Week 3 - Curriculum in Art Ed

MEANING

            After reading this chapter, I found it hard to synthesize the content as well as my response to the content.  I think one reason it was difficult is because as I was growing up in school it always seemed off limits to talk about religion, even in an overarching “spirituality” sense.  In the past, it seems as though this topic has been labeled “sensitive” and “heavy.”  Similar to how Pink describes the way in which people have the desire to incorporate their sense of spirituality in the workplace (thus bringing their “whole person rather than one compartment of themselves), however, this process seems to drag its feet on the account of what may be fear to offend others or possibly fear to be vulnerable with others.  Spirituality and religion are very personal ideas.  They speak to what we hold to be true about the world, our existence, and our purpose, thus exposing ourselves to others. 

            I agree with Pink in that “The search for meaning is a drive that exists in all of us.”  He quotes Viktor Frankl when he argued, “Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.  Our fundamental drive, the motivational engine that powers human existence, is the pursuit of meaning.”  Pink states that “Across many different realms, there’s a growing recognition that spirituality—not religion necessarily, but the more broadly defined concern for the meaning and purpose of life—is a fundamental part of the human condition.  Indeed, our capacity for faith—again, not religion per se, but the belief in something larger than ourselves—may be wired into our brains.”  Similar to other big ideas Pink discusses in this book, my immediate response to this idea is “Why?”  Why does this belief in “something larger than ourselves” seem to be wired in our brains?  Where did this desire to believe in “something larger than ourselves” come from?  Did it, in fact, come from something larger than ourselves?  Or is it something humans simply created in order to function within society?  Why is it so important for humans to feel their life is meaningful unless it actually is meaningful?  Furthermore, what does it actually mean to have a meaningful life? 

            Pink quotes Steven Quartz when he says, “We are social creatures of meaning, who crave a sense of coherence and purpose.”  I believe that understanding our need as humans to seek meaning and purpose throughout our lives must influence our interaction with art, in that the way in which we create and view art must also be through the lens of seeking meaning and purpose.  If this is the case, as art educators, we must expose students to what it means to be meaningful makers as well as purposeful viewers.  These ideas, of course, can span across all aspects of art such as traditional fine art, design, and visual culture.  

Week 2 - Curriculum in Art Ed

EMPATHY

What is it?

“Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position and to intuit what that person is feeling.  It is the ability to stand in others’ shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts.”

            Pink gives contagious yawning as an example of spontaneous empathy.  I have never thought about it in that way.  Steven Platek calls it this a “primitive empathic mechanism.”  Apparently, according to research contagious yawners score high on various tests that measure levels of Empathy.  How fascinating.

What does it do?

“Empathy builds self-awareness, bonds parent to child, allows us to work together, and provides the scaffolding for our morality.”  Empathy gives us different perspectives, allows us to put ourselves in another person’s position, helps us comfort someone, etc.  As the chapter describes, empathy is an important aspect of human life.  “Empathy makes us human.  Empathy brings job… Empathy is an essential part of living a life of meaning.”

Evolution

During the Information Age, empathy was often considered a weakness, especially in men.  “The era of sharp-minded knowledge workers and briskly efficient high-tech companies prized emotional distance and cool reason—the ability to step back, assess the situation, and make a decision unimpeded by emotion.  But as with so many other attributes of L-Directed Thinking, we are beginning to see the limits of such a single-minded approach.”

As the Conceptual Age continues, the aptitudes that are more difficult to replicate using computer and technology are becoming more valuable.  “And the one aptitude that’s proven impossible for computers to reproduce, and very difficult for faraway workers connected by electrons to match, is Empathy.”

R-Directed Thinking

            “We both express our own emotions and read the emotions of others primarily through the right hemisphere.”

            I was interested in the research that showed “The vast majority of women—regardless of whether they are right-handed or left-handed—cradle babies on their left side.  Since babies can’t talk, the only way we can understand their needs is by reading their expressions and intuiting their emotions.  So we depend on our right hemisphere, which we enlist by turning to the left.”  I found this extremely interesting.  As I think of when I cradle a baby it is most naturally on the left side, even though I am right handed. 

How Empathy relates to other Senses

Design

-“Good designers put themselves in the mind of whoever is going to experience the product or service they’re designing.”

Symphony

-“Empathic people understand the importance of context.”

-They see the “whole person.”

Story

-“Stories can be pathways to Empathy—especially for physicians.”

Male vs. Female

            “The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy.  The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems.”  While this isn’t the case for every female and male, “More males than females have brains that systematize… More females than males have brains that empathize.” 

Conclusion

            “Empathy is neither a deviation from intelligence nor the single route to it.  Sometimes we need detachment; many other times we need attunement.  And the people who will thrive will be those who can toggle between the two.”  

Week 2 - Curriculum in Art Ed

SYMPHONY

Pink describes symphony as the “capacity to synthesize rather than to analyze; to see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields; to detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers; and to invent something new by combining elements nobody else thought to pair.” 

The ability to use the aptitude of symphony—or to synthesize—is especially important in today’s Modern world full of options and stimuli.  This abundance of information can be overwhelming.  “Those with the ability to see the big picture—to sort out what really matters—have a decided advantage in their pursuit of personal well-being.” 

In art, drawing is a skill that demonstrates the ability to synthesize what is seen.  An artist must have the ability to look at the big picture, as well as details.  An artist must be able to see relationships between one line to the next, one form to another, one space to another space, etc.  Drawing is all about relationships.  Similarly, Symphony is largely about relationships.  “People who hope to thrive in the Conceptual Age must understand the connections between diverse, and seemingly separate, disciplines.  They must know how to link apparently unconnected elements to create something new.  And they must become adept at analogy—at seeing on thing in terms of another.”

One large aspect of symphony is metaphor.  “Understanding one thing in terms of something else.”  Pink quotes Twyla Tharp when she says, “Everything you create is a representation of something else; in this sense, everything you create is enriched by metaphor.”  This quote really resonated with me.  I’ve never thought about metaphor in that way—as anything created.  Additionally, the fact that everything created is a representation of something else is hard to believe; yet I do think it’s true.  Anything I create references some type of experience I have had. 

Metaphors also allow for empathy.  “Metaphorical imagination is essential in forging empathetic connections and communicating experiences that others do not share.”  Furthermore, metaphors help us understand ourselves.  “A large part of self-understanding is the search for appropriate personal metaphors that make sense of our lives.  The more we understanding metaphor, the more we understand ourselves.” 

I think symphony—or synthesizing—is one of the most important senses.  I think it is one I identify with most.  Drawing connections between seemingly unrelated subjects and ideas is so interesting to me.  I also love simple things such as creating titles for pieces, or writing poetry, etc.  Those that have the gift of symphony, such as composers and conductors, have the ability to organize relationships into “A whole whose magnificence exceeds the sum of its parts.”   

Furthermore, the “Conceptual Age also demands the ability to grasp the relationship between relationships.  This meta-ability goes by many names—systems thinking, gestalt thinking, holistic thinking.  I prefer to think of it simply as seeing the big picture.”  Pink states that the ability to perceive “One’s own life in a way that encompasses the full spectrum of human possibility is essential to the search for meaning.” 

Week 2 - Curriculum in Art Ed

STORY

I really enjoyed this chapter discussing the value of Story.  Pink begins the chapter by describing stories as “How we remember.”  He quotes cognitive scientist Mark Turner as he writes, “Narrative imagining—story—is the fundamental instrument of thought… Most of our experience, our knowledge and our thinking is organized as stories.”

            Pink says our brains have an internal “story grammar” that helps us “understand the world not as a set of logical propositions but as a pattern of experiences.”  We can explain ourselves and connect to others through stories.  Pink describes stories as “Context enriched by emotion.”  He elaborates by saying, “Stories are important cognitive events, for they encapsulate, into one compact package, information, knowledge, context, and emotion.”

            Practically speaking, “Storytelling doesn’t replace analytical thinking… It supplements it by enabling us to imagine new perspectives and new worlds… Abstract analysis is easier to understand when seen through the lens of a well-chosen story.”

            The idea of storytelling and narrative seems to be, as Pink describes, “deeply ingrained” in humanity.  As early as the cave paintings in Lascaux, France, humans have felt the need to tell stories.  Stories help us connect and relate to each other.  They help us make meaning out of our experiences.  However, I find myself asking, “Why?”  Why do humans feel this need to tell stories?  Where does this “deeply ingrained” tendency come from that all humans experience it?

            I was particularly interested in the section of the chapter in which Pink discusses the story template of “the hero’s journey.”  It does seem true that since the earliest documentation of stories, variations of “the hero’s journey” have been generated throughout time and across cultures.  From Greek mythology to legends, from historical tales to novels, from religious texts to Hollywood movies—the hero’s journey takes precedence in stories.  Again, I find myself asking “Why?”  Why is “the hero’s journey” such a popular tale that there are so many variations from different cultures?  What exactly is the meaning to be found within the story?  Why are humans so attracted to this idea of a hero’s journey? 

           

            Pink concludes the chapters by discussing the world’s current need for personal narrative, especially during a time of abundance, “When many of us are freer to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose.” 

CURRICULUM PROJECT PROPOSAL

            Currently, I have two ideas for my final project that I haven’t quite narrowed down yet:

1)    Create a series of posters advocating for curriculum that centers around the ideas of meaningful making, authentic linking, student driven lessons, a focus on integration into all disciplines, aesthetics, community, etc.  Education posters from the 50’s and 60’s that I recently came across inspired this idea.  These posters were comically outdated in regards to curriculum and classroom experience.  This lead me to want to create some posters of my own with the purpose of hanging in a classroom or even in the hallways of schools. 

2)    As I am gearing up to TA for art appreciation in the fall, I would design curriculum that would allow students to create art while they are studying artists in order to bring both components of “appreciating art” into the classroom.   Activities would correlate to the work students viewed that week in their lecture.  In this way students would be given the opportunity to form more meaningful connections as well as experience what it is to be a creative producer.  

Week 2 - Curriculum in Art Ed

DESIGN

Design. I believe every object we engage with has been designed – from manmade to objects of nature—everything has a design.  In this chapter, Pink defines design as “The activity of creating solutions.”  He states part of the purpose of design is to “serve our needs and give meaning to our lives.” 

            Pink described design as a combination of utility and significance.  “Utility is akin to L-Directed Thinking; significance is akin to R-Directed Thinking.  And, as with those two thinking styles, today utility has become widespread, inexpensive, and relatively easy to achieve—which has increased the value of significance.  In the Conceptual Age, design is not more accessible, crucial for most modern business, and more people are developing a design sensibility.  These three developments of design make it an aptitude of high-demand and essential for success. 

            Design, now more than ever, plays a large role in the business world.  “The Democratization of design has altered the competitive logic of business.”  Today, design serves as a competitive edge between businesses.  The former chairman of Sony, Norio Ohga, states, “Design is the only thing that differentiates one product from another in the market place.”

            “Design has also become an essential aptitude because of the quickened metabolism of commerce.  Today’s products make the journey from L-Directed utility to R-Directed significance in the blink of an eye.”  Pink gives the example of cell phones.  Less than a decade ago cell phones were a luxury item for the few.  Now cell phones are “An accessorized expression of individuality for many.  They’ve morphed from “logical devices… to “emotional devices.”

            Pink concludes, “Good design, now more accessible and affordable than ever, also offers us a chance to bring pleasure, meaning, and beauty to out lives.  But most important, cultivating a design sensibility can make our small planet a better place for us all.”

            The importance of design has created a high-demand for skilled designers.  However, not only do designers have to be skilled in their craft, they also have to be able to collaborate with a team and answer to a client.  At times, the work of design is very different than traditional fine art, in that creative control often belongs to someone else other than the artist/designer.  I would find answering to another person, who most likely is not an artist or designer, to be very challenging.  At what point does an artist sacrifice artistic integrity?  Is artistic integrity a valid idea?  I’m not quite sure of the answer. 

Week 2 - Curriculum in Art Ed

After reading part one of Daniel Pink’s, A Whole New Mind, in which Pink discusses the scientific aspects of the relationship between the left and right brain and their functions, I had a conversation with a friend about the content of the chapter.  Turns out, my friend created a website titled, The Beautiful Brain, which he described as “The juncture of art and neuroscience.”

http://thebeautifulbrain.com/

“The Beautiful Brain explores the latest findings from the ever-growing field of neuroscience through monthly long-form essays, reviews, galleries, short-form blog posts and more, with particular attention to the dialogue between the arts and sciences. The site explores questions of creativity, the mind of the artist, and the mind of the observer that modern neuroscience is beginning to address. Instances where art seeks to answer questions of a traditionally scientific nature are also of great interest, and for that reason you will hear from artists as well as scientists at The Beautiful Brain.”

One such artist featured, Greg Dunn, “is a visual artist and has a Ph.D in neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania..  Dunn’s eye seems attuned to the dazzling beauty packed into the cellular architecture of each square millimeter of our nervous system, architecture that repeats itself all around us.”

I felt the website somewhat relevant in that it discusses the functions of the brain through the lens of art and integration.  It just so happens my friend is the curator of a show, partnering with the “Neuro Beauro,” in conjunction with the 2013 Human Brain Mapping Conference in Seattle, WA. 

I really enjoyed reading about the functions of the left and right brain.  Ideas such as, “The left hemisphere handles what is said; the right hemisphere focuses on how it’s said.”

“The left hemisphere specializes in text; the right hemisphere specializes in context.”

I took a lot away from Freedman’s reading this week, as well, with her thoughts on curriculum design and it’s relationship to visual culture.  She states, “Theorizing visual culture in educational settings, designing and implementing education plans, and evaluating art educational programming are all part of the social process by way of which we present the many aspects of visual forms of representation to students.”

What stuck out to me most in this chapter was Patrick Slattery’s idea that “curriculum expresses autobiography because it is created by people who leave parts of themselves in their teaching and writing.  He suggests that curriculum should focus on issues of the self, because that is where learning takes place, and that educators can use autobiography to better understand educational conditions.  Slattery’s understanding of curriculum is an example of renewed awakening to the aesthetics of education.”  The joining of autobiography and curriculum lead me to thinking of the relationship of autobiography and artwork itself.  In the same way people leave parts of themselves in their teaching and writing, artists leave parts of themselves in their artwork.  This fact alone allows viewers to glean meaning and authenticity from an artwork, as the artist is communicating who they are as an individual by creating a personal work, as well as communicating ideas about the collective identity of humanity, as he/she is a human expressing ideas of the human condition.  Each artwork has in imprint of individual and collective autobiography.  To discuss this idea further, that imprint is specific to the context of the culture in which it was created.  In other words, the imprint on the artwork can only be seen in its true form if one is looking through the lens of the cultural context of which the artist inhabited.   

Day 4 - Curriculum in Art Ed

Eisner Chapter 5

Eisner discusses the idea of “situated learning,” which he defines as “The sources of what, where, and how children learn… The child is situated in a social and material context, and this context, viewed as a culture, teaches.”  According to Eisner, children should belong to a community of learners without intense competitive pressure.  This community of learners brought with them prior experience.  Eisner references Dewey’s discussion of the constructed character of experience: “That construction was not only activated by the prior experience the child brought to the situation; it was also the result of the child’s interactions with the social and material conditions in which he or she world.  In this view, learning and culture [are] inseparable.”

These learning communities should emulate actual life with actual applications of education.  Situated learning “increases the probability that students will be able to apply what they have learned… What one wants is to increase the probability that connections will be made by all students… When what is learned cannot be applied, the meaningfulness of what is learned is diminished.” 

One component within successful learning communities is that students are faced with a problem.  “When there is no challenge, when everything is satisfactory, there may be little motivation to stretch one’s thinking, to try something new, to experiment, to revise, to appraise, and to start again.  Creativity profits from constraints.  The problem is a major centerpiece by which learning is promoted.  It is embedded in a social structure that can facilitate or impede its resolution.”

Generally, a problem will lead to a purpose.  To fulfill this purpose, imaginative construction must be formed.  “Awareness and idea are part of the process of meaningful artistic activity, but an idea needs a vehicle that will carry it forward, that will make it into an object or event that has a place in the world.  To do this requires an imaginative leap into a form in which that transformation is to occur.”

WHAT CHILDREN DRAW AND WHY

            In this section of the chapter, Eisner argues that “The ways in which children express themselves in the visual arts depend upon the cognitive abilities they have acquired and that the cognitive abilities they have acquired are related to both their biologically conferred and their learned abilities as these human features interact with the situation in which they work.”  Eisner believes that arts education’s major role is to create situations “through which the senses can be refined.” 

            Eisner summarizes his thoughts by saying, “The course of children’s development in the creation of visual images is characterized by the gradual emergence and refinement of forms of thinking.  What we see in the features of children’s artwork over time are the fruits of learning… Children’s development in art can be seen as an expanding collection of increasingly refined and diversified repertoires that widen their visual options.” 

            I agree with Eisner when he states, “Students should come to understand art as a cultural artifact, one that both reflects and affects the culture in which it appears.”  I believe that art and culture both inform and transform each other, creating a sort of symbiotic relationship of progression. 

Teaching Visual Culture – Chapter 5

            In this chapter, Freedman outlines the importance of art education and visual culture investigation on a student’s ability to think critically about the world around them.  She argues, “Students with an adequate general education, but little art education, have greater difficulties understanding and interpreting the complex meanings associated with visual cultural forms than do students with a background in the visual arts… Students can broaden their understanding of interpretative skills by finding their own personal and cultural meanings, comparing, combining, and challenging these with the interpretations of others to increase associations and build complexity. 

Text and Image:

Images are read as texts.  Both are forms of representation and depend on the use of metaphor and symbolism.  As we engage with images and text, “we construct their meaning as they in turn work to construct us.”

            Images are perhaps more complex than texts in that they are viewed holistically and have an immediacy and subtly to their influence on the viewer.  Images are more memorable, as well as physical.  In relation to advertisements, “Ads contain didactic cues that educate viewers to interpret imagery in a particular manner that is quickly recognized, deeply associative, and easily internalized.”  Furthermore, advertisers attempt to educate people to think in the context of the reality they construct.” 

            “The representational character of and relationships between various forms of visual culture are an important part of cultural knowledge and influence student interpretation both in terms of art making and viewing.” 

Day 3 - Curriculum in Art Ed

The Social Life of Art

“Art history is grounded in the serious and thoughtful research of selected objects, but it generally gives little attention to larger social, political, economic concerns that are the contexts of artistic production.  In fact, some of the most sophisticated analyses of contexts of art are called ‘social history’ or not considered part of the discipline at all because they address those complex concerns.”

This chapter discusses, in depth, the emphasis placed on the idea of connoisseurship as it relates to art history.  Students are exposed to only what is thought to be “good” art based on technical attributes of the work.  “The methods of valuation developed by art historians have influenced the ways in which educated people think about art.”  The chapter therefore argues that, unlike the connoisseur, the social historian is “concerned with the signs of the various roles played be artwork in simultaneously generating, sustaining, and reflecting broader, social, cultural and historical processes” and this view should be included in our curriculum. 

            Context in which the art is created is just as important as the art itself.  Therefore, it is important to draw this connection into the curriculum.  “Context is not peripheral to visual culture, or any given work of art; it is a part of visual culture.  Contexts provide the conceptual connections that make images and objects worthy of study and is as much a part of art as its form, function, or symbolic meaning.”

“All aspects of the mind bear on art, be they cognitive, social, or motivational… An education in visual culture must be thought of from interdisciplinary and extradisciplinary positions that allow information from inside and outside of school to be connected to school subjects.”

“The problem is that much of the art judged to be good by the old criteria is at best only indirectly connected to, and at worst is irrelevant to, the cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, multimodal experiences of students’ daily lives… We must ask, What art is worth teaching? (Which is not the same questions as, What art is good?)… We can conceptualize quality not as great value (inherent), but as powerful (social) influence.”

“New educational representations of the past that infuse ideas and practices involving the social relevance of visual culture are important to making meaning in the postmodern world.”

Art and Cognition

            “The relationship between form, feeling, and knowing is an important part of cognitive processing.  In regards to visual culture, this relationship involves the processing of contexts as part of the processing of images and objects.”

            A viewer may only interpret art as their experience affords them.  As John Dewey said, “A work of art… is actually, not just potentially, a work of art only when it lives in some individualized experience.  This chapter goes on to say, “In other words, an expressive object, regardless of the meaning of the production for the artist, does not have inherent meaning; the experience of an audience with visual culture makes it meaningful.”

              Within the education system, “Interpretation must include critical reflection.  The infusion of critical analysis and interpretation when making and viewing visual culture leads to learning conceived as a highly interactive process.  At the same time students develop ideas, attitudes, and beliefs in and through visual culture, they should be reflecting on that development and the way in which it changes them as they learn.”

             As Vygotsky argued, “Learning not only occurs in context, but is driven by context.”  His constructivist teaching philosophy has five general conceptions of learning:

1.     Learning is not the result of development; learning is development

2.     Disequilibrium facilitates learning.

3.     Reflective abstraction is the driving force of learning.

4.     Dialogue within a community engenders further thinking.

5.     Learning proceeds toward the development of structures.

Man of Steel – Richard Serra

Importance of context and the meaning of art changes due to the visual cultural climate.  “The Richard Serra retrospective, opening Sunday, arrives at the Museum of Modern Art virtually a foregone matter, in the way that Picasso and Matisse shows arrived in the old days.”

“The public’s perception of Mr. Serra’s work has also obviously changed from the bad days of ‘Tilted Arc,’ a quarter-century or so ago. That same vocabulary of curved, giant metal walls, once vilified as art-world arrogance, is now better understood and broadly admired. This is how radical art operates.”

Transmediation as a Metaphor for New Literacies in Multimedia Classrooms

Favorite Quotes from the article:

“This article explores how transmediation extends the new literacies found in multimedia classrooms. For our purposes here, “transmediation” means responding to cultural texts in a range of sign systems -- art, movement, sculpture, dance, music, and so on -- as well as in words. “New literacies” means the ability to read, analyze, interpret, evaluate, and produce communication in a variety of textual environments and multiple sign systems.”

Taking the Critical Turn

“Semiotic representation can become a way of talking, thinking, and interpreting the sign systems that stand for or represent meaning embedded in texts about race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and other identities. Students and teachers who undertake such a semiotics-based critical approach examine sign systems as vehicles of meaning in a culture.

Here, our central concerns are two:

• What is the relationship between what students know and the signs they encounter in their classrooms (about race, class, gender, disability, and sexual orientation)?
• What meaning do they make of these semiotic systems in their literacy practices?

In this context, semiotic representation is a reflection of the new literacies.”

“Transmediation has the potential to capture the postmodern reality of multiple texts, multiple meanings, and multiple interpretations. Multiple forms of representation provide us with a critical framework for unpacking assumptions that underlie cultural practices. When the school’s curricular agenda is diverse, diverse aptitudes and experience can come into play…We believe that the habits of mind embedded in the pedagogy of new literacies provide students with the space and ability to imagine and value points of view different from their own. These new ways of seeing and knowing can strengthen, refine, enlarge, and reshape students’ and our own ideas. In this respect, we teachers must strive to encourage students and ourselves to feel comfortable -- and uncomfortable -- with transmedial representations.”

Day 2 - Curriculum in Art Ed

Teaching Visual Culture – Chapter 2

Here were my thoughts while reading this chapter: “Wow. This book is so rich,  it’s so knowledgeable, every line deserves a pause for a reflection on what that indicates or how that effects my thinking up to this point.”  I enjoyed reading about the evolution of the philosophy of aesthetics’ role in education, as well.

Here are some quotes from the chapter that I found too important not to write down somewhere:

“Education can provide a way of enriching students’ lives by helping them to critique and advance the ideas connected to visual culture and its meanings.” 

“New forms of visual culture have been created, embodying a sophisticated aesthetic previously only imagined that make apparent levels of experience not previously considered.  These changes force us to reconceptualize aesthetics as well as other philosophical concepts, such as knowledge, value, and identity.”

“The range of aesthetic influences suggests that several aesthetic theories should be considered when teaching visual culture and that a contemporary education in aesthetics must respond to experiences inside and outside of school.”

“Aesthetic judgments were made outside of cognition.” – Kant’s division of reason into different spheres

“Contemporary experience with the sophisticated visual culture we see every day, and the knowledge we construct through our many overlapping and associative visual experiences, tells us that the aesthetic exists in many forms and is as interested as it is sublime.”

“Of course, form is critical to visual culture, it is the immediacy and seductiveness of form that makes visual culture so powerful.  The problem of curriculum is not form, it is an overreliance on formalism in education.  To conceptualize aesthetics in curriculum as only formalist or expressionist does not do justice to the complexity of visual culture.”

Crossing Cultural Borders:

“It is no longer easy to view cultures or subcultures as totally separate because they interact on many levels through many media.”

“Some forms suggest a range of common meanings, but the emphasis of those meanings may be different to different groups of people.”

“Because people with different backgrounds and interests do not have the same foundations for interpretation and will experience the same visual culture in different ways, the value of visual culture changes from one cultural context to another.”

Dewey viewed art as “Fundamentally providing an integrative experience connecting body and mind... For Dewey, art was part of the natural state of the world and the union of fine art and life was vital.”

“Meaning is inherent to aesthetic experience.”

Postmodern conceptions of aesthetics “involve a social relationship between people mediated by visual culture.”

TERRY BARRET

Principles for Interpreting Art/About Art Interpretation for Art Education

“Artworks have ‘aboutness’ and demand interpretation.” – I love the word aboutness used here.  There will always be something about a piece of artwork.  Regardless of whether the artist had an intention with the interpretation of the piece, the viewer will automatically connect the piece to their experiences, memories, exposures, etc., therefore consciously, or subconsciously, interpreting the piece to connect it into their world.

I think an important point Barrett makes is “No single interpretation is exhaustive of the meaning of an artwork and there can be different, competing, and contradictory interpretations of the same work.”  Viewers will have a different way of interpreting the artwork based on what they’re bringing with them as an individual viewing a work. 

“Interpretations imply a worldview.”

We interpret everything, including art, through the lens of the way in which we view existence.

“Interpreting art is an endeavor that is both individual and personal, and communal and shared – Seeking balance between the personal and communal: An interpretation that is wholly individual and personal runs the risk of being overly idiosyncratic or too personal.  An interpretation that is too personal is one that does not shed any light on the object that is being interpreted.” 

Day 1 - Curriculum in Art Ed

A big idea that seemed to run through a few of tonight’s readings was the notion of “conterfactuals.”  This idea is defined as a “what if” question, according to Imagination First, by Eric Liu and Scott Noppe-Brandon in Practice 21 – Rewrite History.  For example, as children grow up they learn to ask themselves questions like, “What if I push this ball over the edge of the table?”  In the formal operational stage of cognitive development a child is able to think hypothetically.  As adults, we should push ourselves to think hypothetically, or counterfactually, by asking “What would have been the case if some antecedent had been true.  What would be the ‘then’ if you had another ‘if?’ ”  These types of “fictional questions” can actually serve as powerful tools.  This way of thinking can help us discover unrealized possibilities and potential.  To build the muscle of thinking in counterfactuals one must simply play more.  We must learn to think of “counterfactuals apart from goals.”  In the introduction of the book the authors state, “Until and unless we have the emotional and intellectual capacity to conceive of what does not yet exist, there is nothing toward which we are to direct our will and our resources.”  It is imperative as individuals to develop and foster a sense of imagination in order for our society to progress into the unknown, the future.  For “Any conceptual break through requires imagination first.” 

            In the article Learning in the Visual Age this idea and importance of using the imagination to think hypothetically is discussed, specifically the ways in which art education can facilitate this development.  It states, “The arts stimulate or release imagination by bringing into existence an alternative ‘reality,’ notes Maxine Greene.  In that way, young people can envision a world that is different from the world they know, and thus art education opens the possibility for creating new worlds, rather than simply accepting the world as it is. ‘We know that imagination reaches toward a future, towards what might be, what should be, what is not yet.’ ”  In order to contribute to the progression of the world (today and in the future) our students need to gain skills which allow them to adapt to the unknown.  Thinking creatively and imaginatively is an invaluable skill in the 21^st century.  As Eisner said, “We want our children to have basic skills. But they also will need sophisticated cognition, and they can learn that through the visual arts… With the arts, children learn to see.”

            Incorporating this idea of counterfactuals into the art classroom could affect the amount of imaginative thinking that goes into creative production, responding or presenting artwork.  Some ways to integrate counterfactual thinking into artmaking, and of course meaning-making, could be:

•  Have students reflect back on a time where they were faced with an important decision.  They will answer the question, “What if I had chosen the other option?”  Students will create an artwork representing the reality that might have taken place based on the answer to the question. 
• Students will choose an influential event that took place throughout the history of the United States and think about how our nation, even our world, would be different if the events had been acted out differently.  For example (as described in Imagine First), “What if Lee had lost the Battle at Gettysburg?” Churchill described in his essay published in 1930.  He predicted that the Civil War would have ended sooner, “America would not have split into two weakened nations; the ensuing three-nation alliance with England would not have emerged; England, isolated, would not have been able to thwart the ambitions of the continental powers like Germany in 1914; and the result would have been a world war."  Based on their event, students will then create a piece of artwork responding to the possible outcome of the alternate reality.
• All students will be assigned to research and study the same historical event.  They will then hypothesize how the world could be different had that event had a different outcome.  Students will create artwork representing their hypothesis.  Students will have a gallery show, exhibiting their work all together as a body of possible outcomes of this one historical event.

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The Scribbling Stage - Age 2

Beginning of Self-Expression

-disordered scribbling

-grasps tool with whole hand

-Ignores previous marks on page

-no attempts at human figure representation

Random Scribbling Stage - Child makes meaningless marks with any available instrument on the surface - little muscular control over scribbles

Give the child time to continue experimentation.  Do not distract child with discussion

The Scribbling Stage 

Beginning of Self-Expression

Named Scribbling

-scribbles places purposefully

-previous marks on page utilized

-relates marks to thinks known

-variety of line

-scribble pointed out by hold as being a person

Conscious Outline of Shapes - After much repetition of shapes the child can draw crude shapes at will - evidence of greater muscular control

Provide repetitious activities that encourage the development of motor skills.  Point out the kinds of shapes found in the scribbling and have the child try to relate them to objects in their environment.

The Preschematic Stage

First Representational Attempts

-geometric shapes

-object floats on page

-looking at viewer

-smiling

-omission of parts

-hair/bow added

Pattern Stage - Lines and shapes are combined to form mandalas, suns, and radial objects - beginning of developing personal symbols.

Do not attempt to force the child into the symbol stage by questioning the meaning of the work - encourage spontaneous, free expression.

The Schematic Stage

Achievement of the Form Concept

-flat representation

-drawing reflects child's active knowledge of environment

-X-ray drawings

-Body made up of geometric shapes

-proportions depend on emotional values 

-exaggerated change of schema

Using Space Round Objects - When child achieves satisfaction with symbols, he attempts to create a more finished product by the addition of items such as borders and backgrounds to surround symbols.

Have the child experience simple printmaking activities involving repeat patterns and borders.  Explore surroundings to suggest backgrounds.  

Facilitating Critical and Aesthetic Inquiry

Aesthetics and the Middle School Learner

            I found this article last summer while researching Middle School Identity.  It is one that I think of often, as I feel it applies to my goal as an art educator.  The article starts with two simple questions: “What is beautiful to a Middle Schooler? How often are middle schoolers asked to think about what they find beautiful and why?”  Aesthetics is defined as “The study and appreciation of beauty.”  The article argues, “Recognizing and creating beauty are critical to achieving the full potential of an adult mind and spirit.”  The art educator’s responsibility is to “make obvious the underlying elements of what is beautiful” and “help students explore their ability to create beauty themselves.  This is especially important for those students who come to school with little exposure to beauty.”  This makes me think of my Intro to Art for non-majors course, as most of the students haven’t been in an art class since elementary school.  They haven’t been asked to think about aesthetics or what they find beautiful in years (if ever). 

            The article references John Dewey and his progressive education philosophy, in which an art educator is an artist who facilitates the development of the child as artist.  “Dewey defined the eternal quality of great art as its capacity for further defining experiences… Dewey believed that no intellectual activity is complete without aesthetic quality.”

            Read, one of Dewey’s followers in the field of humanist education, “argues that the general purpose of education is to foster the growth of the individual while harmonizing the individual with his or her social group.”  Furthermore, “Educators such as Broudy assert that the use of the arts to teach other disciplines results in lessons that are more concrete, motivating, and engaging.  Thus, Broudy argues, aesthetic lessons foster higher academic achievement.  It is this integrative approach to aesthetics that has the most potential for reaching all students.”

            Seeing as aesthetic education today often takes the form of “encore” or “elective,” it is entirely possible for students to leave elementary school and never be exposed to any study of the visual arts again.  “Even in today’s art and music curriculum there appears to be less emphasis on aesthetic study and more on technical skills.”  I have found this to be true in regards to the syllabus I am to outline in my Intro Class for the University.  It is divided into units based on the elements of art and principles of organization, without any discussion of content or concept.  It has been a challenge to transform each unit into something more in depth and investigative for each student, while having to teach one individual technique at a time. 

            The study of beauty should be an integrated across subjects.  “Rarely do history, mathematics, and science become vehicles for the study of beauty.  Yet science and aesthetics are not divorced.”  As an educator, tt is important to ask: “How can knowledge of content enrich and complement the beauty inherent in each subject?”  Furthermore, How can middle school learners, or any learner, “Be surrounded by beauty so that it becomes part of the schema of a rich adult life?”

Topic Proposal:

            I would like to investigate an approach to designing curriculum for an intro to art class for non-majors at a university.  I hope to propose a syllabus with creative and dynamic investigations, leading to visually literate and culturally aware graduates exposed to creative productivity. 

The result and culmination of my investigation will be in the form of a zine.  I am choosing to create a zine because it is important that the form follow the function, in a way. It makes sense that my presentation of teaching art is in itself an artwork.  

Facilitating Engagement with the Art-Making Process

Investigating Materials and Ideas

“Teachers who orchestrate thoughtful investigations of materials help students develop a repertoire of ideas about materials and expertise in using artistic media and processes.”  Giving students the opportunity to explore, develop, and personalize both 2D and 3D materials and processes is a vital part of meeting the needs of students with different modes of thought and expression.  By supplying students with encounters that challenge students’ use of materials develop creative thinking, problem solving, and more in-depth explorations.  “Greater investment arises out of work that is guided by internal motivations to express personally significant ideas.” 

Structuring for Creative Thinking

“Teachers who structure conditions for creative thinking help students discover and understand more about the nature of creativity in the visual arts and its rewards.”  Several strategies can be implemented in the classroom to create structure for creative thinking such as: introducing “closed” problems to beginning students, adding constraints and limitations, tasks that match the students’ ability, asking essential questions, considering open-ended problems for more advanced students, encouraging brainstorming and play, synthetic thinking, material investigations, guiding intuition, and metaphorical and conceptual thinking, process portfolios, reflections, and assessment. 

Forming Elegant Problems 

“Teachers who structure units around an elegant problem make it possible for learners at different levels of ability to engage with the problem while promoting choice making, originality, elaboration, and the creation of work that has personal meaning and value.”  By incorporating investigation into units, students can learn from big ideas, themes, and metaphors.  Big ideas, or themes, are “broad constructs that accommodate a wide range of ideas’ they are also engaging and interesting for considering similarities and contrasts.”  Metaphors are used to make meaning and sense of an experience through the creation of a coherent structure.  Metaphors allow us to understand “experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.”

Designing Problems Based on the Real World of Work

“Teachers who draw problems from the real world of work in the visual arts develop a wired range of valuable kills in their students while exposing their students to future career options.”  In other words, this idea of authentic, problem-based learning is helpful in integrating creative thinking into real world problem solving.  Authentic problems result in real products.  Here, “Visual thinking strategies can be employed in gathering ideas and planning, observing and recording information and making connections, displaying information and reflecting and assessing.”

Facilitation Dialogue and Discourse About Student Work

“Teachers who focus dialogue and discourse on student work and the meanings that can be found in it can make such dialogues constructive and productive.”  Forms of dialogue within the art classroom might include peer sharing, small group discussions, large group conversations, and critiques of artwork.  In class critiques can provide feedback and suggestions and give students opportunities to “read” works back to their peers. 

Article: Understanding the Artmaking Process: Reflective Practice

By Sydney Walker in Art Education 

The problem Walker raises is “Teachers frequently lack sufficient and tangible understandings of the processes that distinguish artmaking activity.”  Having knowledge on the process of artmaking is required in order to plan and give effective artmaking instruction in a classroom. 

Walker gives two essential questions for discussion: What is it that artists do when they create artworks?  How do artists pursue meaning?

Walker was a part of research in which the goal was to “understand conceptual approaches to artmaking and comprehend how specific artistic practices enabled conceptualization.” 

One effective strategy Walker discusses is the importance of exposing students to professional artistic practice in order to develop student understandings about the artmaking process.  He says, “Professional artistic practice can serve as a productive model to instruct students about the artmaking process and its conceptualization.”  Walker references political activist artist, Edgar-Heap-of-Birds Hachivi, “The first step in teaching is one of informing and inspiring the student with various methods of artistic practice concentrating particularly upon the conceptual themes of artists… This examination of artists’ notions is best done through video-taped artist interview.”  Of course, this automatically makes me think of the importance and value of Art 21, giving free access to contemporary artists and their work. 

Walker introduces the use of big ideas within artists’ work and in classroom curriculum.  He characterizes the big idea as “themes, issues, or perhaps questions that captivate the artist for extended time periods, often years.”

Walker found that artmaking is most successful with the artists is conscious of his or her artmaking process.  He references Schön on the idea of the reflective practitioner, “Sometimes we think about what we are doing in the midst of performing an act.  When performance leads to surprise—pleasant or unpleasant—the designer may respond by reflection in action: by thinking about what she is doing while doing it, in such a way as to influence further doing.”

If in artist is conscious of their artmaking process it might also lead to increased confidence as an artist and a new understanding of meaning making within artmaking.  Walker discusses a study in which “students who were judged to be more creative tended not to utilize pre-conceived ideas or principles, but rather let the artmaking solution gradually emerge during the process.”  Many well known practicing artists consistently delay closure in the production of their artworks and some even begin their work without clear end-goals and “engage cycles of problem reformulation throughout the process.”

Walker concludes by saying, “artmaking can be about meaning making that has both personal and larger social consequences.  Additionally, the use of big ideas, personal connections, knowledge, artmaking problems, and boundaries nourishes and enables the employment of meaning in artmaking.”