Mary Godfrey's Visual Presentation Of Art Education

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Godfrey was a light-skin African American, college educated Northerner starting a newly created position for an African American to supervise Southern African American educators and their schools. If one of reason for hiring Godfrey was to start the black section of the VEA, how did the African American educators in Virginia feel about her? Why didn’t they hire an African American educator from Virginia as assistant state supervisor? Was Mary Godfrey hired as a token to appease both sides? I do not know the answer, but I do know from personal experience moving from New York to Atlanta, how the Southern African American community feels about the northerner coming down to the south trying to educate them. Most Southerners do not like when Northerners …show more content…

In an interview, Godfrey states, “My supervisor, who incidentally was a white woman, and I got along very well. We work together as a team and we, more or less, complimented each other” (Hollingsworth, 1988, p. 205). Both women created a pamphlet in 1950 titled, Visual Presentation of Art Education, “the report submitted by the Art Education Service was subsequently illustrated by Miss Mary E. Godfrey, who gives emphasis to the promotion of art education in the Negro schools” (Mary Godfrey Papers, Box 1, Folder 2). This pamphlet described the role of the supervisor of art education, why art education was important, and art as creative experience. The pamphlet explained the purpose, objective and philosophy or art education for all school personnel and children. Art educator Ruth Peck (1958) describes, in the 1950s, role of the art supervisor was to provide in-service art training that would arouse interest in possible effects of art education by developing a solid philosophy, stimulate ideas and establish teaching techniques that would be transmitted into practice in the classroom. (p.6) This was a time when art education was not a place of valuable instruction and considered “the time-honored method…planning pupil art activities by holidays or special events,” it was up to the art supervisor to assistant teachers in selecting and organizing art activities (Hastle, 1954 p. 17). Godfrey was instrumental in developing the concept of art education as a basic approach to school and community living and understanding art as a learning process. She took her position as an assistant art supervisor and educating children seriously. Godfrey

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