0.4 The art of successful school-based management  (Page 5/36)

Elements of Art as a Way of Understanding

The elements of art are line, value, shape, form, space, color, and texture. In the first part of each sectionthe author will offer an artist’s definition of each element. In an attempt to help the reader connect the arts-based frame to theleadership frame, in the second part of each discussion the author will briefly describe the leadership themes and possibleimplications. In the third part of each section, and indeed a key part of the entire discussion, the author will highlight keyresearch initiatives and findings relative to that particular function. In the final analysis, the reader can have a helpful andgrounded overview of what makes for successful school-based leadership in today’s schools.

Because the author is framing the leadership discussion in an arts-based theoretical approach, some additionalconsideration about that approach is necessary. Similarly, as the author organizes the leadership discussion with a corresponding andappropriate language of art, in the form of elements of art, then that format can help the reader to understand the nature of theform. Eisner (1985) has explored the implications of this challenge of leadership as art most fully in his work, The EducationalImagination. A few of the more notable scholars who also looked to the arts to provide useful models to better understand and improveeducational practice include S. L. Lightfoot (1983; 1997), P. Jackson (1998), T. Barone (1988), and A. Blumberg (1989). Withinart, the author suggests that disciplines of aesthetics and criticism in general provide us a structure forunderstanding.

Dewey (1934) conceived aesthetics as the branch of philosophy that allows one to analyze the way he or shelooks at the qualities of the world and assign value to experiences. Dewey’s aesthetics provides a theoretical construct for thinking about leadership. Individuals are engaging inaesthetic thinking when they use their perceptions, sensations, and imagination to gain insight into what they might feel andunderstand about the world (Greene, 2001). Furthermore, Dewey (1934) implies that aesthetic refers to one’s first critical reflection on objects he or she experiences. What is especiallyimportant is that experiences stem from attention to qualitative relationships. Through these reflections one’s world and the wonder of life begin to take on deeper meaning. Priorities become clear.Important events assume an appropriate relationship with daily challenges. As these experiences first occur outside of languageand the expected constructions of the world, by reflecting on them they offer individuals opportunities for understanding. This typeof reflective analysis of experience is an integral part of critical theory through which one examines his or her own practiceand habits of mind.

In cultivating this sensitivity one begins taking on an aesthetic task. One begins answering the questions:What is of value? What is meaningful? What is moving about a given situation? It is through attending to the smallest nuances of artor life that one begins to transcend to a more attentive form of existence. He or she moves to a plane of existence that releasesimagination, passions, curiosity, and extraordinary circumstances. It is Dewey’s view of reflection that leads one to the notion of critical theory as a vehicle for understanding and valuing. Deweywas adamant that this form of aesthetic experience as antithetical to the appreciation of beauty. Dewey’s aesthetics is an active form or mental engagement with the world–not a detached, coldly objective appraisal.