Abstract:

Art education have written widely about the imagination issue on the development and performance of education and addressed by the authors of multiple researches who studied ideas related to education in arts and the creativity employed by teachers in art education design. The inclusion of the arts in the curriculum has led to heated debate in recent years. Opinion regarding this issue has differed from school to school: one school preferred arts education as a discrete subject to be studied separately from other subjects, while others insisted that the arts be introduced into the curriculum within other subjects. Another issue that has led to controversy around the world is whether the arts should be taught by specialist or generalist teachers, or by community artists.

Qualitative study is conducted using themes as a tool of analysis to explore the importance of encouragement, participation and accessibility on the development of imagination in elementary students in Kuwait. The researcher conducted 40 individual interviews with school supervisors, teachers and students who are working and studying in elementary schools in Kuwait. Each group of interviewees was given ten open-ended questions and they were asked to answer the questions based on their free will. The interview answers were collected, coded according to themes, and analysed.

The school supervisors and teachers expressed willingness to participate in art development programmes. However, few programmes for art imagination development are offered in Kuwait. Therefore, school management does not have enough opportunities to develop art imagination due to the weak interest of the state in contributing to art development in schools. Only 10% of school supervisors stated that their schools regularly participate in art development programmes, and on accessibility for students think that these programmes are developed within the standard art education curricula accepted in Kuwait. Obviously, the standard education programmes in art do not fill the gap in the development of imagination in art education. Therefore, when additional questions were asked, the majority of those interviewed (95%) agreed that the capabilities of the standard curricula are not enough to develop art imagination in elementary students, and about the importance of art teachers, the majority of teachers interviewed (60%) stated that they educate themselves independently.

Many of them use amateur methods to develop their own imagination, aiming to transfer their experiences in art education to the elementary students they teach. The school supervisors and teachers pointed out that there is a lack of professional education in art for teachers

Keywords:

Art education, imagination, attitude, encouragement, participation, accessibility.