DIY in Art Education and Art Teacher Training in Turkey

Abstract

The Gazi Education Institute (GEI), founded in 1926, was an important teacher training institution in Turkey that included a model of do-it-yourself (DIY) practices in its curriculum that spanned three years. The Department of Art and Craft within GEI was founded in 1932, and had a curriculum based on a system where teacher candidates were divided into groups of twenty with each group rotating through the studios in different terms. The method of training in the craft studios was in fact a kind of self-sufficiency model of DIY, but it was abandoned in 1982 when the educational institutions were transformed into faculties of education within the universities. The Curriculum of Elementary Education for Visual Arts was revised in 2017 to include three learning areas that were also in the previous curriculum. Proposals from all education faculties were evaluated and new courses were put into the curriculum of the Departments of Art and Craft Education.