If you have time to consider these thoughts before attending the focus group, we would be grateful.
Little to no scholarship exists on evaluating creative work at the post-secondary level. The most comprehensive source is James Elkins’ iconoclastic monograph Why Art Cannot Be Taught (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001). Howard Becker, author of Art Worlds, states that Elkins “challenges the comfortable myths that all art schools run on: that art can be taught: that we know what we're doing when we try to teach art: that the class critiques which are the heart of art school teaching make some kind of sense.” However, Elkins does not discuss the issue of evaluation. His main focus is semantic—an argument about what art teachers actually do and what they should call it.
“First, we do not know how we teach art, and so we cannot claim to teach it or to know what teaching it might be like. ... The teacher's lack of control becomes a cliché, and the idea that there is no method for teaching art becomes a truism.” (Elkins, 91)
Our research focuses on strategies for evaluating creative work. Some art/theatre schools do not grade students' creative output. What impact does this have on student engagement, motivation and scholarship acquisition? What criteria do MFA programs use to evaluate creative output and would pass/fail studio/workshop classes pose barriers to admission or fellowships?
“If art is made with the help of mania, then certainly ordinary teaching can have little effect - and if it is inspired teaching, then it isn't teaching in the sense I mean it here, but something more like infection. I may give someone the flu, but I am hardly ever sure when or how I did it. Teaching mania by being ecstatic and inspirational is like being infected and spreading disease: you can't really control it.” (Elkins, 95)
How does marking creative production or performance relate to the world outside and after University? Can we find models of assessment that reflect the realities of the publishing world, gallery system, theatre world, festival circuit or peer jury granting system? While critical reviews of art and literature in the “real world” are by nature subjective, post-secondary evaluation should not be.
“I think most teachers would say that they don't claim to teach art directly; but on an institutional level, the schools and departments where they work continue to act as if art teaching might be taking place. ... The fact that it is so hard to know what it might mean to teach art tends to keep teachers going: it spurs them to teach in many different ways. In that sense, teaching physics or television repair is much less engrossing, because there is no need to continually question the enterprise itself.” (Elkins, 96)
What does an emerging artist or writer need to learn? A good mentor will encourage students to take risks. How do we grade risk taking? Taking risks may mean producing a painting or a poem that isn't the student's strongest but is part of a necessary process toward a creative breakthrough—the results of which will be evident in the next poem, perhaps written outside of class. Standard evaluation practices do not address these process-oriented complexities. Furthermore, what place do craft and technique have in post-secondary evaluation? Do different disciplines view craft with the same regard? Can craft or technique be quantified?
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