Puerto+Rico

http://us11iah241e.wikispaces.com/Puerto+Rico#

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States. It rests in the northeastern part of the Caribbean Sea between the Dominican Republic and the Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico is a very small country, 100 miles long and 35 miles wide. It consists of the main island and several smaller islands: Vieques, Culebra, Mona, and many others. Because they are a U.S. territory, their president is Barack Obama, but they have their own governor named Luis Fortuno. They have interesting voting laws, however. Puerto Ricans are technically U.S. citizens, but they cannot vote for president while they reside in Puerto Rico. If they were to move to one of the 50 United States, then they would be allowed to vote.

Culture Puerto Rico was originally populated by aboriginal peoples known as Tainos, but today is more of a melting pot of cultures. There are many cultural influences in Puerto Rico. Christopher Columbus was the first to lay claim to Puerto Rico, bringing along his Spanish influence. Like many islands in the Caribbean, African slaves were shipped in and out over several hundred years. After centuries of being a Spanish Colony, the United States invaded during the Spanish-American war, beginning a long-standing partnership between the two nations. Today Puerto Rico has a blend of aboriginal, Spanish, African, and American cultures. This slurry of cultures is present in their history, culture, and their arts.

The arts are an important part of the Puerto Rican education system. The government has created an institution that which sponsors and funds artistic activities and programs called the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena. The institution has its fair share of critics who claim that the institution favors a certain “high” culture that is centered on the American cultural influence and does not take into account the native, Spanish, or African cultures that are present in the Puerto Rican society. Over the last half century there has been a movement in schools from teaching non-technological arts to more technology advanced arts. The way the arts are taught in Puerto Rican schools today is much like the way they are taught in the United States. They start in early grade school with the basic visual arts such as painting, drawing, and sculpting. Later on in a student’s education, they learn more modern visual art practices such as photography and graphic design. This is what critics are upset about. They fear that American culture is taking the place of the native, Spanish, and African influences in visual art classes.

Accomplished Artist One accomplished Puerto Rican artist is Oscar Colon (1889-1968). Born in Hatillo, Puerto Rico, Colon showed a special talent for painting at a very young ate. He taught himself how to paint by reading art books and making his own observations of other’s arts. sought to define what it meant to be Puerto Rican and focused mainly on paintings of Puerto Rican landscapes and people. He attempted to incorporate customs, daily life, landscapes, characteristics that defined Puerto Rican culture. Today many of his works are in private collections such as the Ponce Museum of art. Below the pictures is a youtube video about one family’s trip to the Ponce Museum of art. One of his famous works is Jibaro Negro shown below. It is a painting of a Puerto Rican farmer. He incorporates the physical characteristics of a Puerto Rican of African descent in an agricultural landscape. Another one of his works is Bodegon, which is a painting fruit next to fine china. I noticed he incorporates fruit into many of his paintings in an attempt to show that eating what you grew was a big part of Puerto Rican culture at that time.

Jibaro Negro 

 Video of Ponce Museum of Art
media type="youtube" key="2kVk7GWdd_8" height="315" width="420"

Successful Arts Organization There are very few “in school” programs offered in the Puerto Rican education system. However, the Puerto Rican Department of Education (DOE) has put in place something called the Open School Program. The DOE adopted extended working hours in schools to make room for this program. As described by the DOE website, “The Open School Program is an educational initiative whose foundation is the integral human development, the community participation and development and the occupational exploration in the school as a vital space”. The program tries to reinforce student study habits, academic skills, and artistic development.

The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture has partnered with the DOE on this initiative The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture was updating its website it was difficult to find information on it, and most anything I could find was in Spanish which I am not fluent in. On Wikipedia I found the mission statement of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture is to promote the arts, archeology, museums, parks, etc. to endorse aspects of Puerto Rican culture. Most of what the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture does is put on arts festivals and fund museums and historical monuments, but they also fund in school arts programs for elementary students. They pay for elementary art teachers to go learn about how to incorporate Puerto Rican culture into daily lessons. This gives elementary students the opportunity to learn about where their Puerto Rican culture comes from and how they can incorporate it in their creative process. They do not have any programs for high school students. School Programs Arts education in Puerto Rico has a significant equivalence to that of arts education in the United States. This is due to the fact that the Puerto Rican government takes after the United States government. The Puerto Rican Department of Education has established two required arts credits for elementary school between 4th and 6th grade, and two arts credits in secondary school, middle and high school. This is somewhat similar to what I experienced. In 6th grade I took two arts courses, choir and art, and in middle school I took a second year of both choir and art. Like the United States, Puerto Rico is attempting to give students a practical education that they can use to either go to college or get a job, so there is not a huge focus on arts education. This has its benefits and downfalls. It is good because graduates of the Puerto Rican education system have the basic technical skills to contribute to society, but it is bad because, like in the United States, there is a shrinking focus on arts education and teaching the creative process.

Conclusion I found there to be some similarities and differences in arts education in Puerto Rico and the arts education I experienced in the United States. One thing that I found was similar was the total amount of art classes required to be taken. In Puerto Rico, two art classes are to be taken between 4th and 6th grade, and two more are to be taken in 7th to 12th grade. That is exactly how my arts education was structured. Another similarity I found between my arts education and arts education in Puerto Rico is the shrinking priority of the arts in schools. The modern world is forcing students to become more technical, so less importance is placed on the arts in the education system. One difference I found between my arts education and Puerto Rican arts education is that mine never tied any sort of culture into the work. My classes simply were made up of learning the basics of how to draw, paint, and sing. In Puerto Rico there is native, Spanish, and African culture influence in arts classes, however in recent decades Puerto Rico has seen a shift to having more of a modern American culture influence in arts classes.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Symbol,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Sources

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kVk7GWdd_8

http://www.everyculture.com/No-Sa/Puerto-Rico.html

http://enciclopediapr.org/ing/article.cfm?ref=06100227&page=3

http://enciclopediapr.org/ing/article.cfm?ref=08121003

http://www.puertorico.com/education/

http://iprac.org/

https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/9369/FINAL%20DRAFT.MASTERS%20RESEARCH%20PROJECT.Spring%2009.Kyryhan.pdf?sequence=1

http://www.careervision.org/About/Educational_Requirements_Liberal_Arts.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Puerto_Rican_Culture

http://www.icp.gobierno.pr/