Author: Goodman, Nelson; Perkins David; Gardner, Howard

Publication Year: 1971

Media Type: Report

Summary:

This long-range basic research program, aimed at the advancement of the arts through improvement of education for both understanding and production, was occupied primarily with the study of the tasks involved in the several arts, and the available means for inculcating or fostering the abilities required to perform such tasks. The methods applied range from the initial clearing away of prevelant misconceptions and the clarification of concepts, through psychological experimentation and the study of clinical work on the brain, to actual field work in educational institutions and the arts.

Abstract:

This long-range basic research program, aimed at the advancement of the arts through improvement of education for both understanding and production, was occupied primarily with the study of the tasks involved in the several arts, and the available means for inculcating or fostering the abilities required to perform such tasks. The methods applied range from the initial clearing away of prevelant misconceptions and the clarification of concepts, through psychological experimentation and the study of clinical work on the brain, to actual field work in educational institutions and the arts.

Starting from the observation that work in the arts, like much human activity, involves the processing of symbols, we first developed a grounded organization of symbol systems and functions. Questions and hypotheses concerning the abilities required for various kinds of symbol processing, and in particular concerning the implications of this for the arts, were then framed and investigated. But irrespective of our theory, we considered any question or evidence that promised to further our objective.

Our results are not recipes for immediate application by the arts educator, but material that may be of use in his thinking and practice.

CONTENTS
Abstract.

Chapter 1. A program of research in arts education. 

1. Background and beginnings. 
2. Plans and procedures. 
3. Opposition and obstacles. 
4. Convictions and conjectures. 
5. Staff and support. 
6. Plan of this report.

Chapter 2. The theory of symbols. 

1. Notationality: a measure of symbol systems. 

2. Some issues in aesthetics. 
    2.1 Authenticity and notationality. 
    2.2 Expression and representation: a difference in direction. 
    2.3 Art and science: a difference in dominance.

Chapter 3. Psychological approaches. 

1. The role of cognition and construction. 
2. Brain function, linguistic systems and the arts.

Chapter 4. The perception of music and pictures. 

1. Studies of music. 
    1.1 An approach to the perception of music. 
    1.2 Pitch conservation in children. 
    1.3 Rhythm. 
          1.3.1 Children's inventions of rhythm notations. 
          1.3.2. Teaching children rhythm notation. 
          1.3.3. Children's duplication of rhythmic patterns. 
          1.3.4. A notation for rhythm perception. 
          1.3.5. Fundamental questions about the concept of rhythm. 

2. The perception of pictures. 
    2.1 Geometry and picture perception. 
          2.1.1. Cubic corners. 
          2.1.2. Oblique views of pictures. 
          2.1.3. The perception of line drawings of simple space
                   forms. 
    2.2 Haptic pictures. 
    2.3 Caricature and recognition.

Chapter 5. Features shared among the arts. 

1. Experimental investigations. 
    1.1 Investigations of style. 
          1.1.1 Sensitivity to painting style. 
          1.1.2. Sensitivity to literary style. 
          1.1.3. Sensitivity to music style. 
     1.2 Infants' finger-painting strategies. 

2. Conceptual studies.
    2.1 Problem solving and the arts.
          2.1.1. Search strategies in dense and replete symbol
                   systems.
          2.1.2. Pathologies of problem solving.
    2.2. Revisable media.
    2.3 Routines.
    2.4 The concept of modes in aesthetic development.

Chapter 6. Further theoretical investigations.

1. Expression in music.
2. Musical denoting.
3. How symbols inform.
4. Picturing and imitative symbols.

Chapter 7. Education in the arts.

1. Themes in contemporary arts education.
    1.1 College and professional training of artists: site visits.
    1.2 Pre-college training; the arts in alternative schools. 

2. Toward a taxonomy of methods of education.

3. Trial programs from project zero.
    3.1 Lecture-performances: art in the making.
    3.2 Education for Arts Management.
    3.3 Research in the arts and education: A project zero course.

4. The problem of evaluation.
    4.1 Theory.
    4.2 Practice.

Chapter 8. Conclusions.

1. Ground clearing.
2. Theory.
3. General studies.
4. Studies of specific abilities.
5. Field work.

Bibliography.
Appendix 1. Project zero staff.
Appendix 2. Project zero publications.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Arts Education