Visual Education

Sight as sensory perception and cognitive seeing are not the same. The central concern of this book is the degree to which such a distinction is made in mainstream education. In our IT driven culture, it is a commonplace to rely on visual aids' in teaching, yet the nature of visual learning is little understood and deeply controversial. Educational psychologists agree that seeing is a powerful vehicle for learning, but offer little theory on its development or use. In educational policy, seeing is regarded chiefly as a natural function that merely helps to gain and maintain the learner's interest and aids the retention of information. This research focuses on the cognitive skills required to process the visual information presented across the curriculum. Interviews with teachers and pupils were analysed in the context of a comprehensive literature review. Although participants engaged with the concept of visual education, seeing was largely taken for granted and the teaching of visual literacy was perceived as the domain of art. The author concludes that cognitive seeing can be taught and that greater visual literacy would undoubtedly benefit learning.