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6 December
October 21,2010
2010 VADEA E-BULLETIN Vol.
Vol. 1 Issue 17
Welcome
This E-Bulletin is aimed at providing up to date information and resources on the proposed changes to
Visual Arts in the Australian Curriculum.
Some helpful tips on how to complete the ACARA survey can be found at;
http://vadea.org.au/wordpress/?p=1709
This survey gives you an opportunity to The Arts Shape Paper is designed to
have your say on ACARA’s draft Shape of inform the curriculum writers on the
the Australian Curriculum: The Arts for structure and content of The Arts
years K through to 12. Curriculum.
http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.ed http://www.acara.edu.au/arts.html
*Please follow the links
u.au/surveys/arts-draft-shape.html
Feedback can be done individually and
Face to face feedback with the BOS will start in
collectively. Contribute as a Teacher, Art
Term 4, with Primary School teachers. Term 1
Department, Regional group, Parent, Community
2011 the BOS will conduct face to face sessions
member or Organisation. ACARA counts each
with Secondary Arts teachers.
entry as ONE regardless of how many respond in
a group
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6 December 2010 VADEA E-BULLETIN Vol. 7
This week Professor Barry McGaw made a presentation at the Australian Association for Research in
Education Conference held at Melbourne University. I listened with interest as he stated that “we [ACARA] are
trying to keep the curriculum light”. I pondered the weight of his remark about light curriculum content, especially
in light of the heavy load I imagine Professor McGaw carries as the architect of the Australian Curriculum and
NAPLAN. This became even more apparent as he explained that “the ministers have given the whole curriculum to
ACARA”, just as the NSW BOS gave the curriculum to McGaw in the late 90s. Visual Arts achieved outstanding
results in McGaw Review Weight-Loss Program, shedding an amazing two 3 unit courses and avoiding the
responsibility of carrying the extra load of an extension course.
McGaw’s Curriculum Lite program certainly generates many more opportunities for Visual Arts to increase
our curriculum fitness by reducing our footprint. The problem is that students keep participating in Visual Arts
across the nation. We are in crisis. Visual Arts clearly has an obesity problem as the largest subject of any of the
arts. Teachers disobey the national agenda in offering rigourous and challenging programs. These are consumed
greedily by students who seem addicted to this diet of intellectual autonomy and challenge. This over consumption
is a bit of a problem but creatively solved with a well structured reduction program.
The opportunity for Visual Arts to again achieve outstanding results in contributing to the agenda, of load
reduction in Australian education, is supported by the strategic creative thinking of Professor John O’Toole, the lead
writer of the Draft Shape Paper for the Arts in the Australian Curriculum. Luckily, the new role Visual Arts is to play
as an artform in ‘The Arts’ means Visual Arts is relieved of the weighty responsibility of having to identify as a
discrete subject. Rather, Visual Arts is blended in a new diet formula, which assists in controlling the appetite
for the discrete study of any artform. The fusion of specific Visual Arts content within a ‘one size fits all’
concoction, brewed through the strands of generating, realising and responding- proposed in this creative
curriculum, abrogates the need to specify discipline specific content in Visual Arts. It lacks concepts, practices or
interpretive frameworks and only gains simple aesthetic participation. There will be no developmental continuum, K-
8 students will just play and scribble rather than learn conceptually and practically. It seems, under this proposal, the
desire for rigourous coherent has given way to the idea of less work – why do one artform when you can slim line
and integrate all five?
Dr Karen Maras
VADEA Co-President
Assistant Head - School of Education NSW
Senior Lecturer - Visual Arts Education
Australian Catholic University
*This is a calorie free version of Dr Maras’ original article. The complete version can be found at;
http://www.scribd.com/full/44729754?access_key=key-8ay2numc91pbyr2kbxs
Website; http://vadea.org.au/wordpress/
Email; contact.vadea@gmail.com
Blog; http://vadea.blogspot.com/
Twitter; https://twitter.com/VADEA_NSW
Facebook; http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=121728261192109
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