The Challenge in Educational Function of Traditional Arts in Facing with the Contemporary (Western) Educational System

Traditional arts have had an educational function in the realm of religion and morality. This function was the result of a harmony between form and meaning. The harmony between form and meaning would result in a movement from the outward to inward, and its educative process is formed in this stage. The identity of form with meaning has been neglected in contemporary traditional arts, and accordingly, its educative process has been lost. The question is how the separation between from and meaning has come about and what the consequent defects were. It is presumed that the defect is resulted from the mode of education and the effect of educational system on traditional arts as well as the evaluating standards of the western thought. To get the answer, the related library sources were identified and the artistic features of the ancient and contemporary periods were compared and contrasted through a content analysis, the following findings were obtained: a disorder in unity of form and meaning is the result of (a) a separation between traditional artists and other sciences; (b) neglecting the logical stages of education; and (c) the importance of personal method is due to the principality of individuality and innovation. In view of the achievement, the most important result which is worth noting is the loss of educational aspect due to a disorder in the movement from outward to inward.