Competency and Art Education. A Critique

Focusing on competency in art education, the seven essays in this critique deal essentially with two aspects of this topic: as it appears to manifest itself in competency-based teacher education (CBTE), and how competency might be interpreted to serve in the name of art education. In the introductory section, "Art Educators focus on Controversy," Nancy MacGregor compares and contrasts the remaining six articles. In the first article, "Competence and the Hidden Curriculum," Arthur D. Efland holds that while competency-based measures may objectify certain aspects of the teaching function, they will in all probability elude others. In "Different Art Teaching Styles and Some Elemental Competencies," Charles G. Wieder refers to two aspects of competency as he presents his concern for relationships between the learner and the teacher. The notion of two levels for competence is again apparent in the third essay, "Competency and the Craft Studio-Classroom: A Case for Literacy" (Donald Duncan). Duncan states that the term competence is synonomous with ability and skill, implying a quality of performance rather than a quantity of knowledge. Next, in "Some Thoughts on Competency, Art and Art Education," Robert Arnold writes about little and big competencies, with little ones being observable and testable and big ones being untestable because of differences in values. Similarly, Kenneth Marantz in "Toward the Liberation of a Conservative Concept," holds that competence has a built-in virtue or goodness and cannot be relegated to achievable bits and pieces. In the final essay, "The Logic of 'Competence' as it Bears on the Teaching of Art," Ross A. Norris views competency as defined by the CTBE movement and identifies five criteria to which teachers must conform to be competent. The publications contains an annotated bibliography of nearly 50 citations published prior to 1976. (LH)