GOOD VS. BAD ART PART 2: SHIFTING THE FOCUS AWAY FROM STANDARDS AND EXPECTATIONS

Shari Paladino, Founder of Creative Practice Studio

learn more @ creative-practice.com

Rubrics for excellence or success in any field, including art, are inherently subjective, because they often miss the point or the greater learning outcomes. So often, culturally convened standards of excellence fail to measure accurately what is good or bad

Perhaps the notion of the measurement itself is the wrong question to ask.

Let’s consider science, for example. It’s not dependent on a set of standards, except for one: a method of asking questions.

Artists and scientists are very similar, actually. What a research lab and an art studio share in common is that both spaces function as a place to ask a lot of questions, often with attention to failure as the primary mode of discovery.

It’s the experiment that drives both fields. How we measure those experiments often leads to more experiments, because equivalents are really hard to come by.

For example, if we consider translations between languages, we know that translations of meaning are not 1:1. Neither is measuring excellence, success or the potential to be creative.

Creativity is both natural, nurtured and developed with practice. And it’s a little messy.
Innate creativity takes a perfectly good line and blurs it or makes it wobble and curve. Creativity shows up as innate humanness when we try to draw a really straight line.

Changing the ways we think about success in art education would help us with a big paradigm shift.

We want to use art making as a scaffold for the development of social-emotional learning, a growth mindset and mindfulness. When we do this, then maybe we even nudge ourselves to contend with a culture that overvalues the good vs. bad paradigm.

While standards and norms are important to teach, improvisation also needs to occur alongside them in creative action.

This is not to say that celebrating excellence in any field is not a wonderful way to have rubrics to recognize achievement.

It is really amazing to admire great artists and people of all fields. What is more important is to learn that standards and expectations share a relationship to structural power, access, inclusion and exclusion. Standards and norms always change. Younger generations have defined this principle over millennia.

We see this today with the language around gender identity. It’s much more fluid, and we see older generations confused about the changing standards.

The words we use to describe, define and communicate the world have always changed in meaning and context since languages were formed. It’s part of the process of the changing infrastructure of power, who is recognized, heard, seen and valued.

Art is a language, too, that is changing over time.

Collective knowledge is constantly changing, and change is a natural creative force.

There isn’t a science, history or social studies teacher today using a textbook from 10 years ago. All are learning, and knowledge is under constant revision, reconstruction and reframing.

Perhaps thinking of knowledge as a creative collective process is a better approach to learning than standards or expectations.

Instead, let’s focus on teaching what creativity is. This allows kids to be self-aware about their own creative capacity, wherein they are given agency to co-create the world they envision! We can shift away from learning that conforms to standards because at some point even this will change.

It’s important to teach kids early on how to be open-minded, flexible and teachable, a pedagogy that emphasizes learning to learn in order to prepare. Creativity is a vital skill set.

Making art should be a safe space to practice this, but we gotta let go of the good vs. bad mentality when it comes to art making. And we gotta help our kids with that as well.

We can teach that art is evidence of a process of curiosity, a centerpiece of social and emotional learning, a growth mindset, mindfulness practice and even a therapeutic activity.

Art is great therapy for kids and adults alike. In truth, most miscommunication and suffering comes when expectations are not met. By that token, understanding and healing are frequently about letting go of expectations. Instead of being judgemental, we can develop the quality of being curious and observe a method of asking questions.

I can think of nothing more valuable in an increasingly and rapidly changing world than an education that emphasizes creativity, growth mindset and social emotional learning.