S tudy P age for Test 2
Art 309:Art for Children, spring 2001, Marvin Bartel, Instructor, Goshen College
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This test is scheduled for Monday, November 25, 2002, in AD 28.
Last Updated on November 19, 2002
The test format will be similar to test 1 with several matching sections and an essay section. There may be some items asking for lists and/or some true/false items.

It is recommended that you study with at least one other student in the class so that you can collectively develop answers for questions that require creative thinking.

  • Test 2 is over class materials covered since test 1.
  • The test is including chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 in the text.
  • Study Key Terms lists at the end of each chapter 4,5, 6, and 7.
  • Know something about the main artists that have been presented in our webquest presentations
    • Use Google to find examples of their work if you have trouble remembering it.
  • review the art history, the art elements and principles, creative strategies, materials and processes, and so on from our own studio sessions.
  • What are the characteristics of creative children, problems they face, how we discourage creativity and how do we foster creativity.
    • My links to some things about creativity are on this page .  Not all of these have been shown in class, so review the ones you have seen.  We will cover others later.

    What unpleasant student life experiences are appropriate for school art motivation?  Some are discussed in the text.  Also look at the pictures in the text for examples of unpleasant topics.

    What famous and very creative non-artists in history studied art as part of their early training (page 270)?  (Our daugter and our son are successful patent holding frequently published scientists who grew up using creative art activities as a "thinking practice" activity.  Their success in science requires visual thinking and many of the traits listed for creative individuals.)

    Review many of the common ways that visual thinking is represented on page 210.  Which of these do you think are primarily left brain modes and which could be done as right brain ways of working?

List of matching terms used on first two tests previous years . This year we are not covering exactly the same materials, but there is some overlap.

All bold faced words in the text are particularly important. Practice their meanings by making up questions about them and examples about them that apply to the lessons you are planning to field teach. Examples: (for visual thinking ) How, specifically, will I be asking the student to do visual thinking? (for perception ) How, specifically, will I be helping the child improve or practice her/his perceptual ability? We have learned when our behaviors change. When we actually apply what we learn to our teaching methods, this becomes the best evidence that we have learned something.

Study rituals, lectures, handouts (a number of them from Cornett in integrated learning) , and your class notes , from both the 1 P.M. and the 2 P.M. sessions since test.

Don't forget to review the art history, the art elements and principles, creative strategies, materials and processes, and so on from our own studio sessions. Who are the artists we have studied in class and who are artists described in these three chapters? Why were these particular artists used?

Are you prepared to write an essay on how to prepare children for creating art if you don't show an example for them to copy? Can you write an essay on questions to ask after they have completed their work or about questions to ask in an art museum or when looking at a reproduction?

Questions to study:

  1. What does Betty Edwards think needs to be learned in order to learn to draw.
  2. What are the stereotyping influence of school workbook routines.

    3. https://www.goshen.edu/~marvinpb/11-13-01/Effects-of-Stereotypes.html
  3. What are the types of creativity?
  4. Which types are most common and which are rare?

    5. https://www.goshen.edu/~marvinpb/11-13-01/types-of-creativity.html
  5. What are the Problems in the classroom for Creative Children?
  6. What are the Traits of highly creative people?
  7. What are positive and creative ways of responding to mistakes
  8. What are the categories and types of questions teachers can use to lead a discussion of art work?
  9. What are the possible reasons that fewer children are assessed as highly creative in grade 2 compared to kindergarten?
  10. What are changes in teaching methods might retain children's ability and disposition to think creatively as they mature.
  11. How long a list of reasons can you make for what makes live animals good subjects for children's art work?
  12. What are other compelling subjects (topics), in addition to animals, for children's art assignments?
  13. What are the typical changes in appropriate motivational topics and subject matter as children get older?
    14. "Symbolic self-portraits" are a form of visual story telling (page 184).  Which three of our studio projects have been "symbolic self-portraits"?
  14. How long a list of compelling and appropriate social issues (topics) that could be used as creative group projects in art?
  15. What, other than following directions and neatness, can you list to use in a rubric as important aspects of evaluating art learning.
  16. How could you give children individual positive informative feedback on their work?  Can it be done without having them go away with negative feelings about doing artwork?  What would be a good way to do this without spending too much teacher time?
  17. What is are the relative merits of making suggestions and asking open questions when it comes to teaching children how to think and solve problems for themselves?
  18. In what situations would it be better not to do a demonstration in front of the class?  What other ways might a new process be taught without providing a teacher demonstration?
  19. What kinds of things happen to attitude and learning when punishment or threat is used for motivation?



  1. According to Claudia Cornett in Creating Meaning Through Art and Literature (page 9) missed chances to develop the brain's frontal lobes can leave lifelong handicaps.  At what age are the frontal lobes completely developed?
  2. What explanations does Cornett give for the better achievement, attitudes, and behaviors of students in schools that emphasize the arts?
  3. Can you give examples of integrating art and another subject by teaching the art prior to the other subject and teaching the art portion so students do it creatively?
  4. Can you explain the difference between teaching children to be explorers and questioners and teaching children to learn sets of facts and information.
  5. In your field teaching you are asked to think of the sequence of an art lesson.  What are the first things, the middle things, and the end things.
  6. What kind of questions are NOT open or fat questions and what are examples of good open and fat questions? (Cornett page 52, 53)
  7. Why might Japanese children be less apt to suffer from a crisis of confidence in grade 3?
  8. Japanese students regularly outscore our students in subjects like math.  Are their any reasons that their art experiences might help them have the ability to focus on serious learning tasks for longer time periods?
  9. Art History exemplars for our clay animal studio could be the surreal sculpture work of Picasso and the surreal work of Dali.  What are the similarities of their work and work we did?
  10. Art History examples of self-portrait work could be the work of Frida Kahlo.  What are the similarities and differences between her work and and our own self portrait studio work in montage and collage?
  11. Art History exemplars for our painting studio could be work by Marc Chagall .

    12. What is the connection between his work and story telling art?
  12. What is the connection between his work and art that deals with social issues?
  13. Can you describe any of your work this term as belonging to one or more of  Eisner's four types of creativity ?

Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 begin with references to several of the leading educational theorists. You are very likely to study them in other courses at Goshen College and in your graduate courses.

Viktor Lowenfeld , wrote Creative and Mental Growth in which he deals with Creativity and explains the artistic stages of children.
Lowenfeld's book shows the effects of school workbook stereotypes on a child's drawings of birds.  The child's bird changes from a richly feathered composite of wing, tail, body, and head, to a simple V symbol of a bird in flight.

What does Csikenlmihalyi have to say about creativity as it relates to the difficulty of an assignment (our text page 262)?  How is creative "flow" achieved?  How does this relate Bartel's statement in class:  "It is the teacher's job is to make the easy stuff harder and the hard stuff easier."  Can you think of times when you have you experienced creative flow?  What were the circumstances?  Was a teacher involved?  Was there something about the design of the lesson or setting that facilitated your creativity?  How would a teacher make hard stuff easier in art?  How is easy stuff made harder in art?  When I taught photography, I often worked to make it harder.  When teaching the potter's wheel, I often worked to make it easier.

Betsy L related to us on Thursday that her 5-year-old field teaching student told her, "You have to be quiet now so I can work."  This was a very intuitive and knowing response.  A child at 5 can know about creative flow.  Too often by age 10 it is too rare.

Why do you think highly creative individuals are somewhat more prone to respond with an opposite when administered a free association word response test ?


With respect to learning from our mistakes , here is an article by
Malcolm Gladwell, " The Physical Genius
What do Wayne Gretzky, Yo-Yo Ma, and a brain surgeon have in common?"
http://www.gladwell.com/1999_08_02_a_genius.htm
This article also appeared in the New Yorker , August 8, 1999

At one point Gladwell is discussing how Don Quest can predict which students will become highly successful surgeons.
(quote is from page 3, paragraph 2)
" Have you ever made a mistake? And, if so, what was your worst mistake? The people who said, 'Gee, I haven't really had one,' or, 'I've had a couple of bad outcomes but they were due to things outside my control'--invariably those were the worst candidates (to become surgeons). And the residents who said, 'I make mistakes all the time. There was this horrible thing that happened just yesterday and here's what it was.' They were the best. They had the
ability to rethink everything that they'd done and imagine how they might have done it differently." "

Possible Essay questions for teachers:
What if we used Don Quest's criteria to eliminate teacher training candidates?

Would we still have teachers sitting around in the teachers lounges spending as much time complaining about the problem students and their problem parents?  Some teachers feel these are things that are out of their control.  Might teachers who like to learn from their mistakes spend more time exchanging their best ideas to overcome these problems?

How can we teach art lessons in a way that all our children begin to love their mistakes so they become the kind of adults who have learned how to learn?  Is it done by punishing mistakes?  Is it done by rewarding and explaining good work?  What ways produce self-learners who want to practice and who want to learn from their mistakes?

Should teachers who do not think they make mistakes be allowed to work with our children?  Teaching is not brain surgery.  Teaching should be brain development.  Should college students' attitudes toward their own mistakes be taken into account in Goshen College's teacher training selection and approval process?










Ten reasons Creative Children may experience
problems in the typical classroom.

1  Intelligent children are liked more by most teachers
2. Factual material is easier to test
3. Creative children are more apt to threaten teacher’s ideas
4. We often lack a reward system for creative
5. There are too few  individualized learning opportunities
6. There is not enough encouragement for curiosity
7. Many teachers feel that school is no place for silly
8. Creative children may be seen as deviant
9. Things are too easy or too hard (not challenging or to frustrating)
10. Some lack social skills and/or verbal skills

The above are not simply for art situations, but for the general classroom.  Unfortunately, some research also shows that creative teachers are not as well liked by the school administrators.  If we are creative teachers, we may need to try harder to get on the good side of the administration (for the sake of the students in our classes).

Also see this page for Classroom Creativity Killers and ways to nurture creativity


Traits of Highly Creative people as determined by studying highly accomplished persons in many fields of endeavor.
  1. Self-confident
  2. Flexible  &  Fluent
  3. Independent & more apt to try Opposites
  4. Face Problems (less likely to suppress or deny them)
  5. Unafraid to Recall Unpleasant Past Experiences
  6. More Skeptical
  7. Aware and Sensitive
  8. High Energy Level
  9. Tolerate Many Unfinished . . . .
  10. Like Experiencing more than Judging
  11. See Unique Similarities












Here are some essay questions about our ability to recognize highly creative children and respond appropriately to them:
  • How can I recognize these highly creative gifted children in my classroom? How can I as a teacher of young children respond in helpful ways when I have children in my class who have the ability to learn and create similar to a young Sigmund Freud, the young Mozart, a young Albert Einstein, a young Virginia Wolfe, a young Elvis, the young Beatles, or a young Gandhi? How do I keep from "educating the genius out of children"? Doctors have to take an oath to "do no harm" to their patients. What if teachers had to take an oath to do no harm to their students minds?  How might this change the way teachers teach?

  • What can I as a teacher do to facilitate the kinds of thinking habits that will never engender "learned helplessness"  in my students?  You can find the term "learned helplessness" on page 248 & 249 of our text as well in the Cornett materials.
    • What are examples of things done by teachers and parents that promote learned helplessness?
  • In studying the habits of work of artists, we find that they repeat similar subjects over and over in their work, making only relatively small changes from one work to the next.  Even artists like Picasso, who make many different types of work, make many similar examples of each kind that they make.  Why do they do so many similar works? What does this suggest to us about how variety and how much depth we should try to include when we teach art? How important is it to help children learn to experience a high level of skill, a high level of competence, a high level of understanding by providing repeated practice?  Compare this with how important is it for them to continually create low skilled first-time experiences that are not related to each other in order to get a large variety of art experiences?

  • How can I as a teacher help the children in my classes reflect and leverage their most effective and creative selves?
  • What are some examples of ways that a teacher could use questions to replace other teaching methods?  How would you word questions that foster thinking and learning how to learn?
    • How might a teacher "train" students to help each other in ways that honor the creative thinking and problem solving ability of every student?  How does this help the teachers?  What benefits accrue to the student learner and what are the benefits to the student who is the teacher?  What would be the negative things that could happen that should be avoided?
    Terminology and jargon in education can be interesting and confusing at times.  Claudia Cornett says that 'examples' are good and 'models' are bad (page 53-54).  How does this relate to what we have been learning about how we give instructions for an art activity?  Can you explain this and reconcile it with what we have been learning and experiencing about teaching and learning art in our class?  Understanding this may help us learn what to imitate and when to innovate.





    Assessment Rubric Form (an example in process for art history, aesthetics, and art criticism)
    Assessment Rubric Form (an example for artwork production showing terms and concepts)
    Classroom Creativity Killers
    Notes from Lectures


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