Instrumentalism practice in the field of art education makes school art education in a state of serious laissez-faire in which children are spontaneous, without teachers' intervention and evaluation, and without paying attention to the final works. Art is not a learning course, but a tool for children to express themselves. The main function of visual art in school is only to provide students with an opportunity to express their creativity and vent their emotions.
Essentialism emphasizes the essential value of art education and advocates discipline-based art education. Essentialists believe that art teaching should be subject-oriented and serialized, advocate systematic curriculum design and guidance methods, and evaluate children's academic performance with subject standards. The representatives of essentialism are eisner and Genach.
Eisner emphasized that the main value of art education lies in its unique contribution to personal experience. He pointed out that art is an extremely special aspect of human culture and practice, and the most valuable contribution that art can make to human practice is directly related to its characteristics. The contribution that art can make to human education is exactly what other disciplines can't.
Instrumentalism is a collection of Aristotle's logical works. At that time, it was considered that logic was neither theoretical knowledge nor practical knowledge, but a tool of knowledge, so later generations named this book instrumentalism. The book consists of six articles, dealing with issues such as entity, quantity, relationship and quality.
Artistic views of instrumentalism and essentialism
Instrumentalism advocates that art education activities promote the development and perfection of children's personality, combine children's mental and psychological growth and development, put people first, pay attention to children's independent and innovative self-expression, and teach students in accordance with their aptitude. On the other hand, essentialism holds that the main value of fine arts lies in its educational value and disciplinary teaching content.
Instrumentalism advocates independent development and follows children's self-expression, which helps to develop imagination and creativity. However, overemphasizing children's self-expression inevitably ignores the function of subject education and the leading role of teachers in education. Simply emphasizing essentialism will lead to China's excessive pursuit of disciplines and make education rigid and lifeless.