Week 2(ish) Response

Getting deeper into the VTS theoretical and research articles has been kind of an uneasy process.  On the one hand, I enjoy the VTS process and have spent over a year with it now.  I’ve evolved a tentative understanding of it and an intuitive feel for its inner workings as a teaching tool.  On the other hand, my baseline approach to academic articles—particularly those that attempt to explain the theoretical underpinnings of practice and research demonstrating the success of said practices—tends to be deep, stubborn skepticism.

So, while the set of articles read for week 1’s reflection scratched an itch for a little additional context and an opportunity to reflect on my VTS practice, with week 2, the honeymoon ended.  I came away with way, way more questions than insights and I’m not even sure where to begin, so I think I’ll just paste the unadorned list in:

Reading  1) Yenawine: can’t shake my skepticism about stage theories

Reading 2) Housen: what kinds of aesthetic teaching did the other school receive, if any?

a. possibly the effect being observed is that subjects are getting better at talking/the interview process?

b. why aren't half-stages whole stages?

c. very mixed ending--critical thinking vs critical thinking about art...

Reading 3) Eye: p.4 contrast with my art (history) experience

a. Domains and Second Level Refinements is good

b. p.7 "validity is supported by the fact that we arrive at the same stage score through two distinct analytic methods", but I can only find a description of one (the ADI and its subsequent coding process)

c. p.8 "as emotions go underground..." wonder if she's reading a bit too much into the viewer's emotions/though processes

d. p.9 stage theory FALLS APART*************, again with reference to my own art (history) history AND p.13 statement about adult viewers stuck at Stage II is evidence that the later stages DO NOT fit in a stage theory framework

***I’m wondering about early reading experiences: picture decoding and story telling

e. p.15 "Discussions last for 45 minutes to one hour."!?!?!?

+++And again on p 18: "We have numerous instances of children as young as second graders talking about one slide for as long as one hour."

f. what happens in less controlled settings when you have stage 3's mixed with stage 1's and 2's?  Does the stage 3 viewer tend to shut down contributions from the earlier stage viewers?

g. p 17 remark (unless it relates) Knowledge is inherently cumulative and VTS seems to acknowledge this with one hand (prodding viewers toward a dawning awareness of connections between different works, facilitating a shift to metacognitive thought processes about artist intentionality/cultural relativity) while insisting on a viewership unsullied by these connections with the other (core questions targeted toward the theoretical early stage viewers, unconcerned with the continuing needs of later viewers or the interactions between the two)

h. p 21 findings about people seldom being above stage II seem like no-brainers, unless you come from a museum-going family or take an interest in art history, you will not get above this stage no matter how much art you look at

i. p 22 more questions, though some hint of validity in suggestion that "Children who have been taught a variety of "expert-derived facts or information" seldom display any of this information in their unstructured samples of aesthetic thinking (ADIs)

&&&

Do controls have a comparable experience with images and conversation but without the specific question set????!!!!

j. p 24, the "modeling" contradiction – last week’s readings stressed significance of modeling in VTS, but here the role of modeling in VTS aesthetic learning process is dismissed

-----Where's the data about stages 3 thru 5?  Where does VTS fit into these stages?  How does VTS facilitate the transition from stage 2 to 3??!?!  If most adults are at stage 2, where's the evidence that VTS effectively moves them past it?

I’m not going to pursue any of these questions in much depth right now because my hope is that later readings will address some of these issues.  Suffice it to say that a major component of my current critical stance is that my own experience as a student of art does not follow the pattern put forth by VTS stage theory.  I didn’t take a serious interest in the visual arts until my second year as an undergraduate, when I took my first art history course.  I was hooked, immediately, but my burgeoning aesthetic sensibility was very much wrapped up in the facts, figures and context provided by my professors.  It’s possible that I’d already worked my way through the earlier stages in one way or another (maybe it transferred from my interests in literature and music?), but the evidence presented in the readings this week hasn’t persuaded me to accept the VTS stage theory just yet.  That doesn’t discount the validity of the VTS question set as a useful tool for facilitating discussions, particularly among younger views, but so far there’s a serious disconnect in these articles between stages two and three and I’m not convinced that the attitudes toward art that are expressed by the descriptions of stages three through five have to be viewed as sequential or even separate from the attitudes expressed by stages one and two.

Weekly, I watch preschoolers (ages 3-5) construct elaborate understandings of picture books and teaching aids that I feel relatively certain reach the second stage of VTS stage theory.  So, for students that achieve that kind of progress at such a young age, does VTS wash its hands of them?  Where does the prompt to stage three and beyond come from?  It seems more likely to me that the types of responses being classified as stages by VTS theory are context specific, relying on the subject’s familiarity with the type of observed/source material, the specific material being observed, and past experiences/comfort-level discussing that material. 

I’m also extremely interested to know if any of the control groups in the studies described received an alternative aesthetic learning experience.  Additional info about this would provide perspective on whether aesthetic experience is being shaped by the specific VTS practices.  A related question would be to determine whether communication abilities are being developed more significantly by one approach or the other and whether this can be isolated from developments in aesthetic perception.

In any case, I’m a newbie here, so please suffer my inquiries/ignorance…  Here’s what I gained from my first self-assessment:

1.       What did you learn about your current VTS skills from self-assessing your most recent VTS video?

I was a little surprised to see how closely I stick to the VTS script.  I suppose that the sense of juggling that occurs in the course of facilitating the conversation led me to believe that I was occasionally getting derailed but it looks like I only missed one use of question 3.

2.       What do you think you are doing well? (What did you see that makes you say that?)

 

I seem to have the sequence of questions, gestures, and paraphrase(ish) facilitation down pretty well.  I also appear to keep a steady affect, responding consistently with an “okay” and matter-of-factly summarizing and drawing connections as the conversation progresses.  I suppose the biggest impact these strengths have is in keeping our conversation focused which allows each of the boys to share their observations at least once and, in some cases, two or three times.

3.       What do you think you need to work on? (What did you see that makes you say that?)

I think I need to strive to enrich my paraphrase vocabulary.  It’s a little hard to hear the boys in the video, but I think that a lot of the time, I’m simply repeating their observations and only cursorily offering some alternative vocabulary/phrasing when there’s an opportunity to sum up or draw connections between observations.  If I were able to bind their individual observations together a little better, it might eliminate some of the side conversation that began to happen in the course of the VTS.

4.       What behaviors/skills will you focus on developing and/or improving during the semester?

I think I also realized that I need to listen to distinguish a little more carefully between observations that are purely descriptive (i.e. the sky is blue) and observations that are disputable (dragon-ram) and which might therefore warrant the use of question 2.  My hope is that with this reflective practice (watching videos of my VTS sessions) as my guide, I’ll be able to slow things down in my VTS facilitation just a bit.  I hope to still offer a focused exploration of each image and provide ample opportunity for the boys to respond but to introduce a little more space for reflection in the conversation, which will hopefully give the boys an even richer viewing practice.