WEEK TWO READING RESPONSE

Summary:
This chapter was a deep dive into art education as a whole, and offered in depth explanations for a
variety of the practices we see in the current day art classroom. It began by discussing the idea of ‘the
problem of the artist’ and offered an investigation into why it is so necessary for teachers to explain this to
students. Often, this is overlooked in Art Education, and studio practices are emphasized. The chapter
determines that whether or not the problem of the artist is discussed has a huge impact on the value of
the art that is created and the students' understanding/appreciation for art as a whole. Strategies are
offered for introducing this problem and discussing it with students, such as placing importance on
individuality/self-expression, and sharing our own artistic processes/investigations with our students.
Motivation and procedures are discussed as relevant and necessary occurrences to facilitate in solving
the problem.

The concentration then begins to shift to the evaluation of art, and shares various viewpoints on how this
can be done. The need for concrete and measurable objectives is discussed, and examples such as
expression, organization, Aesthetic consistency, craftsmanship, etc. are given. Processes of viewing art,
and the different lenses in which we may approach art appreciation are detailed, with examples offered
for Hedonism, Contextualism, and the Organistic and Normistic approach. The chapter wraps up by
discussing how the presented objectives and relevant knowledge can be used to evaluate students'
learning. 

Personal Response:
One thing that I appreciated throughout this chapter was that concrete examples and thorough definitions
were offered for many things that I had heard of in the art education field, but never had explained in
depth. For example, I am acutely aware of ‘the problem of the artist’ but this book framed it in such an
approachable manner that I feel I know have the proper words to be able to break down and express the
importance of this ever present question to my students. Additionally, I had never heard the origin of
Bloom’s taxonomy, and although I am familiar with all the levels etc., it was helpful to have the reasoning
behind it’s creation explained, and I now feel more capable of deciding which level of achievement I
should be measuring my students on.

Another thing that stood out to me in this chapter was the relationship between the artists' determinations
for when their pieces were complete and the different lenses of artistic appreciation/evaluation. After
having read through the artist's statements about when they knew their work was complete, the specific
viewpoints of art seemed to point to different artists' statements. For example, the artist who said they felt
their work was complete when “no one change is possible without altering the whole; anything added
would detract” clearly related to the viewpoint of the Organistic Approach. 

Overall, I felt like this chapter deepened my understanding of many relevant content areas in the field of
art education, and I appreciated the manner in which the information was laid out - approachable, but still
in depth.