Importance Of Interdisciplinary Education

For many years educators have sought the nature of knowledge - even taxonomies of education have had limited success. Harold F. O’Neil (17) in “Learning Strategies” recognises the nature of knowledge in the ‘duality of thinking’ - in the dual coding system of man, which consists of imagery’ and ‘language’.

In the Curriculum Statement we quote Anton Ehrenzweig (8) well known for his perceptual theories in the arts, as saying about the nature of knowledge:

“The creative thinker is capable of alternating between the differentiated and undifferentiated modes of thinking, harnessing them together to give him service for solving very definite tasks.”

Thus, interdisciplinary approach essentially seeks meaning in any area of knowledge and creates

The Birth of an Interdisciplinary Learning Approach

The inventiveness of Leonardo da Vinci, as recorded in his drawings, demonstrates the extent to which the arts and the sciences, particularly, can be synthesised in perceiving an original idea, and developed through an integration of art and technology. It is in this integration that an interdisciplinary approach to learning and communication can be born.

At the University of Melbourne in 1972 (1) it was debated whether inter-disciplinary education (the, then, ‘new’ education) was really a true integration of subject areas, or whether it was a form of lip- service being paid to the need to under-specialise while still preserving the authority of disciplines.

‘How does integration take place?” was asked. Koestler (13), likewise Professor Arnheim (2) answered that it has to be something that can be developed. Arnheim stated that integration in learning can best take place when it can be visualised in concrete form, something that happens to the artist and designer all the time. Koestler applied words like ‘cross-fertilisation’ to the merger of various associated or non- associated ideas which can produce new

In Renaissance engineering, drawing technologies were means of expressing and formulating ideas. There was a symbiotic relationship between technology and art in Renaissance inventions. We believe this can still be the situation today, but it seems another ‘renaissance’ must take pace to re-affirm the place of the right hemisphere of thought - the Private World - which has become the forgotten half of education. It is this nonverbal expression which makes it possible to exploit any number of disciplines and express an idea through a range of visual patterns, which are not forgotten as readily as a flow of words.

An internal document published by the Graphic Communication Secondary Committee, January 1979 (3), records discussion regarding the nature of the ‘mind/body’ problem; that is, how can we describe the skilled action of the mind when seen externalized in some kind of activity? To achieve this, general recognition was given to the need to see man’s art integrated with man’s technology and