Revolting Students and Unqualified Teachers

I notice that on the 27^th and 28^th of this month BBC2 will be airing a two-part documentary, presented by Dylan Wiliam (deputy director of the UK’s Institute of Education), about implementing formative assessment with a class in a Hertfordshire comprehensive. (Now available on iPlayer here). I’m very intrigued, especially by part two in which:

“There is a classroom revolt when the teachers remove grades from work. The idea is to make the students actually read the comments on their work in order to help them improve, but they are left confused and angry after becoming so used to the traditional grading system.”

It might be thought that this issue is unique to school kids, but not so. I have two colleagues studying, like me, for a post graduate HE teaching qualification. One is, what might be called in the nicest possible terms, “a bit of a swot”, and the other has been so inundated during the last year that very little time has been available for going the extra mile in studying. When they were both given marks for their first essay submission earlier this year it was immediately clear that the gap between them had suddenly become a gulf in terms of motivation. The change was most apparent in the over-worked colleague who immediately lost all interest in engaging in the course other than to aim for a bare pass. And this is from a dedicated, innovative and experienced teacher!

A few months ago I read an academic paper also by Dylan William entitled “The Half Second Delay: what follows?” (2006). In the paper William musters a variety of research to demonstrate that experts, in all fields - but most specifically in this case: teachers - employ a sophisticated range of unconscious scripts or “filters” which can only be acquired through experience rather than through instruction and teaching qualifications:

“The availability of these data requires a thorough grounding in experience, which it appears is extraordinarily difficult to acquire without prolonged immersion in the relevant settings. In the context of the research findings presented here the idea of intuition remains mysterious, but can be viewed as an exquisite and largely unconscious sensitivity to very small details.”

So, not only do grades demotivate intrinsically motivated students but they widen the achievement gap and tell us absolutely nothing about how “good” a teacher is.

Blowing the Whistle on Theory and Practice

It’s possible that I’m wrong, but I strongly suspect that we have a injustice (or perhaps it would be less inflammatory to describe it as an inconsistency) at work in the way that Art students are being assessed at universities in the UK. I realise that this is a significant claim with potentially serious ramifications so I offer this as an observation and discussion to be further examined, explained and hopefully resolved or proven to be unfounded.

All Fine Art degree courses employ an assessment process which evaluates each student’s final degree exhibition as well as their portfolio of coursework produced during their final year of study. In most cases the assessed material consists of a public exhibition as well as a portfolio submission of supporting work (sketchbooks, notebooks, drawings, supplementary images, maquettes etc). All such courses also assess an academic component in the form of an essay, dissertation, thesis, critical evaluation, or other form of written submission and this forms a fixed portion of the overall mark (usually between 12% and 25%).

Due to the specific nature of fine art courses, the differing staffing levels involved and the demands of assessing text in comparison with visual material, it has become established practice to assess this written component differently to the studio work. Inevitably these assessments have to utilise certain assessment methods which, in contrast to studio assessment, take comparatively little account of the preparatory work produced in order to arrive at the final submission. In other words, the assessment of this component doesn’t do what the practical “studio” component does: it doesn’t assess the process and the evidence of this process to the same degree. This privileging of ends over means; of outcome over endeavour is patently at odds with the approach to assessment involving studio work and sometimes leaves students with significant amounts of material unconsidered, unacknowledged and un-assessed. If we marked studio work in the same manner we’d simply assess the exhibition and nothing besides, and the marks that students received at the end of their course would often be significantly different: sometimes better, sometimes worse.

So what’s going on in this irregular approach to assessment and why is this important aspect of the student’s work not being sufficiently recognised? I would argue that this derives from longstanding differences of opinion - prejudices even - about what constitutes assessable material and in particular a privileging of academic practices over practical. In academic circles generally, essays are rarely, if ever, assessed in terms of the process that leads to them. Essays are seen as the culmination of the student’s endeavour and it is often believed that this is sufficient to provide a complete picture of the student’s achievement. In Fine Art, as I have described, we have a more process oriented approach to the assessment of studio work and it would be claimed that this is due to the practical nature of this discipline. But is this distinction between theory and practice really a fair and justified one?

Whether in practice or theory, the relationships between engagement, inspiration and outcome are remarkably similar. We all know that someone can work for years, pouring energy, research, thought and skill into their work only to arrive at a mediocre result, whilst someone else might produce something astonishing and truly insightful with only the barest application. Creativity, originality, innovation, insight and inspiration cannot be scripted, much as we might wish them to be. The landscape of discovery is notoriously treacherous with many complex and unfamiliar obstacles and few, if any, guarantees of success.

In academia, the formal organisation, structure and presentation of essays is carefully supported (usually) and administered in order to ensure that as much of the process is captured and incorporated into the final piece as possible. Bibliographies, references, footnotes etc are intended to give a comprehensive indication of the material gathered and assimilated in order to produce an essay, but do we really believe that this represents a foolproof method of demonstrating what has really been read and understood let alone conceptualised and applied? From all appearances it would certainly seem so. However, we could just as easily contend that a degree exhibition is the culmination of all that preceded it. However, few art school teachers would seriously assert this, because they’ve come to recognise the importance of examining the journey, not just the destination.

The Fall from Grades

“What would it be like if one of today's art schools offered a single prize so lucrative and prominent that the winner would be virtually assured of making a living? The whole school, I think, would become obsessed with the prize, and suddenly the non-competitive atmosphere of post modern practice would evaporate.” -James Elkins

If you start typing the word “intrinsic” into Google you’re likely to see a drop-down list of suggestions appear. Second down the list will be “intrinsic motivation”. You can do exactly the same for the word “extrinsic” with the same result. These two forms of motivation have a huge role to play in education but almost everybody would hope that the principle motivator for anything students (or staff) do is intrinsic rather than extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to do something for its own sake whereas extrinsic motivation seeks approval - or the avoidance of disapproval - or other kinds of rewards (money, prizes accolades, praise etc) from external sources. It’s very well documented that intrinsically motivated people consistently perform better at creative and cognitively challenging tasks, are more persistent and generally enjoy what they do more than extrinsically motivated people.

Of course, it would be an oversimplification to say that people are either intrinsically or extrinsically motivated. Most individuals are intrinsically AND extrinsically motivated by different things to different degrees depending on a variety of factors. Nonetheless we all recognize that some things just motivate us whereas other things, you couldn’t even pay us to do.

There's a rather curious phenomenon which is closely related to these forms of motivation known as the “Overjustification Effect” where people who are intrinsically motivated lose interest in an activity if it becomes associated with rewards. Most particularly they lose the ability to sustain their motivation after rewards are removed. In other words, the introduction of rewards actually destroys peoples’ intrinsic motivation. It's speculated that rewards are closely associated with typical means of persuading people to do dreary work or carry out chores, and this begins to form negative perceptions around any related activity.

Surprise rewards, on the other hand, do have a vaguely positive influence on people's subsequent motivation but such rewards have to be both genuinely unexpected and justified. Rewarding someone for no clear reason or for something which they feel is undeserving can simply lead to confusion.

“These findings are consistent across a variety of subject populations, rewards, and tasks, with the most destructive effects occurring in activities that require creativity or higher-order thinking. That this effect is produced by the extrinsic motivators known as grades has been documented with students of different ages and from different cultures. Yet the findings are rarely cited by educators.” (Alfie Kohn 1994)

Teachers have to tread a very narrow line when it comes to motivation - between challenging and potentially demotivating students. They need to galvanise students’ motivation as a means of challenging them. Challenges are one of the primary means by which people learn and develop but without motivation on the part of students it's often impossible to present challenges meaningfully. One of a teacher's fundamental skills therefore is to accurately gauge the level at which a challenge can be pitched without dulling the pleasure of engagement. For this reason, encouragement is one of the most useful tools at their disposal, but it’s important that this encouragement isn’t some form of disguised praise or the offer of future reward but rather a genuine involvement in the student’s striving to improve what they do.

Generally speaking then, rewards are inadvisable (unless, of course, you want to manipulate someone, and don’t care about the longer term consequences). In ideal circumstances it’s preferable to create as many opportunities as possible for extrinsically motivated people to develop intrinsic motivation. Supporting autonomy, providing choice and alternative ways of achieving successful outcomes, making projects relevant, achievable and challenging and creating an environment which is enabling and supportive, all help people internalize their motivation. In other words anything that promotes, clarifies and makes something rewarding in itself, has the potential to transform an extrinsically motivated individual into an intrinsically motivated one.

Ultimately, it’s not important whether I, as a teacher, think that what a student has done is good or not. What’s important is whether they’ve achieved something which is valuable to their development and whether the goals they’re setting for themselves, and that are set for them, are relevant and challenging enough to maintain their interest and engagement. Everybody strives to improve what they do - we should be building on this desire, not stifling it. The aim of education should be to promote students' independence and self-efficacy as much as possible, not to cultivate self-doubt and dependence. Grades especially, are the last thing that we should be offering as a means of motivating students. Grades are little more than an addictive and pernicious drug peddled by schools and universities to maintain dependency and conformity to their antiquated systems of assessment. Grades are a drug students would do better without – literally.

References:

I've also written on the problem of grading here.

ELKINS, J., 2001. Why Art Cannot be Taught. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago.

DEAN, J., 2009. How Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation. [online]. Available from: http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/10/how-rewards-can-backfire-and-reduce-motivation.php

HATTIE, J. and TIMPERLEY, H., 2007. The Power of Feedback. [online]. Available from: http://rer.sagepub.com/content/77/1/81.full.pdf+html

HITZ, R. and DRISCOLL, A., (undated). Praise in the Classroom. [online]. Available from: http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9213/praise.htm

KAPLAN, A. 2009. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation. [online]. Education.com. Available from: http://www.education.com/reference/article/intrinsic-and-extrinsic-motivation/

KOHN, A. 1994. GRADING: The Issue Is Not How but Why. [online]. Available from: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/grading.htm

KOHN, A., 1999. From Degrading to De-Grading. High School Magazine. [online] Available from: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm

Prize Winners, Knights, Clones and Rejects

Yesterday I visited Martin Creed's exhibition, "Down Over Up", at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh. I'll refrain from discussing the Ins and Outs of the work here other than to say that it's worth seeing if you're in the vicinity.

At the entrance to the gallery is an introductory text intended to give some context and background to the exhibition. It has become something of a cliché to introduce such solo exhibitions by listing the various prizes awarded to the artist during their career. How should we interpret this emphasis and what might it tell us about the values of such art galleries? Perhaps it's assumed that the ‘doubting public’ will be persuaded by this conventionalised claim to authority and recognition. I’m reminded of Madonna's 2001 prize-giving speech when Creed won the Turner Prize:

The figure who introduces Madonna in the video and stands to her side is Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate and chairman of the Turner Prize committee. In the book “Seven Days in the Art World”, Sarah Thornton describes an interview with “Sir Nick” in which they discuss his misgivings about the prize:

"Competition between artists is almost taboo in the art world, and Serota admitted that contests like the Turner Prize are “iniquitous in drawing distinctions between artists of very different kinds.” […] “Few artists enjoy direct competition,” said Serota. “Artists struggle to express themselves, and for that they need an inordinate amount of self-belief. In some circumstances that self-belief will shift into competitiveness, but it is rarely comfortable.”

Later in the essay Thornton catches up with Martin Creed at the 2006 Turner Prize awards ceremony:

"For Creed, no one is ever best in show. 'If the artists create artworks then the judges create a winner. Whoever they choose is a reflection of themselves.'"

It would be a mistake to think that this kind of situation is restricted only to the higher echelons of the art world. The process of moulding individuals in our own image is prevalent throughout society and academia is no exception:

“In describing the ideal we look for the impossible, and we begin at a point where we are looking for those who most closely match our desires and probably ourselves. These models are culturally loaded in favour of a constructed notion of the masculinist, unencumbered affluent individual. The ‘ideal student’ would demonstrate that they are ‘fit’ in a Darwinian way to take up the subject the minute they enter into the world of higher education. They would be highly motivated and as passionate about their subject as their tutors.” (Vaughan et al. 2008)

This has everything to do with the distorted logic of meritocracy and most especially the idea that we should reward people for their talents and abilities. (Achievement is it’s own reward and we’re in danger of creating complex problems when we create prizes to heap on the already fortunate - I’ll come back to this issue in a later post). The other problem with the idea of meritocracy is that it assumes that we’re ‘good’ at spotting - or agreeing on what constitutes - talent and ability in the first place. Consider for a moment the artist Susan Philipsz who applied, and was rejected, for a place at Glasgow School of Art in the late 80’s. Earlier this year Philipsz was nominated for the Turner Prize, but considering the ‘masculinist’ track record of the Turner Prize judges (3 female winners in a quarter of a century) she probably stands less chance than she did of getting into Glasgow School of Art.

“If there were any sense that someone was going to win because of his or her gender or ethnicity, then the prize would lose all credibility.” - Nicholas Serota

References:

THORNTON, S. 2008. Seven Days in the Art World. Granta, London.

VAUGHAN, S. et al. (2008) Mind the gap : expectations, ambiguity and pedagogy within art and design higher education. In: L. Drew ed. The Student Experience in Art and Design Higher Education : Drivers for Change. Jill Rogers Associates Limited, Cambridge, pp. 125-148.

"Balancing Craft with Thought"

The Loggia, Glasgow School of Art, Jim Hamlyn, 2010

I’ve just started reading ART SCHOOL (propositions for the 21^st Century), a collection of essays edited by Steven Henry Madoff. There’s a rousing comment by Mark Dion on the back cover which ends:

“For those who dare to think and act in a utopian mode, this book is an invaluable instruction manual, manifesto, and blueprint. For entrenched entropic faculty and bureaucratic administrative hacks this book is a brick through their window.”

The first essay, by artist Ernesto Pujol, includes some excellent analysis of the current state of art education in the US, with clear echoes of the UK:

“Many schools are still struggling with artists who found a niche on their faculties during the 1970s and 80s and then stopped growing – an unexpected perversion of tenure, which was meant to secure and promote radical thinking.

As an alternative perspective the essay raises several provocative and much-needed observations and criticisms which would certainly benefit from wider distribution and discussion although, at times, Pujol’s suggestions are perhaps less persuasive than one might wish:

“Students should have to develop fully thought-out written proposals before, during, and after painting and sculpting. I don’t mean that they should do this simply to defend an image or object during individual and group critiques, as students have always done, but to learn how to justify that creation intellectually, beyond the subjective, in our visually dense and materially cluttered world. If they don’t want to do this, they have no business being professional contemporary artists.”

Whilst I’m somewhat sympathetic to this idea, I do think that it’s a little over prescriptive in that it clearly privileges the rational over the intuitive (a criticism recently leveled at me on this blog). However, if you visit Pujol’s own website he says:

“Due to the evolving nature of my art practice, which inhabits an intuitive not-knowing flow, the current working categories are only organizational tools, because the gestures deepen, and thus, interconnect over time.”

So, in the context of his own work, Pujol actually gives a clear acknowledgement to what we might call a ‘pre-critical’ stage in the working process: a not-knowing which, interestingly, is almost identical to Anish Kapoor in my previous post “The Threshold of Meaning”.

Earlier in the essay Pujol states:

“Students should receive training in the basic tools of conceptualism, such as scholarly research and literary writing, as applied to traditional painting, sculpture, printmaking, glass, ceramics, and photographic processes, making muscled and poetic gestures more conscious and articulate and balancing craft with thought, while also gazing selectively at other disciplines.”

Establishing exactly what the correct balance between craft and thought should be, is certainly an important issue. But I would question whether this necessarily demands such an explicit emphasis on scholarly research and literary writing in preference to wider forms of discourse – forms in particular which aren’t so readily co-opted by institutional conventions and control and which therefore encourage - or at least allow - students to construct, adapt, invent and negotiate their own more speculative discursive processes and domains.

So whilst Pujol’s description of the context of US art education is well informed and insightful, his understanding of the complexities, drives and potentials of art students seems a good deal more vague.

Having only read six of the essays in this book so far, I’m beginning to notice a common trend which combines clear insight into the machinations of art education with a comparatively narrow understanding of the varied backgrounds and perspectives of students and learning in general. In other words, interesting as these essays are - without a more robust conception and theorization of WHY people come to art school and especially HOW they learn and develop, what currency can these Propositions for the 21st Century really hope to have?

School of Life

“Ultimately, teaching art means teaching life.” –Boris Groys “Education by Infection” in MADOFF, S.H., ed., 2009. ART SCHOOL (propositions for the 21^st Century)

Room 42, Glasgow School of Art, © Lesley Punton & Jim Hamlyn, 2010

The Threshold of Meaning (a hermeneutic)

"Deluge", backlit photographic print. ©Jim Hamlyn 2010

“In the case of HE art and design courses, where students are often required to change their mode of operating and reconstruct their way of thinking, we often encounter the bewildered expression of those who no longer receive the accolades they have been used to receiving prior to their entrance to higher education.” (Vaughan et al. 2008)

I’d like to take an opportunity here to examine, a little more closely, a couple of issues which came up in a previous post about the common mismatch between the way the art is taught in schools as opposed to art schools and the role that 'meaning' plays in this troublesome transition.

Art classes in schools predominantly emphasize form, technique and imagination to the almost entire exclusion of interpretation and meaning. In this setting, art is perceived and promoted as a purely practical subject and its intellectual and discursive aspects - since they tend to resist quantification and assessment – are simply ignored by the curricula and are neglected by all but the most intrepid and determined of teachers. Many students arriving at art school are therefore surprised – daunted even - to find that the emphasis within many courses is significantly different. Suddenly a whole new edifice is confronting them which demands that they research, develop, consider, articulate, express and interpret meaning in the work they make and that of their peers and other artists. No longer are they expected simply to create imaginative, skillful, beautiful or original representations, but now they must become informed consumers of art and to understand what this stuff they're looking at actually means. Appreciation is no longer just about virtuosity, ingenuity, creativity, originality, beauty, skill, refinement or a litany of famous “Masters” but about ideas, concepts, issues, themes and content. No longer are they being assessed so much for their command of the medium, or even their hard work, but for the depth of their ideas and their articulacy in exploring and expressing them. Unsurprisingly many students begin to ask “why does art have to “mean” something, why can’t it just be beautiful?”

Art is a product of human action - some might call this free will, human ingenuity or creative purpose. However you view it, art is an experience produced by human intention and it’s the results of this intention which many other humans (artists, critics, historians and art lovers etc) wish to contemplate and understand. If there were no intention, then there’d be little point in trying to understand something, but then again, if there were no intention, there probably wouldn't be much to understand in the first place – certainly nothing in terms of ideas.

If we’re simply seeking beauty, we can gaze at the sheer wonder of the world and art simply pales by comparison, but if we want to know how we or other people view and interpret the world, then contemplating, discussing and making art are some of the best ways we can go about this.

"The picture which has the nobler and more numerous ideas, however awkwardly expressed, is a greater and a better picture than that which has the less noble and less numerous ideas, however beautifully expressed. No weight, nor mass, nor beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought.” –John Ruskin

It would seem then, that more than 150 years ago, people were already championing the notion that meaning is something to be strived for and valued in art. But what implications might this have for us artists? Are we expected to conjure up profundity from the ether and transform it into works of majesty and greatness? And if this is the case, wouldn’t the most intelligent artists be, without exception, the best? Fortunately this isn’t the case. Artworks which attempt to communicate an idea are often pedantic dismal failures doomed by a lack of awareness of the creative process as a whole. If making great art was simply a case of coming up with great ideas, then who’d actually need to make anything? - we could just explain the ideas. Skipping the fact that this strategy is sometimes advocated by artists, we can say that the constantly interweaving processes of making and thinking are a vital part of the ‘act’ of creating meaning, and as such, meaning doesn’t have to exist from the outset in the mind of the artist. Meaning can come into being through a gradual and accumulative but considered process of engaging with materials and processes: of making.

British Sculptor Anish Kapoor is often quoted thus:

“I have often said that I have nothing to say as an artist. Having something to say implies that one is struggling with meaning. The role of the artist is in fact that we don’t know what to say, and it is that not knowing that leads to the work.”

Unfortunately such statements can easily be misconstrued. The lack of clarity can be demonstrated by considering the following three examples:

1: Artworks which are made to communicate an idea.
2: Artworks which result from a speculative but informed process of experimentation.
3: Artworks which are the result of a inexpressible outpouring of creative genius.

The problem with Kapoor’s statement is that it suggests that art is formed through the kind of shrouded process as outlined in example 3, whereas the truth is almost certainly much closer to example 2. He might not be “struggling with meaning” as such, but his work is undoubtedly the result of a process and that process isn’t one of “not knowing” but of an evolution out of not knowing; of a gradual accumulation of certainties and the abandonment of error.

Finally then, let’s return the discussion to the plight of the student (to quote John Berger’s provocative essay). Sadly, a number of fine art courses (especially in more traditional subjects like painting or printmaking) continue to pay very little attention to discussing the meaning of the work that students produce. Instead they emphasise a mélange of techniques and a hotchpotch of styles and, if the students are lucky, there may be some discussion of more nebulous qualities of mood and feeling. Students on such courses might experience a smoother transition from school to higher education and may even continue to receive the accolades they have been used to. In a sense they’ll be fortunate to avoid the troublesome threshold of “Meaning”, but they’ll also be much less likely to experience the pleasures and insights of informed interpretation. This is one of the most lamentable consequences of the neglect of Meaning. The other, is the fact that some of these graduates will go on to become school teachers where – due to pitifully impoverished curricula - they’ll have no alternative but to promote the craft of art at the expense of its most profound, if not its most important aspect.

References:

BARRETT, T. (1988) Studies in Art Education, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 22-27 Available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1320648

BERGER, J. (1960). The Plight of the Student. In: Permanent Red. London: Methuen. 51-53. Available online from: http://ml-in.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2330538503&topic=2829

SENECHAL, D. (2010). Teaching Without Gimmicks. Available from: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/learning/teaching-without-gimmicks.html?wprss=answer-sheet

VAUGHAN, S. et al. (2008) Mind the gap : expectations, ambiguity and pedagogy within art and design higher education. In: L. Drew ed. The Student Experience in Art and Design Higher Education : Drivers for Change. Jill Rogers Associates Limited, Cambridge, pp. 125-148.

The Deity of Artists

This deity of all artists sits in quiet judgement expecting no less than our very best efforts and exerting an irrepressible influence over all of our thoughts and ambitions. It is felt as a profound but invisible presence by every artist in every facet of human creation. We offer up prayers to this being in the form of sketchbooks, maquettes and rehearsals and we maintain a habit of daily practice which, when neglected, we feel a crippling guilt and anxiety for our lack of constant vigilance and commitment.

We make regular pilgrimages to cathedral-like edifices to admire the many offerings and sacrifices made to this god, and special ceremonies are regularly held in these buildings where a select congregation are administered wine in a ritual of celebration and respect.

Children are inculcated into the rituals of this religion from an early age but significantly we spare them from any mention of its god. Perhaps like the Jewish god Yahweh, this deity is simply too sacred to be spoken of in anything but the most solemn and serious of terms.

When a select few of these more adept devotee's choose to embark upon the higher study of the faith there is a unexpected change. No longer is the real emphasis on practicing the rituals (although many backward clergymen continue to teach in this mode) but suddenly these novices are expected to interpret and speak the language of this god, a god they’ve barely seen and only vaguely recognise.

Art is clearly the religion, but what name do we give to this sacred being which strikes fear, guilt and confusion into so many? The deity of all artists is Meaning.

The Myth of Genius

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."

-Albert Einstein

Let's think about this for a moment. What do we mean by genius? Someone who consistently creates objects or ideas of sheer brilliance in great flashes of inspiration or skill, or someone who works doggedly at something, making multiple mistakes and iterations to eventually arrive at a successful outcome? Presumably the former. But who fits the bill? Nobody, absolutely no one.

Everything of substance which we use, read, see or listen to, which has been wrought by the hand of woman or man, either sits firmly atop a mountain of forgotten or concealed failures, or has been encircled and elevated by culture and history to such a degree that it is invested with an almost sacred aura. 


But what about Mozart you may ask? Well, if he'd stood before he crawled, or ran before he walked (metaphorically that is!) I would probably have to agree with you, but that doesn't appear to have been the case.


Certainly there have been, and continue to be, individuals with prodigious talents, but it is only through the deft concealment of support, determination, hard work, frustration and a plethora of failures, that anyone might be seen to be a genius. And it is thus that there appear to be no contemporary geniuses despite the fact that by all probability, there should be significantly more than ever.
 History has a canny knack of casting a soft veil over the many toils and disappointments in the lives of our heroes and in so doing it gently polishes their lustrous portraits whilst our own more contemporary representations either sit in dusky corners or reveal their countenances in high-definition with every lurid pixel an embarrassing imperfection.

“The myth of the artistic genius serves to de-socialise the production of art, to disguise the facts of privilege and convention which regulate access to training and advancement. A product of a classed and gender-divided society, this idea of the artist is a veil for the inequalities which sustain its elites.” – Griselda Pollock

But this is great news - not because the idea of genius has turned out to be a fabrication and a delusion, but because now the peak of the mountain is clearer for us all to see and since it’s a mountain of our own making, it should be even easier to climb. So, let's just make sure that each failure is a genuine and dogged attempt to succeed. Then fail, fail, fail again.

"If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." -Thomas Alva Edison

Sgurr a' Bhealaich Dheirg (Rocky Peak of the Red Pass) © J.Hamlyn

Refrences:

Griselda Pollock in R. Parker & G. Pollock (1987). "Framing Feminism". pp. 84-85

Gleick, J (1992). Genius, The life and science of Richard Feynman. New York: Vintage Books.

Imaginary Boundaries blog (specifically this post).

Designing Minds by Edward A. Wasserman, Mark S. Blumberg

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/87448006?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;badge=0&amp;color=ff9933" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/87448006">The Long Game Part 2: the missing chapter</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/delvetv">Delve</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Aspirations

Aspire = to breathe

Expire = breathe out

Inspire = breathe into

Respire = breathe again

Transpire = breathe across

Perspire = breathe through

Conspire = breathe together

Ben More, Mull