For three months in 1986, I visited fifty or more schools in China, often two weeks in one place, followed by four to six hours of conversations with teachers, with a bilingual translator/colleague who had lived half her life in China and half in the U.S.

With over 3000 years of art-making tradition, it should come as no surprise that the Chinese teach their traditional arts (generally speaking) as a set of forms with prescribed repertoire, specific techniques, specific subject matter, and according to accepted rules. This includes ink painting, calligraphy, and fine line painting (water color and ink), along with some folk arts and crafts. In the best situations, once they have learned a traditional skill, they are encouraged to see what they can do with it on their own. In the worst, they mimic the model and move on to another technique, in a superficial way.

The 1912 overthrow of the imperial system and the consequent travel to Europe by many students put in place a parallel system that is very influential: an idealized realism of the European academies. Even in remote areas of China, you will find plaster busts of Michelangelo's David being drawn in painstaking detail by art students. They move on to still lifes in color and eventually they draw from life. For a time, after the Communist Revolution, the European or "Western" painting style was respected, and Chinese traditional art was considered reactionary and backward. That notion has disappeared, but the result is a clear separation in training for Western and Chinese art.

A typical art lesson, as I observed it, began with the teacher showing a model of the desired product. Then s/he demonstrated the technique. Then the students followed the directions. This is the fundamental teaching strategy for all subjects.

Generally speaking, Chinese educators believe that making beautiful things is part of becoming a good person. However, art making also has a vocational goal, from painting decorative objects, posters, and other promotional materials (which they call propaganda) to earning a stipend as a professional artist, or teaching in an art academy. China is poor and overpopulated, so all parents are very clear that children need to identify their talents and begin early to prepare for a career. Parents send talented children to special schools and tutors (private tutors abound) in order to help them compete for the few slots available for advanced education and training in math, painting, music, dancing, gymnastics, etc. Art training, then, is part of that desire to get ahead.

The normal schools—advanced high schools—have three-year art teacher training programs. Art academy students also end up teaching, but they have no training in pedagogy. Art teaching was largely a de facto apprentice system in the 1980s: an experienced teacher oversaw the work of younger teachers. They were taught to follow the curriculum as provided in the national and/or regional text books.

In my three months I saw considerably more variation than one might expect, given the set curriculum and the limited training. I saw some amazing art teaching going on—amazing in the depth of their ideas, in what the students achieved, and in the continuing commitment of the teachers to their own learning. Each case was unique.

I came to have a lot of respect for the discipline required to teach and learn in China. I came to respect the task of dealing with the numbers of children, the marginal local economies, the scarcity of materials (clay dug out of the hillside and mixed with paper pulp as a hardening agent; woodcuts from old plywood; one set of markers to last all year). I came to respect the incredible physical dexterity of small children with small muscle skills, which I attributed—entirely unscientifically—to their use of chopsticks from toddler-hood on. Kindergarten children cut with tiny sharp scissors, draw letters with brushes, make tiny string decorations, and fold 4" by 4" paper into origami-like creations. I appreciated the sacrifice of families to their children's education. And I came to see that the extravagance of U.S. art education has its reprehensible side—"I can make whatever I want to make, using whatever I want to use, according to my own views of the world"—when it comes to taking responsibility for one's self and one's actions in the larger world. My Chinese teacher guests were appalled at the waste in U.S. classrooms, and they were horrified that we would cut vegetables and use them to make prints. People starve to death for lack of a potato!

I chafed under the pressure of tradition in China, but I also saw the power of tradition to give people a sense of the whole, a sense of belonging to something, a sense of trying to walk in the footsteps of elders, and a sense of goal. I often ask children doing art work "Why are you doing that?" In China it was not uncommon for a child to answer, "Because it is our tradition." I wonder how many children in America would give that answer.

The influence on me was a respect for a mix of skills, tradition, and opportunity (or encouragement) to improvise, go deeper, find new solutions. I think children need skills and frameworks in order to be creative. My experience in China was critical in clarifying this understanding.

Barbara Carlisle is Chair of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at Virginia Tech. Her book about her experience in China, Aim Crooked, Shoot Straight, is in manuscript.

Dennis Fehr visited China for ten days in 1996, lecturing and researching arts education. The following is excerpted from his paper "Formal and Postformal Thought in the New World Order: A Comparison of Art Education in the People's Republic of China and the United States of America."

The period ended, and Teacher Wang gave sharp instructions. The students hastily put their art supplies away and stood by their desks. "Goodbye, students."

"Goodbye, Teacher Wang."

They filed silently from the room. Through Ye [the translator], I thanked Teacher Wang and asked permission to interview and photograph her.

"Yes," she answered, "this time has been scheduled for you." I suspected that 38 students were sacrificing an art lesson in the interest of my research. I resolved to make the interview worthy of their loss, and it was, thanks to the candor of Teacher Wang. She was not candid in the Western sense, but I was struck by her critical remarks, given the calculated caution I detected in every other interview.

"Is art a required subject in the schools of the People's Republic?"

"Yes, art is required throughout the elementary grades. It is optional in high school. Some rural districts may not offer art, but the great majority of Chinese children are taught art by specialists."

"Do teachers choose what to teach, or are you given a curriculum?"

"China has a national curriculum for every subject. The text I showed you is the required text for students of this age throughout the country."

I tried to imagine the staggering number of backpack drawings [from that day's lesson] produced each year by China's 10-year-olds. "Are you free to teach from your own curriculum instead of the government curriculum?"

"I can ignore the government curriculum and teach whatever I want." She hesitated. "Up to a point."

"How much influence has the West had on Chinese art education?"

"Very much. We study famous Western works of art as well as famous Chinese works. We have many art projects that are more Western than Chinese."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Very good. We do not have enough creativity in Chinese art. The West has more. Our curriculum's biggest weakness is that it does not teach creativity."

"Can creativity be taught?"

"Not really, but we can offer opportunities for children to be creative." "You told the children to be creative with their backgrounds. Are you satisfied with the results?"

"No. They are not accustomed to the freedom. When they get used to so much freedom, they will get more creative."

"Is freedom necessary for creativity?"

"Yes, very necessary. You must be free to create."

"Do you, the art teacher, have freedom to be creative?"

"Yes, but in China we do not have enough freedom in art."

Dennis Fehr is Associate Professor of Visual Studies at Texas Tech University. Click here for the full text of this excerpt, and other writings by Fehr.

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