Can you learn to appreciate Art?

Our discussion about art appreciation was fascinating. (I loved Lana's story about hanging her husbands Horizon painting verticle and upside down!)

What really peaked my interest was Lana's explanation of her Art class activity. She questioned whether she should have told her students what the paintings were about? I fully agree with the importance of letting children think, critique, and evaluate art work on their own. Teaching kids that their opinion matters is a valuable lesson in and of itself. However, I also believe that it is possible teach someone to appreciate something even if they don't necessarily like it. Often what starts as only an initial appreciation may later turn into a greater appreciation, like, or even a passion.

For example, my appreciation (and later love) of art was taught to me by my father. When i was 10 years old my family took the entire year of 1990 and travelled around the world. My parents applied for permission to home school my brother and I and the four of us spend 6 months in Europe, 1 week in Sinapore, 2 months in Australia, 1 month in New Zealand, and 2 weeks in Fiji. As a 10 year old I had the opportunity to wander the halls of the Louvre, Vatican Galleries, and stare at the Sistine Chapel. Pretty cool experience and i have some great memories....but in retrospect, i don't think i would have enjoyed those experiences at all unless my father (who was an art teacher) was there to explain WHY certain paintings were famous or regarding as genius.
He would point out that Da Vinci is know for aerial perspective and his ability to use color and fading to give the impression of depth, or how Rembrant was the master of light and got us to compare several different portraits to notice how well he used shading to create a life-like face, and explained the development of impressionism in the words of Monet.

I found it all extremely interesting. There were plenty of parents running all over the Louvre begging their kids to stop fighting, making noise, or whining....they always asked "how come your kids seem interested?" Initially i didn't find the paintings interesting....it was the stories behind all the paintings....who painted it? why? who commissioned it? how long did it take? what controversy took place surrounding the project? These are the stories are that make any content interesting. Is this is what teachers are supposed to do for all content....math, science, Shakespear, poetry, history.....

Nine years later when i spent 10 weeks in Europe backpacking with friends found myself planning my itinerary around which museums i wanted to see. I knew that i could see some El Greco's, Dahli's, and Picasso's if i made a stop in Museo del Prado in Madrid....i knew that Da Vinci's Last Supper has just finished being restored so i needed to make it to in Milan. I sure that i would not have done this, or enjoyed it as much as i did, if my parents had just let me wander the halls of the Louvre and make up my own mind about each paiting. It was because my father had taught me how to appreciate art at a young age....i'm sure of it!

Google at your fingertips.....brutal!

Several times during the course Graham has referred to the sad situation of the girls who drowned in the car while trying to call for help on their cell phone.

This begs the question....are our students missing out on other more valuable lessons because of our over reliance on technology? The following story (although it starts off topic) illustrates one important lesson i think they are missing out on....

I must admit that I inherited the gift of bullsh*ting from my father who had a long winded explanation for every question I ever asked...even if he hadn't the slightest clue about the formal answer. My Mother would always say..."Peter you are so full of &*%$ ...you have no idea what the answer is!" This would send him off in a scurry off to find an encyclopedia and look up the information. The thing is, more often than not he was pretty close. I was lucky that he usually took the time to explain how he reasoned out a probably answer by combining previously learned knowledge, making reasonable predictions, and deducing the most likely answer.
The odd times that he was wrong (and there were plenty) I realized the power of well crafted argument. The thing was, i believe him everytime because he answers seemed so ....well....believable. At a young age i realized (or was taught) that a carefully articulated arugument, even in incorrect, was usually enough to win over someone who wasn't as confident.

One of my favorite pastimes in school was arguing and debating. I never joined a debate team but loved stirring the pot in the hallways, cafeteria, or on the school bus. It used to drive my friends (one in particular) bonkers as they would often know that I didn't know the answer but couldn't find a weakness in my stance. In most cases, no one would ever go out of our way to actually find out the right answer. In this case, i would argue, that the process of formulating an educated guess or stance for the simple sake of arguing was more important than knowing the right answer. I think that google at our fingertips is robbing our students of those opportunites.

There is nothing i hate more than when i am a party arguing with someone about something and then a random bystander, who is uninvolved in the conversation, chimes in "actually... i just looked it up on my Iphone...and you are wrong."

My response is usually as follows "Damn it...i knew i was probably wrong (or at least incomplete) but i had this guy almost convinced!"

Curriculum Theory vs. Instructional Theory (+ Assessment Theory)

Beauchamp vs Posner - who would i side with?

I must admit, I found the presentation of Beauchamp fairly dry (the material...not you Graham!). I understand the value of the statement "We must know what curriculum is before we discuss curriculum theory." However, as Graham alluded to, theorists can at times use arguing semantics as an easy way to get published and i think the debate between Posner and Beauchamp teeters along that line.

It seems that what Posner argues as Curriculum Theory Beauchamp would argue are two separate fields....curriculum theory and instructional theory. I think Beauchamp, if asked to elaborate, would certainly argue the importance of instructional theory as well as perhaps another specialized field of Assessment theory.

A couple questions i would have for Beauchamp would be...

1) Does he feel curriculum theorists can perform double duty as instructional theorists?
To clarify...does he think that a person should sit down first (put on a hat saying curriculum theorist) and decide "What is to be taught?" after which the same person should (after changing their hat to say instructional theorist) think of "how might this taught?" Furthermore, should the same person (after changing their hat a third time to say assessment theorist) investigate how the instruction could be assessed?

OR

Would Beauchamp feel that the jobs of curriculum, instruction, and assessment development /theory be done by three separate specialists?

If he does, i would beg the question....does it not seem impossible to be a specialist in one without intense knowledge of the other two components?

This line of twisted logic leads me to side with Posner and perhaps begins to point to where on the spectrum i sit in the futile attempt to define curriculum.

The field of curriculum includes the need to consider how it will be instructed and assessed.....so says Mr. Wiebe.

Shackles of Language

Two thoughts from latest discussion on language.

Metaphors, Myths, Legends and the Truth?

Seems like so many of our discussions have winded their way back to a discussion as Curriculum as metaphor. Graham’s point, that for some concepts, curriculum being one of them, we are limited by the language which we are using to describe them.

I have plenty of experience discussing this concept in a variety of different contexts. I spent a few years studying Theology at Province College and Theological Seminary. Along with classes aimed to foster personal growth and development many of the courses offered focused on historical analysis of Biblical texts. The most interesting (and controversial for some) class was on Biblical stories as myth and metaphor which dealt with the stories, parables, and other books of the Bible in a non-literal fashion. For some, myself not included, this was a controversial if not blasphemous statement. For the rest of us this was a reaffirmation that true truth can, at times, be impossible to capture in language. There was a reason why parables were used to capture and discuss issues of the supernatural….the reason being because simple language is incapable of doing so.

My discussion here was not intended to stimulate a theological debate as to the literal or non literal interpretation of religious text. However, I did feel that this topic provides a great example of how metaphor and myth have been used for 1000’s of years to capture and describe concepts that push the limits of our language.

Different languages – can curriculum be found in translation?

My 4 years in Thailand provided plenty of opportunities to experiment and analyse the differences between the Thai and English languages. It didn’t take me long to notice that it took a Thai person twice as long to give directions in Thai as it would have in English. When I first moved there and needed directions in a taxi cab I would call a friend and have them talk to the taxi driver…it often took several minutes to give simple directions. As I learned more and more Thai I began to listen in when directions were being given and I realized that Thai is a very non-descript language. There are no tenses and none of the verbs are conjugated….instead they add markers or combine several different words to create the intended meaning. At times, they need to rephrase a concept several times to convey their intended meaning.

This got me thinking…..how does English measure on the power of description scale? I’ve heard that English is regarded as a very descriptive language but are we missing some words/concepts that other language have that might make it easier to define or describe curriculum? Just a thought?
Do any of you speak another language fluently enough to try to define curriculum using that language?
What would the results be?

I’d be interested to hear your take.