Educational leadership beyond behaviourism, the lessons we have learnt from art education

Abstract

Today, we acknowledge that the brain works in complex ways and we are fully aware that emotion plays a major role in how well students think, in fact as many major sporting coaches would suggest, motivation and performance go hand in hand in achieving that competitive edge. It is would seem that effective learning must involve a balance of perceptive and logical approaches. Forgas explains there is strong evidence that positive and negative affective states facilitate different information- processing strategies. He states that there is little doubt that the delicate interplay between cognition and affect has been a moving force behind many of the greatest of artistic achievements. All subjects including the arts are now seen as having their cognitive and affective components. It would seem that the way curriculum addresses models of teaching, learning, evaluation and assessment should reflect the concerns of contemporary education. If we aim to elicit metacognition, higher order and critical thinking skills then our educational models must match what we are attempting to develop in our students; their mind as well as their behaviours.