| The art education curriculum in Saudi Arabia is characterized by two shortcomings: first, as is the case in the West, it equates art education with instruction in art; and second, art education, along with the rest of the curriculum, was imported almost wholesale from the West and therefore does not fit in with the ideology and worldview of Saudi Arabian society, which are based on the religion of Islam.; The author proposes a definition of art education that makes art a main part of education, the means through which children are: understood; then taught according to their interests; and then guided onto a path of their own choosing. The “psycholo-Islamic stages” model is laid out, which divides a child's development into three stages of progressive independence and responsibility.; The author explores how art and education fit into the various branches of learning. He develops a scheme that he calls an “education web,” which shows the relationships that the major branches of learning have with each other and with education and how they form secondary branches of learning.; Finally, a formula called “Khalid-1” is developed, which applies the psycholo-Islamic stages to the stages of learning. The author shows how Khalid-1 can be used to develop a curriculum for teaching art education, in the broad definition that he has given it.; The author makes use of research done by Western scholars that is compatible with Islamic principles and useful for his objectives, in particular that of Jean Piaget and Viktor Lowenfeld. |
