Musings on art and testing - revised

I am looking for part time and full time jobs because DH's contract may not get renewed so I may need to add to or replace the art teaching jobs I have currently.  So I get job listings sent to me from The Washington Post, Linked in, Idealist, MICA my college and occasionally my grad school. 

Today the Washington Post listings arrived and this was the listing at the top of the e-mail

Art Test Development Specialist

American Institutes for Research

Yes, they are trying to create standardized tests for art,  REALLY.  As I read the job announcement with a mixture of horror and shock I started thinking should I apply?  I do not believe that art is a subject that can be tested on a standardized test.  Art technique can be tested, art history as well. But art as a creative subject? the true heart of what art is about cannot be reduced to a set of standards. The whole point is that art should not, cannot be defined completely. Art is a living, growing, thing and can only be defined as history. Trying to teach students that there are standards in art could very well reduce it to a scene like the one described by Harry Chapin in "Flowers are Red" where the teacher catches a child drawing on the first day of kindergarten and tells him it isn't art time and further more:

Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said.. You're sassy
There's ways that things should be

And you'll paint flowers the way they are. Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

I suppose it might be good to apply for the job to make sure that teachers with that kind of attitude are not the ones writing the tests, but I have a feeling that being a cog in the testing machine would not be easy for some one who has actually been an artist who is a teacher.  So often the people who make decisions about things like testing have not ever been in the class room or even studied the subject they are writing tests for.  Or if they have it was more then 25 years ago. 

I can remember studying for the PRAXIS and being astonished to find that Bachmal sauce was defined as a cheese sauce which it is not, it can be a base for a cheese sauce but it is not a cheese sauce.  I suppose that is as good a reason as any to apply for this job to keep stupid test questions from being put in to the tests they will insist on imposing on poor young artists.

On the other side, I just can't help thinking that this is a way to finally control those crazy art teachers and make them teach the way the powers that be think they should.  Heaven forbid that real artists teach children the subject they have spent their whole lives perfecting and learning.  

Testing art as a subject could be a way to keep "those teachers" from showing pictures of people with no clothes on to students in high school never mind that the nudes they see in art will never  be as sordid as the images they can find on the Internet.  

Standardization can be a way to homogenize art, to keep it from being shocking and challenging to the viewer, the culture, the world. This is a great disservice to art; artists past, and present, student, amateur, and professional alike.  The shocking nature of art, the way it challenges us to see things in new ways is one of the things that makes it so interesting, so moving. Would Picasso's Gurnica have passed a standards test of the time? I doubt it.  In fact historically most of those who have applied standards to art have done so to control it, think of Hitler for example or governments in soviet countries.  When politicians and educators try to hold art to an unmoving set of standards the art that is produced is often nothing more then a technical illustration of the ideals of the regime under which it is produced.  Thank goodness that artists resist control and standardization. By taking advantage of the lack of artistic knowledge of those who require art made to standard, artists are able to poke subtle fun at the very people who ask them to produce it. A good example is Diego Rivera's mural which included a cameo of Stalin among a group of "workers." Of course the mural was taken down and hidden away,  but it was saved from destruction by thoughtful art lovers/historians, and preserved in photographs.

Could standardized testing be a way to convince people of the importance of art education or art in education ? Could standardized test results "prove" that art is as serious a subject as math and science? That art is worthy of being taught as a subject equal to any academic subject? Would testing results help the administrators and politicians to see the study of art as valuable not just for it's value in producing workers; illustrators, architects, package and product designers, interior designers etc. but in training the mind to think and solve problems creatively? Perhaps.

 Standards are important there is no doubt about that, but they are not the only way or even the best way to measure student knowledge or teacher's ability to teach. What standardized  tests are is familiar -- people know what a standardized test is, everyone has taken one at some time in their life.  The results this kind of test produces, statistics, are something beloved by those who have no real knowledge of the subjects which are being assessed. The numbers give them clear answers about things that really are not cut and dried or clear at all. Statistics can be tooled or spun to present exactly the answer required by those who are skilled at writing such things or would favor a certain result.  

A true assessment of art or any other subject is not simple, it requires an expert knowledge of the subject matter and of teaching, it requires talking with teachers, students, former students, parents and administrators about the subject. Once that is done it requires looking at the materials studied, and the experience and training of each teacher, their philosophy about teaching, their subject and what they know about the children they teach.  Another words it takes time, energy and thought. Such an undertaking needs to be done on a school by school, teacher by teacher, student by student basis to be done well at all.  Of course this is expensive and it is the reason standards have been developed.  The thing is at this point it seems as if too much weight has been placed in the testing basket, while other more thoughtful, personal, and time consuming ways of looking at education have been ignored or let go. 

The result has not been good for students or teachers.
when teachers have to teach to a test there are sacrifices made. Projects like planting a school garden and using it to study plants and ecology in science, or art lessons teaching children to draw plants or create art work inspired by the illustrations in books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar in first grade, or learning about John James Audubon and other artists like Beatrix Potter who studied nature carefully to produce their art can't take place because there is not enough time in the schedule.  A Health class using the school garden in more practical ways for teaching nutrition or cooking is swept to the side so students can learn to write in the test format, process information in the way it is presented on the test, memorize the way test information is presented so that the school will get good results and get more funding and teachers and administrators will keep their jobs.  This kind of dependence on testing for adult gain and profit takes the focus off of the real job of educators to teach students to think, reason, and solve problems creatively. Actively helping students to become the new creators and inventors and artists of the world. We are living in a culture that is quickly loosing sight of the forest, not just for the trees but because of the leaves.