Abstract
Interdisciplinary learning is critical to the future of education and our society. The example of Black Mountain College of North Carolina (1933-1956) is once again relevant. What distinguished the teaching methodology advocated there was the level to which the arts were elevated and the idea of using creative experiences to enhance all areas of academic interest to create active learners. Every student experienced the arts, whether they were an aspiring artist or scientist. John Andrew Rice, one of the founders of the college, identified with artists whom he felt sought to expand understanding with creativity and experience, rather than to ascertain knowledge through control and experimentation. Art was a discipline that helped one to see, to learn, to listen, to fail, and to make choices. Rice’s strong methodological bias for experience in and out of the college classroom was summarized in a later statement: “To read a play is good, to see a play is better, but to act in a play…is to realize a subtle relationship between sound and movement.” The college’s faculty, students and speakers included some of the greatest artists and thinkers of its time: Anni and Josef Albers, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, John Dewy, Buckminster Fuller, Walter Gropius, Langston Hughes, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Charles Olson, and Albert Einstein. Black Mountain College positioned all life as art. The 1933 college catalogue described how the individual was fostered: “The student…by being sensitized to movement, form, sound…gets a firmer control of himself and his environment.”
Presenters
Siu Challons-LiptonExecutive Director and Professor of Art History, Department of Art, Design and Music, Queens Univeristy of Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
INTERDISCIPLINARY, LEANERS, FUTURE
