Contemporary art and cross curricular activities in art teaching

Teachers who teach Visual art are competent and called for it to familiarize pupils with current developments in art. Monitoring, knowledge and understanding of contemporary art influence on the thinking and the empathy of each individual about the environment and the time in which he lives. Therefore, work with examples of contemporary art can encourage creative expression of pupils and at the same time it stimulates their critical thinking about the society. The subject of Master's degree is devising of Visual art tasks, where pupils learn about contemporary art, creatively express their ideas and develop the ability to express opinions and views. The theoretical part of the master's degree is relying on the theoretical foundations that address the goals and content of contemporary art. We proceed from the findings of experts about the positive effects of the introduction of the content of contemporary art in the teaching of Visual art. Since the concept of the curriculum for Visual art is not specifically focused on learning about the content of contemporary art, we were looking for goals in the curriculum of the subject Civil education and ethics. Those goals can be realized while working with examples of contemporary art. We are relying on the possibility of cross-curricular activities to achieve the common goals of both subjects which are included into the survey. We expose the general and specific teaching methods that work with contemporary art works especially in the foreground, but attention is also devoted to the excursion. In the empirical part the action research was carried out, in which we have planned three steps with a view to improve the practice. We were interested in the approach that allows pupils to understand and learn about contemporary art during the learning process. At the same time, the pupils had the opportunity to express on their own way, while they were accepting the goals given by the curriculum. Such approach encouraged creative thinking, creative use of materials and devices, pupils could decide for creative content and they could use different principles to express themselves and their ideas based on the works of contemporary artists and creatively solve the tasks. We examined the effects of solving the art problems. To check the efficiency of the planned procedures, we used causal non-experimental method of pedagogical research. When designing art tasks in the third step of the research we derived from a cross-curricular correlation and we put into account the goals set out in both lesson plans. In the initial state we found out that pupils did not have a clear opinion about contemporary art, because most of the pupils did not know it. During the course of the action research steps, we discovered that pupils associate artworks with everyday life, and interpret them according to their own experience. We detected a progress in pupils' creativity that manifests itself through the originality of ideas and as the desire for the ultimate realization of some conceptual designs. Cross curricular activity of subjects Visual art and Civil culture and ethics has proven to be successful and perhaps even a necessary form of integration in addressing the content of contemporary art. In the final state we detected a greater sensibility of the pupils in experiencing and understanding of some contemporary art works, and at the same time it was developed the individual relationship of the individual towards the contemporary art. Based on the findings, we developed guidelines for more appropriate planning and implementation of art tasks related to the content of contemporary art. The findings in the survey can positively affect on Visual art practice