students

came up with the question of what is love. This prompted the student teacher to move his class to

the multipurpose room, so all the students could sit in a circle and share their experiences. After

the discussions took place, the student teacher decided to make a collage from his own personal

experience, where he exercised the holistic approach of using his mind, heart and hands in the

making of his collage.

The Common Theme of Holistic Art Education

The theme of both of the articles is holistic art education. In Freyermuths article she

conveyed her conviction through her telling of stories from her own personal experiences which

expressed her style of teaching. By observing her students, she learned about their personalities

and when the opportunity presented itself, she was able to instruct her students in a manner that

benefited the student so they could grow. Carrolls article showed how teachers employed the

holistic approach into practice. The example from teacher Wittner demonstrated how she not

only created an environment where the students were able to conquer their fear, learned about

gargoyles, and gained self-confidence. This was shown again in Carrolls article when she

described the actions taken by the student teacher. A similarity between Freyermuth and Wittner

is that both educators created an environment where students felt safe and unafraid to take

chances and explored new information willingly. Another similarity between both articles was

that all the students gained self-confidence, not only in their work, but also in themselves. Both
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articles were examples of teaching students both internally and externally. The internal

knowledge for the students was using their creativity in constructing their artwork, while the

external knowledge was taken the information given from their instructors and applying it to the

work they created. According to Carroll (2006), teachers who transform a climate of fear and

rejection into one that builds confidence, inspires trust, empowers individuals, and creates

community (p. 19). Rejection in my opinion is what I feel holds students back at times from

learning what all they can be in a traditional school environment.

Research Performed & its Gaps by both Authors

The way in which Freyermuth learned to apply the holistic approach to her art classroom

was by first doing a qualitative study based on interviews with parents, children and teachers. In

Freyermuths study group, there were 24 people that ranged in age from four years old to

retirement. In Freyermuths interviews she spent approximately two hours with each of the

interviewees. In the interviews she asked each individual three questions. Through the responses

from those questions, she gained insight which revealed to her a better understanding of the

representation of the importance of art in peoples lives. By gaining these insights, in a

classroom setting, Freyermuth exercised observation of her students first to learn about them.

Then she would offer suggestions to the students instead of telling the student that what they had

done was incorrect. By using this approach, the students gained confidence and would ask more

questions which resulted in the students learning more as a whole person.

In Carrolls article, she was part of a study group interested in holistic art education.

The group would meet regularly and consisted of administrators and teachers. They would

discuss holistic theory and it practice in the classroom with one another. Freyermuth, although
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her own study was small, she too taught the whole person as did the educators in Carrolls

article. A difference in Carrols article was that a student teacher was described as having applied

the holistic theory on himself. Carrols study group exchanged information with each other that

included several people being involved. I feel both approaches to gathering information, work.

However, what I found to be missing from the research performed by Freyermuth in her article

was although, she gave the number of people interviewed, the number was incredibly small and

based on only a few questions. In Carrolls article it never stated how many instructors/educators

were involved in her study group. There were no statistics on what exactly the study group was

looking for only that they observed the students and exchanged ideas.

Overall Questions I have after reading all the Material

The first question that comes to my mind is: What approach to teaching did all the

educators use before learning about the holistic approach? Or did teaching holistically come

naturally to any of the instructors? If not, what exactly caused them to change their mind on how

to teach students? I am inclined to think they followed a traditional style, and because they found

it difficult to teach students which were quiet, or disruptive in class; they looked for an

alternative approach to their teaching style. Or possibly it was out of fear, because funding for art

programs has been cut or eliminated in some schools. So, by teaching holistically they could

demonstrate how this approach could be used for teaching other subjects as well, whereby they

retain their positions as instructors. In Carrolls article, why did she neglect to give the reader an

idea of what the others in her study group wanted to learn about? She stated what her interest

was, but I feel if she is going to mention the others, the reader would like to know the number of
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people in the study group and what their thoughts were on teaching. She also stated the group

studied reports. What were the reports about?

Conclusion

As a future educator, I have learned to appreciate the knowledge I have learned so far

about holistic art education from reading these two articles. I, also, feel the holistic theory can be

applied to a multiple of subjects not only to art education. The subjects which come to mind are

history and science. I do believe that teaching with the holistic approach in mind, I will be able

to tune into the lives of my future students by first observing their behaviors. This was something

I noticed as a common trend between the two articles I read. I will be looking for situations for

when I can anticipate a students needs and use my intuition and knowledge of a subject to help a

student grow. It is my desire to inspire students of their own free will to learn by creating an

environment in which all of my future students feel safe and comfortable. Which is another

example of what I learned from the articles read. I want my future students to walk out of my

classroom at the end of a semester with a thirst for more knowledge and a better understanding

of who they are, and are yet to be. That nothing is impossible for them to achieve.
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References

Carroll, K. (2006). Development and Learning in Art: Moving in the Direction of a Holistic

Paradigm for Art Education. Visual Arts Research, 32(1), 16-28.

Freyermuth, V. (2006). Narratives as Revealing Portraits of Holistic Art Education. Visual Arts

Research, 32(1), 64-70.