Archaeology as the Basis of an Inquiry Process Paradigm for Secondary Level Art Instruction.

This paper explored how art history is taught in secondary schools. The author maintained that identifying the origins and evolution of ideas ensures that proposed models of teaching art history adhere to the philosophical base from which they derive. The paper is divided into five sections. In the first part, the author described four categories of historical inquiry: realistic, formal, expressive, and pragmatic, but argued that these are not mutually exclusive. He maintained that student populations, available resources, and educational goals are other factors that must be considered when deciding which model of art-history instruction to use. Section two, Models of Art History Instruction, reported on three approaches to art history instruction: works of art, information, and process. In section three, Art History as an Inquiry Process, differences between teaching art history as information processing or as a process of finding and answering questions are discussed. The Process Model: An Example Derived from Archaeology is the theme of section four. The author chose Native- American rock art to illustrate how such a lesson could be taught. He illustrated ways in which certain art historical practices might proceed in art education classrooms. Five categories are described: reconstruction, description, attribution, interpretation, and explanation. In the summary, the author explained how an instructor using the inquiry process must design questions which will encourage students to invent their own further inquiries. Resource files are necessary in the classroom for this process. (KM)