SmartHistory Reflection

The SmartHistory lesson of the three individuals discussing war imagery was a powerful one (although it's difficult for me to LISTEN to an art discussion, after my experience with VTS, without wanting to share what I think is going on in the picture!) The voices were clearly educated and intellectual.  My concern with this isn't the content of the discussion, as it is very informative, but how students might perceive it in relation to their own abilities. It asks them to be passive recipients of the information and my guess is, leaves them with the notion that while they learned much from the dissussion, many could not participate at that lofty level.  If I am correct with this, the discussion would motivate those who could, and reinforce the silence of those who felt they could not.

Having said this, I LOVE the combination of imagery; the iconic historical works juxtaposed with the contemporary photographs.  It would indeed be exciting to set the stage with the collections of images and give high school students the opportunity to VTS the information out of them; to discover the parallels and contrasts for themselves, based on their own social studies learning and personal experiences. I think it would both help them retain the information by being active co-constructors of the meaning that clearly related to their own lives and times, and give them a sense of great self-efficacy; that they are highly capable of mining such information from a collection of images in collaboration with their peers.

I am a great fan of Olivia Gude and Paul Duncum and certainly believe that the post-modern principles they propose are most relevant and definitely enrich the artistic dialogue in 21st Century classrooms, but I was struck, too, by the fact that the VCAE approach that guided the participants in the SmartHistory discussion was rich in references to "antiquated" elements and principles.  They referenced them repeatedly as they discussed line in the Goya and David paintings and the photograph of George Bush in combat gear with the calm horizon line behind his head; how they discussed the exaggerated, compressed space of the Goya painting, the dark and light, etc.  Their approach was certainly an amalgam of old and new on various levels and evidenced for me that while we post-modern principles and visual culture understanding are essential for a deep and rich understanding of art images, the old "7 and 7" give students vocabulary and formal understandings necessary to express and debate their readings of the imagery.

Finally, I found acknowlegement in the discussion of how audiences construct meaning beyond the intent of the creator of the image.  In their discussion of the Abu Graib photograph, they discussed "the possibility of an image getting away from the author." It seems in that instance, the reading of the photograph by the audience and their interpretation of it resulted in far greater meaning and significance in terms of social justice than the intent of the photographer (and did you see that diagonal floor line in the picture? Was the photographer really an amateur????)