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Education

Authentic Secondary Art Assessment

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Richard Siegesmund provides an outline of the role of assessment in reporting not only student achievement but also how student assessment ties to the intrinsic and external assessments of teacher performance.

Image courtesy of interviewee. April 25, 2024

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The speaker discusses the assessment of visual art in educational contexts, particularly noting the shift from traditional evaluation methods that emphasize standardized outputs to more holistic approaches that focus on student thinking and expression. They introduce their book, co-edited with Kathy Smile, which examines methods of visual art assessment at the secondary school level, highlighting the thinking processes of students and the teaching methods of 17 exemplary educators.

Historically, the speaker critiques the assembly line metaphor in education, where standardization dictates uniform outputs, citing that while some disciplines are constrained by this system, the visual arts in the U.S. enjoy more flexibility, allowing teachers to create individualized curricula. However, this also leads to a lack of consistent expectations for students.

The discourse highlights the importance of balancing instructional objectives—which guide what students should learn—and expressive outcomes that acknowledge authentic, spontaneous moments of learning in art-making. The speaker argues for the significance of incorporating expressive outcomes for true art education, as opposed to mere skill training.

Inspired by the work of distinct educational models like Studio Thinking from Harvard's Project Zero and the teaching for Artistic Behaviors, the speaker advocates for appreciation of the underlying thought processes in student artworks, which encourages the development of visual literacy and judgment.

Furthermore, the speaker emphasizes the necessity of empathetic understanding in the classroom, relating this to student engagement and the importance of context in learning. Finally, they propose that research should focus on small case studies that capture excellence in teaching rather than large-scale statistical studies, underscoring the significance of context in educational research.

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When you assess visual art, the obvious answer is

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that you're looking at visual art objects.

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Um, you're looking at the objects quality,

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you are making an aesthetic assessment.

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But another approach is to characterize the thinking

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that the student has engaged in while

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making this work of art.

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And you're looking for evidence of those forms of thinking.

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And in our book, that I co-edited

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with Kathy Smile from the University of Massachusetts,

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Dartmouth, we're addressing secondary school

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visual art assessment.

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We looked at 17 classroom teachers with reputations

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for being good teachers.

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And they're all focused in different ways on

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how students think.

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And while our book is focused on secondary art assessment,

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the issues that we address certainly pertain

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to elementary art education,

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and they pertain to higher education, art education.

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And I would argue for teachers of other disciplines

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who are looking for other forms

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of assessment than the typical top down models.

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This might be a model you might wanna take a look at

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and think about what art teachers are are

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doing in this regard.

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So, for well over a century,

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and some might say for two centuries,

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some might argue from the beginning of education,

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but particularly in the Western model,

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education's set up on an assembly line industrial metaphor.

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Uh, you're standardizing input

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and you're expecting a uniform output.

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Uh, there are answers that students should know.

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And smart people at the top of this pyramid have

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to find the scope and depth of the do knowledge domains.

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And visual arts can play this game.

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And in some cases, like in Britain where there are,

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national boards that determine what visual art is supposed

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to be, the teachers have to do

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that industrial line, output.

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There are expectations.

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Students will be able to do this, do that.

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When I taught in Ireland,

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there was the invigilated drawing exam at the end

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of the senior year where you had to come in

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and draw like Michelangelo in 30 minutes.

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You know, there was an expectation of what

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that was supposed to be.

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So it's an industry, the delivery of goods

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to a specification at deadlines.

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However, in the United States,

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we have no universal expectation for

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what students should know and do in the visual arts.

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And that that leaves teachers with a tremendous amount

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of freedom to invent their own curriculum.

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And that's what we're looking at in this book of

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17 good teachers who are pushing against that metaphor

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of the industrial complex

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and really trying to get at what is the authentic learning

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that is happening in, in the classroom.

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But, but it certainly,

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some disciplines in the United States

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do have those constraints.

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Math, english, engineering can, can have that.

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Um, but nobody cares about art in, in the United States.

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Um, so, so it just flies under the radar.

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And, and,

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and that creates problems

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when times get tough.

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Nobody cares about art.

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First thing to get tossed out of the budget,

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you know, you get fired.

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Um, on the other hand, you have opportunities to do,

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things that are very special.

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Um, I, I used to joke back,

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when I was at the University of Georgia

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that my neighbor was a principal at the middle school,

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and he would say like, you know, if there's a fire,

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the first teacher I'm pulling out

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of there is my art teacher, because

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I don't know what she does.

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But man, is it that great?

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And I'm going, Ken, you got a PhD in education.

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Don't tell me what she's doing is magic.

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That, that, that, that she is, you know,

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she's doing something.

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You're smart. You can figure it out.

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And, and, and so, I mean,

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the book in some ways is about, you know, this is

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what they're doing and, and we can talk about that.

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And there's ways to describe it.

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And it isn't just like,

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who could imagine they're doing something so different?

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Yeah, yes, it's different, but, but,

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but there's structure to it.

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There's method to the madness.

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And it isn't just, they're all walking around

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with pink brushes and something, you know,

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Harry Potter ish happens.

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'cause you wave a paintbrush.

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And instructional objectives

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and expressive outcomes are two different guiding principles

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of art education that were articulated

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by Elliot Eisner in his book.

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Uh, the Educational Imagination.

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And then instructional objective is, knowing

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where you want to go, what you want your students

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to learn, and you as a professional, designed the best way

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to get maybe everybody to that end

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in the most efficient period of time.

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And you do that, you're a great teacher.

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An expressive outcome happens when in the course

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of a lesson, the teacher

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or the student, has this aha moment

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when there's something more interesting

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that could be done here than where we're headed.

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We, we, we could set a new horizon point

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and we can pivot right now and go in a different direction.

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And, it's that decision

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to sail for a new shore.

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And that in the visual arts, this happens all the time.

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It, it can happen almost from the get go.

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You, you start put the materials down on the paper

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and they all start doing something different.

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But what you anticipated, do you get mad?

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Do you try to corral it?

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Or they're like, man, that's an opportunity that,

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that's something I hadn't even thought.

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Let's go that way. So, so, so you have these,

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this balance of,

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educational instructional objectives

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and the, expressive outcomes.

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And you're constantly in a process

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of making judgements of do we keep the course

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or do we change?

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And I would argue that

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if you haven't incorporated some kinds

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of expressive outcomes in the course of an art lesson,

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it's probably not authentic.

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That, that, that if, if, if it's everything is tied

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to the predetermined outcome, it's probably not art.

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I, it's, it's a skill training,

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but it wouldn't be art education.

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This, this idea that we're going

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to focus on student thinking.

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Um, there, there are models for that.

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And for example, there's studio thinking

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that was developed at the,

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creativity lab at Harvard University Project Zero,

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which was really getting at the psychology of thinking.

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And, that model

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has been developed into elementary education called,

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teaching for Artistic Behaviors.

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Um, international Baccalaureate, another international form

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has long been really honing down looking at

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how students are thinking, not getting,

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because it's international, not getting hung up on

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cultural aesthetic preferences,

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but what's the underlying thinking

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that goes across this art making?

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And in the United States, most recently,

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our advanced placement test has also been revised

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to really move away from just this formal assessment.

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Is that a good looking piece of art?

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To, what's the thinking behind that

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that went into making that work of art?

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The reason that I think it's better is

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because it's about learning to make judgements.

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And that I would argue that the purpose of public education

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as it was conceived back in the early 18th century

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to support this new idea that we were gonna have governments

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of the people by the people, for the people that

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are we gonna get people smart enough that they can do that?

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How are you gonna know what to do if the king doesn't tell

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you what to do in, in the, musical, Hamilton

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King George gets three songs about

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how you are not gonna know what to do

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unless I tell you what to do.

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And this is three songs in Hamilton de devoted to that.

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And, and so this idea, how do you know

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what you're gonna wanna do?

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And going back to the 18th century Frederick Sheer 70 95,

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you're gonna learn by making art you, that's where you know

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what you are doing in that moment

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of expressive objectives.

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This is what I want to do. I see that opportunity.

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I'm gonna do that. That's educating

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for a competent democratic citizenry.

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And I would argue that

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after three generations of standardized tests,

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we've got empirical evidence that we have undermined

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the education of a democratic citizenry.

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And, and, and that the system we have has

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miseducated our populations.

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Because life is not a multiple choice test.

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And that's not how life works.

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And, and, and so something as simple

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as watching watercolor spread out across a paper

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and making a decision, what do you do?

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What do I do now is

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that I've got a choice.

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Teacher's not telling me I've gotta do this.

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So fundamentally, I I, that's where I think it's important.

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It comes down to the essential goals of education and,

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and the idea that public education's primary responsibility

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is to educate a citizenry that is confident

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that it can think for itself and not slip into demagoguery.

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The Gestalt psychologist Michael Palani, famously said,

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we know more than we can tell that there's more

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to our thinking than what we can say in words

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and a visual narrative.

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It's palani that I can, I can show you in images,

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I don't have the words to say it,

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but there it is, there's my thinking

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that is very different from the traditional elementary

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school of write what you did on your summer vacation

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and then draw a picture of it.

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The pictures come before the words come.

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And, and, and,

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and the pictures are a road to language

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for the smart teacher to do.

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Um, visual literacy is the skill

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to take those pictures and interpret them into words.

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So you can have a student who can create a visual narrative

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and still not have the visual literacy

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to bring it into language.

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And that would require a teacher

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who does have visual literacy to see in

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what the student has done that they have been thinking,

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even though they're sitting there and,

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and they don't have language skills.

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And, and, and, and so those things, things play.

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And as I said, the smart teacher doesn't just say,

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darling, you're talented.

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I'm gonna hang this on the wall and you're great.

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The educational intervention is, you've been thinking,

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let's work on trying to get some words

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associated with that thinking.

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And you've gotta, and

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and you've got, a stake in developing that thinking.

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Now, I, I, I think what's, what's important to understand

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I is that to engage students, you have to

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engage them where they are, to see them as competent

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and, and to look at what their life experiences are.

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And we're gonna build on that.

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I'm not just kind of, you're all gonna learn how

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to draw, like Michelangelo, you're all gonna do this.

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There has to be some acknowledgement that

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where those kids are is also worthy, that they have

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assets that they, they bring.

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And I think in the book, we have examples of this, of

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how the students, how the teachers are modifying their

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instruction, not in a deficit model.

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Oh, these poor darlings, they didn't have this opportunity.

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They haven't been to the T

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for goodness sakes, what are they gonna do?

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Um, but they have had other kinds of life skills.

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Where do I build on that? Where do I do that?

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And, and, and, and,

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and we do try to show that one of the things too

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with the book, you wanted the students, the teachers,

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not just to show us their best work.

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Don't show us the very best kid that knocks your socks off

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and brings you to tears.

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Show us a scope of work.

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Who are the kids who are, you know, dodging it, the kids

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who didn't engage the kids?

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What's kind of medium work?

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What, and and show us really try

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to take us into your classroom.

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Who are the kids who are struggling with this assignment?

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Who are the kids who are just doing it?

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And who are the kids who nailed it?

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And, and, and to take a, so we've, we've got that scope

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of the context in terms of how are you doing this?

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E empathy is a word that enters the English language

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in the first decade of the 20th century.

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And we develop it. 'cause we're trying to figure out

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what the Germans are doing

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with this psychology of aesthetics.

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And they're talking about the ein long and, the unha

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and, and we're like, what,

14:31.335 --> 14:33.715
how is the ein long the factor of the unha?

14:33.715 --> 14:35.675
And then we're like, what does that all of that mean?

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So we need a new word. We invent empathy.

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This is what the German, that it's an aesthetic response.

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So, so that I'm, I, I'm I I

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empathetic understanding, social engagement is something

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that is coming outta German philosophy,

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and it's why the word aesthetics

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got invented in the first place.

14:58.765 --> 15:02.415
Um, but in a classroom,

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you can have five accessible dimensions of,

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empathic understanding the care of materials.

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What are you doing with the tools?

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You have the care of self, which is a reflection

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of does this artwork mean anything to you?

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If you take your artwork and throw it in the trash can on

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the way out, it's meaningless.

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Are, are, are you engaged with this care of others?

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Can you say something nice to astute person next to you?

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Or are, are you just gonna be, you know, snotty and, and,

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and, and vicious to, to that person, the care

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of the school that

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what you've done here is make something beautiful?

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Are you gonna share it with the school?

15:42.215 --> 15:43.755
Or are is, is are you gonna make

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this something that can be shared?

15:45.255 --> 15:47.435
And then finally, can you take that out the community,

15:48.565 --> 15:49.945
you know, outside of.

15:50.085 --> 15:54.145
So those are five ways that you could look

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for accessible behavior in terms of what's going on

15:59.325 --> 16:04.145
in this art classroom in terms of the way that that,

16:04.145 --> 16:05.305
that the work is being done.

16:05.885 --> 16:09.565
Um, and you can't mandate that mandate telling the kids,

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you're all gonna make a pot

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and it's gonna be for a fundraiser,

16:12.905 --> 16:14.685
and that's gonna help the food bank.

16:15.025 --> 16:17.405
And you have to make that pot, and we're, and,

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and we're gonna sell it to, you know, at, at, at the raffle.

16:23.565 --> 16:26.455
Kids who do it for that way are just following instructions

16:27.005 --> 16:29.415
that, that, that is not a demonstration

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of the great school empathy.

16:32.525 --> 16:36.055
That because we, we produced all these

16:36.715 --> 16:41.375
coffee cups, tea cups to, to, to sell it for,

16:41.435 --> 16:45.255
for the benefit of the, of the homeless shelter.

16:45.845 --> 16:48.965
That, that, that, that doesn't do it.

16:49.265 --> 16:52.775
In, in science assessment, one of the things

16:54.085 --> 16:57.255
that you, you want students to, how do you pay attention?

16:58.255 --> 16:59.475
How do you notice details?

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How, how do you begin to develop a sense of wonder

17:05.165 --> 17:09.435
about why things work the way they they do?

17:10.495 --> 17:12.515
And in that sense,

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the, the, the attention that is developed in art

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of what is this?

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What is, what can you do with it?

17:25.815 --> 17:27.515
The way that you get materials all the time,

17:27.515 --> 17:29.075
you've got Clay, what can I do with clay?

17:29.095 --> 17:30.595
I'm gonna punch it. I'm going to do this.

17:31.655 --> 17:34.995
Yes, you can, you can do it in a very instructional way.

17:35.755 --> 17:38.295
Here's the clay. Do this first, do this second,

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do this third, do this, fourth done.

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You're outta here. Or you can do that in a way

17:43.655 --> 17:47.095
of let's explore what's possible, what could be invented.

17:48.125 --> 17:53.005
That kind of sense of opening it up to invention is

17:53.005 --> 17:55.885
where you can certainly do that in a science lesson

17:56.065 --> 18:00.035
and in some ways that would be teaching students how

18:00.035 --> 18:02.635
to really be a scientist in terms of

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how do you gather information, see something new,

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ask a question about that, that that, that,

18:13.285 --> 18:14.735
that would be a science test.

18:16.295 --> 18:20.585
Same way with in English, in writing, how do you write,

18:22.025 --> 18:24.565
do do, do you just sit there and do grammar drills

18:24.565 --> 18:28.685
and spelling drills or, or do you encourage creative writing

18:28.785 --> 18:33.405
and poetry and ways of trying to do work more expressively?

18:34.185 --> 18:38.795
So, one

18:38.795 --> 18:40.115
of my advisors,

18:40.415 --> 18:43.355
and when I went to my doctoral, program at Stanford,

18:43.495 --> 18:44.955
no, Noddings was a math teacher,

18:45.575 --> 18:47.875
and she was like, you know, you can do this in math,

18:48.335 --> 18:53.155
you can do this math doesn't have to be this regimented,

18:53.455 --> 18:56.195
all the answers at the end of the book kind of a thing.

18:57.185 --> 19:01.405
So, you know, she, she, she was all over my work in terms

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of, of, and,

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and was one of my great mentors in terms of, of my thinking

19:09.545 --> 19:11.685
as a math teacher, you know, in terms of

19:11.995 --> 19:13.245
what are we doing here and

19:13.305 --> 19:15.525
how could this be done in different kinds of ways.

19:16.465 --> 19:19.925
One of the things I mentioned earlier that the,

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Harvard Project Zero study studio thinking was done

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with a very small study,

19:27.065 --> 19:30.325
and it was, that too was focused on, they went out

19:30.585 --> 19:32.805
and they looked at excellent teachers.

19:33.225 --> 19:36.965
And from that small case study, they built theory.

19:37.665 --> 19:42.405
And we have 19 teachers and, and we're building our theory

19:42.625 --> 19:46.675
and, and we're trying to show how look at

19:46.705 --> 19:49.235
what these 19 teachers are, are doing.

19:49.335 --> 19:50.915
So for the future of research,

19:52.545 --> 19:55.265
I don't think we need a big top down,

19:58.535 --> 20:00.505
statistical study to be done.

20:01.145 --> 20:05.945
I, I think what you need to do is look at

20:06.635 --> 20:10.305
let's find excellence and figure out what excellence is.

20:10.845 --> 20:12.425
And that if we had more of those,

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then maybe somebody can do a meta analysis

20:15.205 --> 20:17.785
and start pulling out some statistics

20:17.805 --> 20:19.465
and doing cross analysis

20:19.465 --> 20:21.305
and try to figure out what's going on here.

20:22.045 --> 20:25.705
But, so for the future, I would say

20:27.945 --> 20:31.325
the small case study is, is really what's going

20:31.325 --> 20:34.885
to be telling and is, is really going to be helpful

20:35.195 --> 20:37.245
because context is so important

20:37.385 --> 20:39.925
and you don't know that when you say, no,

20:40.065 --> 20:41.925
I'm gonna get 3000 teachers

20:42.305 --> 20:44.005
and those are the factors I'm going,

20:45.205 --> 20:46.895
what are those other contextual

20:46.925 --> 20:50.085
Factors that have gotten swept out of that,

20:50.475 --> 20:52.565
that are actually key, that are a

20:53.285 --> 20:54.645
absolutely essential to know?

20:55.185 --> 20:58.685
And, and I'm not sure that we really have all those answers.

20:58.865 --> 21:02.925
So I'm a big believer in staying small, try to

21:03.665 --> 21:07.445
see the world in a grain of sand and a

21:07.625 --> 21:12.555
and if we collectively worked, a body

21:12.555 --> 21:14.595
of knowledge is going to amass.

21:15.215 --> 21:18.475
And I think we're, we're gonna be able

21:18.895 --> 21:23.405
to maybe make some more policy kinds of

21:24.205 --> 21:26.205
decisions from a greater mass.

21:26.425 --> 21:31.035
But so, so that's, that, that's my,

21:31.415 --> 21:36.125
recommendation in terms of someone thinking about, well,

21:36.125 --> 21:38.085
what kind of a research study should I do?

21:38.825 --> 21:42.505
Um, small case studies I think are the way to go.

00:00 - When you assess visual art, the obvious answer is that you're looking at visual art objects. you're looking at the objects quality, you are making an aesthetic assessment. But another approach is to characterize the thinking that the student has engaged in while

00:15 - making this work of art. And you're looking for evidence of those forms of thinking. And in our book, that I co-edited with Kathy Smile from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, we're addressing secondary school visual art assessment. We looked at 17 classroom teachers with reputations for being good teachers. And they're all focused in different ways on how students think.

00:38 - And while our book is focused on secondary art assessment, the issues that we address certainly pertain to elementary art education, and they pertain to higher education, art education. And I would argue for teachers of other disciplines who are looking for other forms of assessment than the typical top down models. This might be a model you might wanna take a look at and think about what art teachers are are doing in this regard.

01:07 - So, for well over a century, and some might say for two centuries, some might argue from the beginning of education, but particularly in the Western model, education's set up on an assembly line industrial metaphor. you're standardizing input and you're expecting a uniform output. there are answers that students should know. And smart people at the top of this pyramid have to find the scope and depth of the do knowledge domains.

01:39 - And visual arts can play this game. And in some cases, like in Britain where there are, national boards that determine what visual art is supposed to be, the teachers have to do that industrial line, output. There are expectations. Students will be able to do this, do that. When I taught in Ireland, there was the invigilated drawing exam at the end of the senior year where you had to come in

02:09 - and draw like Michelangelo in 30 minutes. You know, there was an expectation of what that was supposed to be. So it's an industry, the delivery of goods to a specification at deadlines. However, in the United States, we have no universal expectation for what students should know and do in the visual arts. And that that leaves teachers with a tremendous amount of freedom to invent their own curriculum.

02:36 - And that's what we're looking at in this book of 17 good teachers who are pushing against that metaphor of the industrial complex and really trying to get at what is the authentic learning that is happening in, in the classroom. But, but it certainly, some disciplines in the United States do have those constraints. Math, english, engineering can, can have that. but nobody cares about art in, in the United States.

03:10 - so, so it just flies under the radar. And, and, and that creates problems when times get tough. Nobody cares about art. First thing to get tossed out of the budget, you know, you get fired. on the other hand, you have opportunities to do, things that are very special. I, I used to joke back,

03:41 - when I was at the University of Georgia that my neighbor was a principal at the middle school, and he would say like, you know, if there's a fire, the first teacher I'm pulling out of there is my art teacher, because I don't know what she does. But man, is it that great? And I'm going, Ken, you got a PhD in education. Don't tell me what she's doing is magic. That, that, that, that she is, you know,

04:05 - she's doing something. You're smart. You can figure it out. And, and, and so, I mean, the book in some ways is about, you know, this is what they're doing and, and we can talk about that. And there's ways to describe it. And it isn't just like, who could imagine they're doing something so different? Yeah, yes, it's different, but, but, but there's structure to it.

04:29 - There's method to the madness. And it isn't just, they're all walking around with pink brushes and something, you know, Harry Potter ish happens. 'cause you wave a paintbrush. And instructional objectives and expressive outcomes are two different guiding principles of art education that were articulated by Elliot Eisner in his book. the Educational Imagination.

04:52 - And then instructional objective is, knowing where you want to go, what you want your students to learn, and you as a professional, designed the best way to get maybe everybody to that end in the most efficient period of time. And you do that, you're a great teacher. An expressive outcome happens when in the course of a lesson, the teacher or the student, has this aha moment when there's something more interesting

05:27 - that could be done here than where we're headed. We, we, we could set a new horizon point and we can pivot right now and go in a different direction. And, it's that decision to sail for a new shore. And that in the visual arts, this happens all the time. It, it can happen almost from the get go. You, you start put the materials down on the paper and they all start doing something different. But what you anticipated, do you get mad?

06:02 - Do you try to corral it? Or they're like, man, that's an opportunity that, that's something I hadn't even thought. Let's go that way. So, so, so you have these, this balance of, educational instructional objectives and the, expressive outcomes. And you're constantly in a process of making judgements of do we keep the course or do we change?

06:31 - And I would argue that if you haven't incorporated some kinds of expressive outcomes in the course of an art lesson, it's probably not authentic. That, that, that if, if, if it's everything is tied to the predetermined outcome, it's probably not art. I, it's, it's a skill training, but it wouldn't be art education. This, this idea that we're going to focus on student thinking.

07:03 - there, there are models for that. And for example, there's studio thinking that was developed at the, creativity lab at Harvard University Project Zero, which was really getting at the psychology of thinking. And, that model has been developed into elementary education called, teaching for Artistic Behaviors. international Baccalaureate, another international form has long been really honing down looking at

07:37 - how students are thinking, not getting, because it's international, not getting hung up on cultural aesthetic preferences, but what's the underlying thinking that goes across this art making? And in the United States, most recently, our advanced placement test has also been revised to really move away from just this formal assessment. Is that a good looking piece of art? To, what's the thinking behind that

08:09 - that went into making that work of art? The reason that I think it's better is because it's about learning to make judgements. And that I would argue that the purpose of public education as it was conceived back in the early 18th century to support this new idea that we were gonna have governments of the people by the people, for the people that are we gonna get people smart enough that they can do that? How are you gonna know what to do if the king doesn't tell you what to do in, in the, musical, Hamilton

08:46 - King George gets three songs about how you are not gonna know what to do unless I tell you what to do. And this is three songs in Hamilton de devoted to that. And, and so this idea, how do you know what you're gonna wanna do? And going back to the 18th century Frederick Sheer 70 95, you're gonna learn by making art you, that's where you know what you are doing in that moment of expressive objectives.

09:19 - This is what I want to do. I see that opportunity. I'm gonna do that. That's educating for a competent democratic citizenry. And I would argue that after three generations of standardized tests, we've got empirical evidence that we have undermined the education of a democratic citizenry. And, and, and that the system we have has miseducated our populations. Because life is not a multiple choice test.

09:52 - And that's not how life works. And, and, and so something as simple as watching watercolor spread out across a paper and making a decision, what do you do? What do I do now is that I've got a choice. Teacher's not telling me I've gotta do this. So fundamentally, I I, that's where I think it's important. It comes down to the essential goals of education and, and the idea that public education's primary responsibility

10:29 - is to educate a citizenry that is confident that it can think for itself and not slip into demagoguery. The Gestalt psychologist Michael Palani, famously said, we know more than we can tell that there's more to our thinking than what we can say in words and a visual narrative. It's palani that I can, I can show you in images, I don't have the words to say it, but there it is, there's my thinking that is very different from the traditional elementary

11:02 - school of write what you did on your summer vacation and then draw a picture of it. The pictures come before the words come. And, and, and, and the pictures are a road to language for the smart teacher to do. visual literacy is the skill to take those pictures and interpret them into words. So you can have a student who can create a visual narrative and still not have the visual literacy

11:36 - to bring it into language. And that would require a teacher who does have visual literacy to see in what the student has done that they have been thinking, even though they're sitting there and, and they don't have language skills. And, and, and, and so those things, things play. And as I said, the smart teacher doesn't just say, darling, you're talented. I'm gonna hang this on the wall and you're great.

12:01 - The educational intervention is, you've been thinking, let's work on trying to get some words associated with that thinking. And you've gotta, and and you've got, a stake in developing that thinking. Now, I, I, I think what's, what's important to understand I is that to engage students, you have to engage them where they are, to see them as competent and, and to look at what their life experiences are. And we're gonna build on that.

12:38 - I'm not just kind of, you're all gonna learn how to draw, like Michelangelo, you're all gonna do this. There has to be some acknowledgement that where those kids are is also worthy, that they have assets that they, they bring. And I think in the book, we have examples of this, of how the students, how the teachers are modifying their instruction, not in a deficit model. these poor darlings, they didn't have this opportunity. They haven't been to the T

13:10 - for goodness sakes, what are they gonna do? but they have had other kinds of life skills. Where do I build on that? Where do I do that? And, and, and, and, and we do try to show that one of the things too with the book, you wanted the students, the teachers, not just to show us their best work. Don't show us the very best kid that knocks your socks off and brings you to tears. Show us a scope of work.

13:39 - Who are the kids who are, you know, dodging it, the kids who didn't engage the kids? What's kind of medium work? What, and and show us really try to take us into your classroom. Who are the kids who are struggling with this assignment? Who are the kids who are just doing it? And who are the kids who nailed it? And, and, and to take a, so we've, we've got that scope of the context in terms of how are you doing this?

14:08 - E empathy is a word that enters the English language in the first decade of the 20th century. And we develop it. 'cause we're trying to figure out what the Germans are doing with this psychology of aesthetics. And they're talking about the ein long and, the unha and, and we're like, what, how is the ein long the factor of the unha? And then we're like, what does that all of that mean? So we need a new word. We invent empathy.

14:37 - This is what the German, that it's an aesthetic response. So, so that I'm, I, I'm I I empathetic understanding, social engagement is something that is coming outta German philosophy, and it's why the word aesthetics got invented in the first place. but in a classroom, you can have five accessible dimensions of, empathic understanding the care of materials. What are you doing with the tools?

15:12 - You have the care of self, which is a reflection of does this artwork mean anything to you? If you take your artwork and throw it in the trash can on the way out, it's meaningless. Are, are, are you engaged with this care of others? Can you say something nice to astute person next to you? Or are, are you just gonna be, you know, snotty and, and, and, and vicious to, to that person, the care of the school that what you've done here is make something beautiful?

15:40 - Are you gonna share it with the school? Or are is, is are you gonna make this something that can be shared? And then finally, can you take that out the community, you know, outside of. So those are five ways that you could look for accessible behavior in terms of what's going on in this art classroom in terms of the way that that, that the work is being done. and you can't mandate that mandate telling the kids,

16:09 - you're all gonna make a pot and it's gonna be for a fundraiser, and that's gonna help the food bank. And you have to make that pot, and we're, and, and we're gonna sell it to, you know, at, at, at the raffle. Kids who do it for that way are just following instructions that, that, that is not a demonstration of the great school empathy. That because we, we produced all these coffee cups, tea cups to, to, to sell it for,

16:41 - for the benefit of the, of the homeless shelter. That, that, that, that doesn't do it. In, in science assessment, one of the things that you, you want students to, how do you pay attention? How do you notice details? How, how do you begin to develop a sense of wonder about why things work the way they they do? And in that sense, the, the, the attention that is developed in art of what is this?

17:24 - What is, what can you do with it? The way that you get materials all the time, you've got Clay, what can I do with clay? I'm gonna punch it. I'm going to do this. Yes, you can, you can do it in a very instructional way. Here's the clay. Do this first, do this second, do this third, do this, fourth done. You're outta here. Or you can do that in a way of let's explore what's possible, what could be invented. That kind of sense of opening it up to invention is

17:53 - where you can certainly do that in a science lesson and in some ways that would be teaching students how to really be a scientist in terms of how do you gather information, see something new, ask a question about that, that that, that, that would be a science test. Same way with in English, in writing, how do you write, do do, do you just sit there and do grammar drills and spelling drills or, or do you encourage creative writing and poetry and ways of trying to do work more expressively?

18:34 - So, one of my advisors, and when I went to my doctoral, program at Stanford, no, Noddings was a math teacher, and she was like, you know, you can do this in math, you can do this math doesn't have to be this regimented, all the answers at the end of the book kind of a thing. So, you know, she, she, she was all over my work in terms of, of, and, and was one of my great mentors in terms of, of my thinking

19:09 - as a math teacher, you know, in terms of what are we doing here and how could this be done in different kinds of ways. One of the things I mentioned earlier that the, Harvard Project Zero study studio thinking was done with a very small study, and it was, that too was focused on, they went out and they looked at excellent teachers. And from that small case study, they built theory. And we have 19 teachers and, and we're building our theory

19:42 - and, and we're trying to show how look at what these 19 teachers are, are doing. So for the future of research, I don't think we need a big top down, statistical study to be done. I, I think what you need to do is look at let's find excellence and figure out what excellence is. And that if we had more of those, then maybe somebody can do a meta analysis and start pulling out some statistics

20:17 - and doing cross analysis and try to figure out what's going on here. But, so for the future, I would say the small case study is, is really what's going to be telling and is, is really going to be helpful because context is so important and you don't know that when you say, no, I'm gonna get 3000 teachers and those are the factors I'm going, what are those other contextual

20:46 - Factors that have gotten swept out of that, that are actually key, that are a absolutely essential to know? And, and I'm not sure that we really have all those answers. So I'm a big believer in staying small, try to see the world in a grain of sand and a and if we collectively worked, a body of knowledge is going to amass. And I think we're, we're gonna be able to maybe make some more policy kinds of

21:24 - decisions from a greater mass. But so, so that's, that, that's my, recommendation in terms of someone thinking about, well, what kind of a research study should I do? small case studies I think are the way to go.

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