Robert Puschautz

ARTE 302
Response 3
1-28-2010

The first text that I read was the Praiser/Zimmerman article. This article discussed the
various aspects of so-called gifted students in the visual arts and focussed primarily on high
school students. This article was incredibly broad giving short summaries of various research
done in the field of gifted students ranging from cultural background, exposure to the Arts,
standardized testing of the visual arts, multiple intelligences, criteria for judging gifted students,
and applicable teaching methods for talented individuals. This article seemed to be a
compilation of the research done on these subjects for artistically talented students, but pointed
to the inadequacy of solid data on how to accurately label what talented means.
I did like how this article brought together the research done in this field so that I didn't
have to read all these separate studies myself. One of the difficulties I had though, which is not
to the fault of the authors, was that I didn't find the finding very stable. In the first couple pages,
for instance, the authors present that there is no consensus on what it means to be artistically
talented. It is kind of strange that educators and artists seem to know when a student is
artistically gifted, yet they just can't pin it down. Some relate giftedness to creativity, rendering,
and ability of expression, yet there is still no agreement. I have a hunch on why this might be.
How do you measure creativity? How can you tell artistic creativity when the difference
between a student is stepping outside of the box or just following the assignment is the students'
fear of not doing what the teacher tells them?
I liked that this article focused on multiple intelligences. It seems that the varieties in
which you can be artistically gifted is very broad. Some that exhibit spacial capability may not
be good with colors. There are multiple ways of making art and I would think that artistically
gifted students have to be measured on all those various means of art making. This makes seeing
the gifted students much harder. I would think that rendering at a level beyond peers would be
one of the only agreed upon indication of artistically gifted students that is not very much
subjective. I would think that what the authors said about finding artistically gifted students was
quite wise. You have look for teacher, parent, student, and peer recommendations to find out.
After that you have to foster those gifts through education.
The other article that I read was the Smith-Shank D. article. I had a hard time finding out
the point of this article other than this mother was proud that her son or daughter was interested
in art. I did pick up, however, little bits of references that the author was emphasizing at certain
points. For example, she emphasized when one of the students made a reference to a female
artist. She also seemed to have a slightly biased view against the art being privileged to high
society. I found these elements slightly interesting, but did not see where everything tied
together.
There was one thread that I noticed that seemed to me to be the most consistent point.
That was that students that are exposed to art throughout there life are more prone to engaging in
the importance of art in the world and in their own lives. This should be quite obvious though.
Other educators that emphasize art as utilizing several intelligences that may be neglected in
other subjects defend how important it is to teach art education throughout a person's life. Those
that have been exposed to it longer have an easier time discoursing in the language of visual art.