Failure is an event, not a person.

Interesting isn’t it, how we confuse what people do for what they are? I mean by this the way we describe someone as being, for example, original: an original thinker, an original artist or an original writer rather than simply describing what they actually do as being original. Clearly this is completely inaccurate. No one is more original than anyone else.

This kind of subtle misattribution might be ok when we’re dealing with job titles: secretary, waiter, artist etc. but the real problems start when we begin to internalize negatively weighted attributions: “I’m unoriginal”, “I’m a failure”, “I’m no good at that.” Such self-perceptions are only ever something we resign ourselves to: they’re a declaration that we’ve given up trying and that we’ve come to the conclusion that further effort is futile. Indeed, further effort would simply reinforce the negative perception. It’s not surprising therefore that people avoid putting themselves in such circumstances and consequently avoid the kinds of risks that might lead, not just to disappointment, but to growth.

The problem, of course, is thinking that a failed thing, of our own making, is representative of who we are and – crucially - who we might become: that creations define not just internal states but potentialities. We can see this same deception in education, in which students are constantly under the critical eye of evaluation and assessment. What better way to encourage self-criticism and crippling self-consciousness?

In education there’s a widely held assumption that we assess learning. In fact we don’t assess learning at all. What we asses are the products of study, which we take as proof of learning. Assessment, and grades in particular, perpetuate the notion that what defines people is that which is created by them but which is external to them. Whilst this may necessarily be true within the view of others, it also, arguably, has the side effect of turning individuals into observers of their own performance when what education should be trying to foster is unselfconscious critical engagement with the objects of study at the very deepest level.

Pointless Presentations and Inert Information

Pulpit Rock, near Ardlui (on the banks of Loch Lomond)

During an Art and Design conference I attended recently I had the feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data that was being transmitted and I began to question the point of trying to commit any of it to memory. Perhaps the event should simply have been reduced in range and scale, but it seems to me that there's another perspective one could take on the situation. Imagine that instead of focusing on the dissemination of volumes of information, greater emphasis had been placed upon the feeling generated by each presentation and that, in addition, a few vital questions had been raised. Information is only ever valuable if we can use it, otherwise it’s simply an accretion which serves little purpose other than to obstruct or overcomplicate understanding.

The common flaw shared by many of these presentations was an insufficient consideration of the underlying question/s or issues which the information was intended to address or respond to. Most of it was simply descriptive rather than propositional or discursive and, as such, could be disregarded. It was pointless, inert.

“…my custom whenever I am invited to speak in some place, to develop some consequences of my views which I expect to be unacceptable to the particular audience. For I believe that there is only one excuse for a lecture: to challenge.” –Karl Popper

Many of the presentations involved a narrative of some kind, and narratives, as we know, have the power to draw us in on an emotional level. Unfortunately however, the emotional tenor of these presentations had been almost entirely extricated. It was as if the presenters distrusted this and were denying it in preference for chronology or other forms of superficial flow.

Has passion become so intrinsically suspect that people would rather ignore or repress it than risk the accusation of emotional embellishment or manipulation? Certainly, an emotional tone or delivery can be used to persuade or deceive and we should be vigilant about such things but does this mean that presenters have to surgically remove it from their presentations? And do we therefore face a future of conferences and academic presentations full of monotone facts and figures?

I’m more than willing to accept that we don’t need a wave of emotionally laden presentations – I couldn’t think of anything worse. Far better would be surprising, challenging or provocative information because it’s surprising, challenging and provocative stuff that demands an effort of consideration on the audience’s part. Surprise, in this sense, is the foundation of learning: when we are surprised there’s an opportunity for something new to be understood.

So if we want people to engage, then a little challenging information allied to some genuine conviction wouldn’t go amiss. After all, if we care about what we’re presenting, then it makes sense not to conceal our passion too thoroughly, otherwise our audience is likely to suspect that we’re either bored, or simply wish to string them along for the ride. Meanwhile they’ll either be happily daydreaming or wondering why we couldn’t make our presentation a little more stimulating.

The Ideal Project Brief

What makes an ideal Project Brief? We were asked this question at a staff Learning and Teaching event yesterday and as the list of Aims, Objectives, Learning Outcomes, Resources, Examples, Schedules, Clear Language, Recommended Typeface, etc, etc, came spewing out of us all, like so much regurgitated orthodoxy, it occurred to me that there’s only one fundamental thing that every project brief should ever aim to do: Inspire.

How to Cheat the Word Count

Many of the students I teach are finishing off their dissertations at the moment.

Recently I also had to submit a written paper to be assessed, for a teaching qualification. Previously, whenever I had to write long essays, or a BA dissertation, the mere thought of a minimum word count filled me with dread. This time, instead of worrying about the minimum word count, I had to be careful not to exceed the limit of 4250. In the end I honed it down–(without cheating) to 4249.

Since the paper had to be submitted as a Microsoft Word ".doc" document it occurred to me that,–if I was willing to take the risk, I could write as many or as few words as I liked (within reason). If I wrote too many words I could hyphenate lots of them and make the hyphens white; (essentially rendering them invisible)–or if the word count was too low I could add lots of white; text.–For-example if you-select this-sentence and-paste it-into Word-you’ll find-that it-adds up-to 21-words (half-its actual-count) whereas-if you-select what-appears to-be empty-space below-you’ll have-1000 words.

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However if you’re a student, I wouldn’t advise using this technique –-your teachers may have read this blog too!

The Power and the Beauty

Folded card by Laurie and Thomas A Clark, 2010, 7,4 x 5,3 cm

Yesterday Peter Foolen posted the above image on Facebook. I should say straightaway that I admire Tom and Laurie Clark’s work a great deal, not least because it's both intellectually engaging as well as beautiful. However, this particular work urged me to reconsider my attitude towards beauty and in the process to re-read Susan Sontag’s essay “An argument about beauty”:

“What is beautiful reminds us of nature as such–of what lies beyond the human and the made–and thereby stimulates and deepens our sense of the sheer spread and fullness of reality, inanimate as well as pulsing, that surrounds us all. […] Imagine saying, ‘That sunset is interesting.’”

As it turns out, Sontag’s sentiments agree very closely with the Clark’s. In both cases we are presented with formidable arguments which are not in the least easy to contest, indeed they are so articulately and persuasively rendered that it’s extremely tempting simply to chime in and agree (as I did on Facebook). However, at the risk of casting myself as a "new Puritan", I’d like to consider these arguments a little more closely – not from a position of “suspicion” (mistrust) but of skepticism (doubt).

In both cases we’re presented with well articulated, highly crafted and well informed arguments. They could easily be, and probably wish to be, described as beautiful. And here perhaps is the first indication that something is amiss. Not only are these arguments beautifully rendered, they are also authoritative: they announce themselves as skillfully considered powerful ideas despite, in one case, the very unassuming form of a folded card. But this power is also, to some extent, based upon the way these arguments force anyone who opposes them to adopt the mantle of either “Puritanism” or in the case of Sontag: “ludicrousness”. Arguments from positions of certainty often do this: they cast opposing views as faulty and seek to denigrate those who hold them. Perhaps this is the crucial difference between a discussion and an argument: not so much the passions involved but the way each party seeks to characterize the other.

One thing which is only touched upon in Sontag’s essay, but which is very prominently suggested in the Clark’s card is the contrast between culture and nature: between words and feelings, images and flowers, representation and reality. Sontag writes:

“The beauty of art is better, ‘higher,’ according to Hegel, than the beauty of nature because it is made by human beings and is the work of the spirit. But the discerning of beauty in nature is also the result of traditions of consciousness, and of culture–in Hegel’s language, of spirit.”

Whilst we might take pleasure in the sheer beauty of a sunset – and sincerely describe it as such - when it comes to the products of culture, we are dealing with something else entirely. Humans are makers of meaning, whereas, as Sontag reminds us in another essay, nature just is:

“The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. There would only be what is.”

If it’s beauty alone that we seek then why the need for culture at all? However, if we are to ‘read’ culture - or nature for that matter - thereby perceiving them through the lens of culture, then it would seem to make sense not to be too passive in the assumptions and interpretations we make of what is presented to us. Beauty, flow, grace, unity, balance etc are all pleasurable experiences, but you don’t have to be ‘suspicious’ to realise that such things can be used – whether unintentionally or by design - to conceal, to persuade, to distract or to manipulate. When we’re presented with neat packages of beautifully articulated or rendered information there’s a tendency to accept the flow, to take pleasure in the grace, to appreciate the unity and to enjoy the balance. Perhaps a little healthy skepticism, far from diluting our experience, would help to temper such unquestioning tendencies.

A suspicious puritan is probably the last person you’d want to meet. A skeptical puritan, on the other hand, at least has the vague prospect of recognising the extent to which they've been deluded.

Encouragement

If success is having overcome the shackles of failure and, as such, is its own reward, perhaps what we should be celebrating and focussing our attention on is intelligent risk taking. Likewise, assessment would be better directed towards evaluating the nature of the risks taken and the quality of failure as opposed to the minutiae of levels of achievement. In some ways it amounts to the same thing, though with an entirely different focus. Instead of centring so much attention on becoming the best, perhaps the emphasis would be better placed upon celebrating the striving to become even better, and that’s a goal to which everyone can relate.

A pregnant Lesley breaking trail on one of the most exhausting climbs I have ever undertaken.

The Road to Mastery is Littered with the Wreckage of Past Failures

What do you say to a student who is taking every opportunity to learn and extend their competence and understanding but who, as a consequence, is accumulating a catalogue of hard-won errors? Most especially, how do you encourage them and convincingly explain the less than excellent grade you've given the work they've produced? If it’s true that we learn from our mistakes, what sense does it make to discourage failure and to commend success? Whilst the commendation of success necessarily acknowledges the overcoming of error, it also tends to encourage conservatism by focussing attention on what can be achieved with certainty rather than what might not; between what is a genuine challenge and what is merely difficult.

“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,
but that it is too low and we reach it.” -Michelangelo

Talent

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” -Stephen King

The comments from my last blog post have led me to brush up a little on Attribution Theory. Most especially I've been reading about Fundamental Attribution Error: the tendency to attribute the causes of behavior to dispositional traits rather than situational effects. For example, when someone spills something we tend to assume that they're clumsy rather than considering that the glass might be slippery or that they've been distracted by a friend or by stressful thoughts about a situation at work or at home.

So how does this relate to talent? Well, talent is principally something we attribute to others and it's also something we tend to think of as arising from internal processes rather than being produced by external factors. Whilst many people may believe that we can do little to induce talent, it's generally accepted that it’s possible to draw it out and encourage it (or the reverse). Teachers especially, are in the business of spotting talents in students and assisting their fuller development. In many ways teachers have the daunting responsibility of identifying underlying talents and guiding students to pursue them – in effect shaping the course of their lives. But at what point might the identification of talent be thought of as a fundamental attribution error? Perhaps Timmy just appears to be talented at maths because his older brother took a few moments to help him understand a few useful underlying principles and now Timmy enjoys maths more than anything else and is in advance of his classmates because of it. Perhaps Timmy had the temerity to paint on the classroom wall last time he did an art class and got told off. Perhaps he just likes the maths teacher. There are so many potential variables which contribute to the formation of each individual that to generalise by assuming someone is talented seems narrow minded at the very least. As we well know, teachers make mistakes, sometimes grossly. Consider, for example, the headmaster who said that a five-year-old Bertie would never amount to anything. Later, in Technical College, this same student was described as “a lazy dog who never bothered about mathematics at all.” Fortunately Einstein didn't take much notice of what these teachers thought, but many students lack such independence of thought.

Much as I agree with the above quote by Steven King, I think it also highlights a pervasive misunderstanding in contemporary attitudes which see success, rather than fulfillment, as the pinnacle of human achievement. Should we be encouraging young people to pursue their talents, that we have skillfully identified with our unique but untutored gift for talent spotting, or should we encourage what they find fulfilling? I fully admit that the two often overlap, and all for the better. But sometimes they don’t and we do students a serious disservice, much as it may break our hearts to see them squander the talents we perceive, when we encourage them, oblige them or subtly coerce them into pursuing routes which do not accord with their own desires.

But it isn’t only external perceptions that shape student achievements. Self perceptions also play a significant role in determining how individuals develop (though these perceptions are by no means immune to the influence of parents and teachers either). In various studies carried out by Carol Dweck and collaborators it was repeatedly found that students could be divided roughly equally between those who sought “learning goals” (increased competence) as opposed to those who sought “performance goals” (goals that provided favourable judgements or – crucially - the avoidance of negative judgements about their performance). These different goals were found to be predicated on contrasting beliefs about the nature of ability. Students who believe that ability is a fixed entity tend to seek performance goals and to avoid risk taking whilst students who believe that ability is alterable (ie: can be improved) are more persistent, relish challenges and see failure as an opportunity to learn (learning goals). Unsurprisingly these students also achieve significantly better results in challenging tasks. The upshot of this research has been a strong advocacy for methods of teaching that shift student perceptions of ability as a fixed entity to ones that see ability as malleable and therefore subject to hard work and determination. This makes a real difference.

Imagine the obstacles in Art Schools then, where many students have come specifically because school teachers have encouraged their unique talents? And what is talent after all, other than a stubbornly immutable conception of innate ability? No wonder you hear the word used so little in studio discussions or tutorials – it’s practically taboo. But that’s not the only obstacle art school teachers face. In this world increasingly dominated by X-Factor’s and Nation’s Got Talent shows it seems to be becoming increasingly difficult to persuade young people that hard work isn’t a sign of weakness but, on the contrary, is the road to mastery that even the most talented need to tread.

"I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.” -Albert Einstein

Here's a good article on a similar theme.

“Science has to catch up to art”

Sticking with the science theme started in my last post, Ted.com just posted this video of Charles Limb talking about some preliminary research into what happens when musicians creatively improvise in an fMRI scanner:

It’s interesting…ish but somehow comes across as a rather naïve attempt to split atoms with an elaborate vacuum cleaner. So far the findings are pretty meager, to say the least, and the questions based on these are very unenlightening:

Just for the fun of it, let’s make a cursory stab at providing some answers to these questions (without the aid of an expensive bunch of wires, magnets and electricity of course):

1: What is creative genius?

Extremely open minded focus.

2: Why does the brain seek creativity?

Because it’s pleasurable, solves problems and has a selection advantage.

3: How do we acquire creativity?

It’s in our genes, but is often inhibited and/or underdeveloped (see next question)

4: What factors disrupt creativity?

Stress, fear, distraction, poverty etc and in some cases their opposites ie: affluence, success, achievement etc (and possibly lying down in fMRI scanners)

5: Can creative behavior be learned?

I've argued in the past that the answer should be Yes, but to a degree this depends on what we mean by “creative” and “learned” and also on not getting too fussy about the difference between "creative behavior" (as the question asks) and creative ability (which seems likely to be influenced by a whole wealth of factors).

And lastly, if creativity behaves in any way differently when you're lying down as opposed to when you're standing up (as anger does¹) then the whole experiment will need to be repeated.

Hmm, it seems like there are probably better uses for an fMRI scanner at this time. Perhaps in the future, with finer instrumentation, better data gathering techniques and more sophisticated questions we might actually get some useful information. But despite this, I’m reminded of something Richard Feynman said about thinking processes and the ways thoughts are generated by different individuals.

This is extraordinary from a couple of perspectives: 1: the contestation of genius and 2: the evidence of, not exactly learning styles² as such, but different cognitive functioning leading to the same result but involving different cognitive load and therefore having differential influence on other cognitive functions (it relates closely to what is called "The Split Attention Effect"³). If Feynman was right, and there seems little reason to doubt it, then the hope of finding a neurological formula for creativity seems likely to be fanciful at best.

External References:
1: The Split Attention Effect
2: Learning Styles
3: Anger behaves differently in fMRI whilst lying down as opposed to standing up.

Sensuous Science

"Science states meanings; art expresses them." -John Dewey

In the context of Dewey's thoughts on Art as Experience, this all seemed well and good when I read it this morning. That was, until I read the following 'scientific' description of thresholds of human perception (limina) quoted on Mind Hacks:

"Approximate absolute sensitivities, expressed in everyday terms:

Vision – A candle flame seen at 30 miles on a dark, clear night

Hearing – The tick of a watch under quiet conditions at 20 feet

Taste – One teaspoon of sugar in two gallons of water

Smell – One drop of perfume diffused into the entire volume of a three-room apartment

Touch – The wing of a bee falling on your cheek from a distance of one centimeter"

- Galanter, E. (1962). Contemporary psychophysics. Holt, Rinehart, Winston.

Dewey again:

"Scientific statement is often thought to possess more than a signboard function and to disclose or be "expressive" of the inner nature of things. If it did, it would come into competition with art, and we should have to take sides and decide which of the two promulgates the more genuine revelation."