“The invisible robot has disappeared!”

Who knows what long term subtle brain damage is caused by falling asleep in the glow of the cathode tube rays of cable television? I do it often enough to eventually find out. I usually make it through half of the “Daily Show” on Comedy Central, and then wake up in the middle of the night to unfunny paid advertisements for various questionable products.
But this bad habit has its advantages. Falling asleep during “Adult Swim” (the edgy, adult-oriented animation network sharing channel space with Cartoon Network) can result in early morning awakenings that introduce me to long unavailable series such as “Gigantor” and “Astroboy” (two series featuring the voice work of Billie Lou Watt, part of a long tradition of women actors portraying animated boy characters).
There are many aspects of these cartoons that fascinate me, including their enthusiastic, naïve moralism (“it’s just not nice to help a man do evil things”); the running theme of political insanity (“ dictators are usually quite mad—and very selfish”); the choppy, stylized animation; and the pulsing shifts in black and white contrast that suggest the animators’ beating hearts. This morning’s Astroboy included the incomparable line: “The invisible robot has disappeared!”
So what is this connection between dictators and invisible robots? Perhaps we all feel bullied by heartless forces we cannot control or see. What are the invisible forces that control our ideas about arts education? The limits of our ideas about art, the limits of our ideas about what kids can do, and our addiction to testing over teaching.
Of course we need to be concerned about holding our arts teachers and all our teachers accountable for teaching, and for teaching well. But the invisible robots have made us accomplices in a culture of compliance, ticking off skills and content coverage, as opposed to leading our learners into their independence. But art does not blossom under surveillance. We have invited Big Brother into our children’s schools, and he and the Muse do not get along. And besides, “it’s just not nice to help a man do evil things”.

Arnold Aprill
Founding and Creative Director
Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education
www.capeweb.org