2020 Volume 87 Issue 3 Pages 342-353
Between 1933 and 1957, an experimental liberal arts college called Black Mountain College (hereafter BMC) existed in the mountains of North Carolina in the United States. The recent archiving of historical materials has led to research on BMC from various perspectives, so far focusing on experimental art practices, mainly due to the influence of the Bauhaus, and the names of the artists involved. Pedagogical studies have interpreted BMC as progressive education in practice, evaluating it as realizing the idea of American democracy. It had two features of educational practice: (1) experimental community management based on community life, and (2) the placement of the arts at the center of the curriculum.
However, previous research has not discussed the relationship between community and art at BMC. It has not been noted that J. A. Rice, the first rector of BMC, positioned the BMC community as the means and individuals as the end. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the means of “interpreting individuals as the end and the BMC as the means” in Riceʼs educational thought, and with reference to John Deweyʼs philosophy, to clarify how the arts as the center of the curriculum, another characteristic of BMC, related to Riceʼs ideas of the relationship between “community” and “individual.”
In the context of this purpose, there is the debatable issue of the concept of community in educational discussion. The thought of New Education, including progressive education, has emphasized community; however, it has been variously criticized. One critique suggests that the emphasis on community risks erasing individuals. This criticism also targets Deweyʼs thought, one of the essential referential points of progressive education. On this issue, neither choosing between community and individual nor respecting both community and individual can solve the problem. The question is how education, while remaining community-based, can find individuals who do not become buried in the community. This paper resolves this problem by focusing on Rice and Deweyʼs thoughts in the context of “progressive education.”
In order to achieve this purpose, this paper discusses the following three points. First, the paper confirms that Rice viewed the community as the basis for the unexchangeable and irreplaceable individual as a protest against the established order. Next, the paper clarifies that this protest also needs individuality based on art-experience. However, it will also become apparent that Riceʼs discussion of individuals and individuality based on art-experience involves the possibility of avoiding the risk of individuals becoming buried in the community, and has not been able to discuss this possibility thoroughly enough. Therefore, finally, with Deweyʼs thought as a guide, the paper points out that individuality based on art-experience can create a mutually non-reductive linkage between community and individual by bringing “new perceptions” into the common world.
