Historical referents of the training of art teachers in Cuba

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the historical moments of the training of art teachers in Cuba. The training program for art instructors was resumed in Cuba in 2001, since there is previous experience in 1961 with educators in the arts. This time, the program takes place in a very particular context that was called the Battle of Ideas, which recognizes art as a political weapon. The truth is that, for the training of art instructors, the Cuban State approved the opening of a School of Art Instructors (EIA) in each national province in 2001, allocating a budget to provide schools with the necessary material and human resources for the training of specialists in the manifestations: music, plastic arts, theater and dance. It is until 2015 that the formation of a bachelor’s in art education is recognized as a priority. Thus it is concluded that arts schools represent both a patrimonial architecture and a living history of the Cuban Revolution, because, through the historiographic recovery of the post-revolutionary formative processes and interviews with eight professors and six Cuban professors, historical events were documented: intentions policies, laws and curricular adjustments necessary to develop artistic and creative potential in all communities, as well as to educate Cuban children in the arts under the principles of the philosopher José Martí, the Battle of the Ideas of the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz and of the meaning of the humanitarian volunteering of the medic Ernesto Che Guevara.