Promoting more inclusive education through art education
01.10.2014
In the 1920s, music and pictorial art merged in teaching methods of art education. This old, but avant-garde tradition could be utilised in today's art education as well.
Music and art educator Alma Muukka-Marjovuo, who is defending her doctoral dissertation at the Department of Art, examines in her dissertation perceptions of art education in the early 20th century. She raises to the forefront the largely forgotten art education methods of Lilli Törnudd (1862–1929), a teacher of handicrafts and drawing.
‘The working methods that unite the arts are of interest to today's art educators. My research goes back to the roots of this type of education method, because the different areas of art interact closely with each other in Törnudd’s methods. For instance, she applied the working methods of music education and musical terminology in the teaching of pictorial art,’ Mukka-Marjovuo says.
Lilli Törnudd was one of the reformers of art education who were active in the art world in the late 19th and early 20th century, when teaching people as a whole took centre stage. Törnudd wanted to make school a more pupil-centred and inclusive place, where art would be more than a subject – a principle of education work alongside science.
‘Törnudd had a dream about a comprehensive school for all Finnish people, which would be based on working with the hands, appreciation for individual expression and the teaching of independent thought,’ Mukka-Marjovuo explains.
According to the researcher, Finnish schools should be places in which art will continue to have a space and a demand in the future as well.
Practical applications for modern teaching
In her study Muukka-Marjovuo applies the art education ideas of Törnudd to today's art education. The main goal is to develop upper secondary school education and its operating culture to be more communal and inclusive.
‘According to my research, Törnudd's teaching instructions have four different wholes: rhythm, ornamentation, tempo and effect. In my view, these should be made a basic structure of the art education curriculum at schools. Then it would be possible to better integrate teaching in different art subjects.’
Muukka-Marjovuo suggests that the tempo teaching instruction could be implemented today in working with groups of people who the teacher does not know.
‘The didactics of ornamentation could be, for instance, giving significance of a rejected recycling article through ornamentation, or by making a musical instrument out of recycled material. The didactics of effect, for its part, emphasise the fun in producing art, and playing with art,’ Mukka Marjovuo continues.
Muukka-Marjovuo has worked as a teacher. She has experience in the teaching of both music and pictorial art. Her doctoral study has been guided by information based on the researcher's own experience, which has also made it possible to make comparisons between the cultures of two different school subjects.
The doctoral study has been implemented by utilising several different research methods. Muukka-Marjovuo has systematically analysed the literary output of Lilli Törnudd, played the part of Törnudd in various performances, and tested Törnudd’s old methods in her work with pupils.
Defence of dissertation
The doctoral dissertation ‘Nurturing the Feeling of Art: Lilli Törnudd creating the worlds of art education’ will be examined at the Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture on Friday, 3 October 2014 at 12:00 noon in the Sampo Hall of the Media Centre Lume, Hämeentie 135 C, Helsinki. Her opponent will be Professor Eeva Anttila of the University of Arts Helsinki. Orders for the book can be made at the Aalto University online bookshop shop.aalto.fi, enquiries artsbooks [at] aalto [dot] fi, tel. +358 50 313 7086.
Further information:
Alma Muukka-Marjovuo
tel. +358 40-5652750
alma-liisa.muukka-marjovuo [at] edu [dot] hel [dot] fi