Developing Inner Peace and Joy through Art Education

Problem statement: Art Education has been given place in the curriculum yet there is a general misconception that the subject Art is of lesser importance and treated as a mere entertaining fringe. The present study looks into this matter. The basic key question, therefore, is-Does process of art education that is art instruction, promotes creative aspects of students and develops inner peace? It is with reference to Teacher education course. Approach: For the study, a workshop on art was organised and 400 B.Ed. students (pre-service teachers) were taken. Most of these students had studied art only till 8th standard while few of them had no experience of any art class in school. They were hesitant to paint and had lot of misconceptions about art. The workshop included slide show, discussion and interpretation, meditation, listening music, painting on the spot and writing the experience of going through the workshop. Data was analysed qualitatively. Results: It was concluded that art education promotes: unique perception, feelings, sensitivity, symbolic association, imagination, originality, unique idea, imagination, self-realization and observation which are the aspects of creativity. It was also analysed from the data that art education made subjects feel relaxed; satisfied; fresh; feeling of other worldliness; contented; inner peace; joy; happy; self-realization; inspired, motivated and confident to create; sense of freedom; no limitations, no boundaries and no hesitations; emergence of new ideas and imagination; and awareness of inner potentials. Conclusion: Art education promotes peace and joy in an individual and it’s important in one’s growth.