Through myth to meaning in children's experiences of art.

Abstract:  This qualitative case study analyzes the aesthetic experiences of a group of elementary school age children who participated in an Art Museum Discovery Club in Spring 2006. The work of L. S. Vygotsky, John Dewey, Louise Rosenblatt and Maxine Greene provides the philosophical framework for my understanding of an aesthetic experience. Six children in grades two through five from a Title I school in the southwestern United States, an undergraduate art history student, and the researcher visited eight exhibitions at five different museums during a seven-week period. Research data included Art Journals, surveys and reflective interviews with the children and the undergraduate student, audio-recorded conversations from four of the sessions, photographs of the children's behaviors in the museums, and field notes. To analyze the data, I used Eisner's approach to qualitative inquiry as educational connoisseurship and criticism which entailed detailed description, thematic reflections and amplifications, interpretation and evaluation.

Campbell's paradigmatic hero's journey, specifically the myth of Theseus in the Labyrinth, emerged as an important theme early in the study.  Viewing the data through the metaphoric lens of this myth provided a narrative structure for the children's experiences and enabled me to see the typical museum visit and classroom discussions about art from a unique and vibrant perspective. By envisioning the work of art as the labyrinth, the children as heroes engaging with it in order to emerge with new knowledge, and the educator as a guide and fellow traveler, the experience of art assumes mythic proportions and education reclaims its role as a sacred trust.

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