CalArts History of Radical Pedagogy

CalArts’ pedagogical history is based on challenging expectations of what education means and
what educational structures are, questioning hierarchies in the classroom, embracing
experimentation and interdisciplinarity, and pushing against formal limits and definitions.
CalArts’ distinctive approach to teaching was a major influence on much of the process-based,
experience-led models and practices of arts education that currently exist. Today, we draw on the
parallel tradition of critical pedagogy to expand this legacy by engaging the multiplicity of
identities, experiences, and histories our students and faculty bring to campus, contextualized
within the political and social realities of the United States and the larger world, and continually
evaluating and transforming our pedagogy in light of them.

Core ideas from that history include:

  • Project-based teaching
  • A questioning of hierarchies between students, teachers and administration
  • A belief in the development of highly individualized artistic process and voices, within the context of a "community of the arts," all housed in one building and in dialogue with one another
  • A questioning of the definitions and limitations of disciplines and metiers
  • A valuing of process over product, and an emphasis on the value on developing a sustainable artistic process
  • A de-emphasis on grades and an emphasis on dialogue and critique
  • A highly multi- and interdisciplinary approach

Read more about the early history of CalArts here:

“A Community of Artists: Radical Pedagogy at CalArts 1969-72”
“A Situation Where Art Might Happen: John Baldessari on CalArts”
“A School Based on What Artists Wanted to Do: Alison Knowles on CalArts”
“Between Radical Art and Critical Pedagogy”

 

 

Critical Pedagogy

From Critical art education – Engelbert:  "Critical pedagogy assumes that education is never
neutral. We are all the product of our environment. Insight into one’s own position and that of
others is the first step in awareness.”

Foundational writers in the tradition of critical pedagogy include both bell hooks and Paulo
Freire:

bell hooks TEACHING TO TRANSGRESS

bell hooks TEACHING COMMUNITY: A PEDAGOGY OF HOPE

bell hooks TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING; PRACTICAL WISDOM 

Paulo Friere PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED