Culture imperatives of art pedagogy and practice in Nigeria

Abstract

Inculcating culture in arts inspires communal identity and vocational aptitude since culture births vocations amongst other variables. The evolution of  culture into vocations evolve into trades, crafts, and local technology, these become indigenous technology. One of the problems of Nigeria‟s slow pace  of technological development is low level indigenous technology. This is because the educational curriculum of Nigeria was patterned towards the British  curriculum; the disparity of cultures caused the curriculum to lack the ability to address specific issues like customs and tradition, race and ethnic  disparities, arts, crafts and vocations. Dearth of such variables caused lack of foundations to address specific concerns of society including technological  development. To address the issues society relevant curriculum, this study views that culture as an important factor for consideration in curriculum  planning can be used as fulcrum that drives the content of all curricula and art practice. In the arts, culture forms the identity of art styles and character, it  depicts the personage of society and transmits heritage from generation to generation. Studies in culture evoke interests of the environment in the  learners and equip them with problem solving acumen. Since culture is the character of a people, it makes their interest to dwell on the society. This  causes learners to visualise their interests, analyse their problems, and in their studies get inspired to create solutions to such problems. This study  investigates the Nigerian experiences of highlighting the importance of culture in teaching arts and the main art practice. The objectives of the study  include highlighting the essence of inculcating culture in education and the arts, and enumerating and determining the effects of culture in education  and art practice. The study takes a qualitative format of reportage. It establishes that cultural practice is relevant to educational and developmental  aspirations. The findings view culture in art pedagogy as best practice to suit the prevalent diversities of the environment. It concludes that introducing  traditional styles in art teaching strategies and practice are effective in inspiring learners‟ interests in their environments, thereby a major problem solver  to some environmental concerns as they relate to African art learning and practice.