Stages of Aesthetic Development by Abigail Housen

Articles in Review:

1)"A Brief Guide to Developmental Theory and Aesthetic Development" by Karin DeSantis and Abigail Housen

2)"Art Viewing and Aesthetic Development: Designing for the Viewer" by Abigail Housen

During the 1970s, Abigail Housen researched what she would later term aesthetic development, or the way in which individuals develop their capacities for processing visual stimuli. Through her studies, she has developed five stages of aesthetic development that she claims are patterns of behavior that cross both cultural and socioeconomic boundaries. These stages show that individuals process visual imagery in a set sequence, and that through frequent encounters with carefully crafted sequences of art these individuals can process visual information in a predictable manner. Each stage has a set of attributes that links to attributes in the other stages of aesthetic development, while they also correlate to the amount of time individuals have spent viewing works of art. It is important to mention that a person at any age that lacks experience viewing works of art will always start at Stage 1. Exposing oneself to art is the only way to develop one's aesthetically receptive portions of their mind. Each stage is equally important.

The Stages of Aesthetic Development are as follows:

1) Stage One: ACCOUNTIVE (Most individuals are in this stage or stage 2)

Accountive viewers tend to be individuals who tell stories or make lists. When viewing a work of art, they make simple, concrete observations using their senses, experiences, and memories. These observations generally are woven into a narrative form, where the viewer enters the work of art. Emotions infuse their comments on works of art, as their judgments are based upon what they know and like.

2) Stage Two: CONSTRUCTIVE (Most individuals are in this stage or stage 1)

Constructive viewers use their own perceptions of, knowledge of, and values of their world to build frameworks for looking at art. Their observations as always made from concrete details in a work. Because these viewers rely upon what they deem realistic to determine value, if a work does not live up to the way in which these viewers suppose an image should be crafted they judge it to be strange and lacking of value. Although at this stage viewers have an increased interest in the artist's intentions for creating a piece, they begin to distance themselves emotionally from works of art.

3) Stage Three: CLASSIFYING

Classifying viewers begin to be critical of works of art, as they take on the role of the analytical station of art historians. They identity works of art based upon school, style, time, technique, place and provenance, and they dig deeper into these works by using their knowledge of the facts and figures of art history. They want to know everything they can possibly know about an artist and his body of work. Ultimately, this viewer believes that if they can categorize a work correctly based upon their knowledge of art history then that work's meaning will become rationalized.

4) Stage Four: INTERPRETIVE

Interpretive viewers seek to interact with art as they strive to find and cherish the subtle elements of a work. As a result, viewers let the underlying meanings (what it symbolizes) of the work come forward. The critical skills dominant in previous stages are now at the service of intuition and feelings. New perspectives and insights emerge with each encounter with a work of art. Since these viewers understand and value the process of reinterpreting art, they see their own ideas as vulnerable to change.

5) Stage Five: RE-CREATIVE

Re-creative viewers are "willing to suspend disbelief," as they now view works of art as old friends who they know in detail but who they know remain full of surprises. Although they acknowledge that artworks have a life of their own, they also feel strongly connected to them due to their understanding of its history. They begin to look at art with a child-like openness. As Housen states, "this viewer combines personal contemplation with views that broadly encompass universal concerns. Here, memory infuses the landscape of the painting, intricately combining the personal and the universal" (DeSantis and Housen 11).

What are the educational implications of aesthetic development?

Housen's theory on aesthetic development and her articulation of this in the five stages described above most certainly parallel the work of Lev Vygotsky, particularly his acknowledgement of the zone of proximal development. "...what Housen's studies have shown is that teaching anything but what the students are on the verge of learning or what is within their 'zone of proximal development' will not become operational to the student" (DeSantis and Housen 12). I find this to be of particular worth. As Housen states, "Education is about providing a taste of the next, proximal way of thinking (Housen 13). In this mode of teaching/facilitating, the learner is placed within a situation where the potential for further learning is positioned directly in front of him/her. The environment is tailored to their learning potential based upon the images chosen.

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Let's take a look at what Housen says about the role of the teacher:

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"The teacher's role is not so much to impart fact, or manage drill and practice, but to facilitate the learner's process of discovery. The teacher enables development by creating and managing a supportive learning environment that encourages learners to discover new ways to find answers to their own questions, to construct meaning, to experience, and to reason about what they see. The act of constructing meaning cannot be something taught; the learner must discover his meaning on his own" (Housen 14).

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This focus on developing skills within one's students that serve to facilitate and encourage the learner's ability to discover and probe undoubtedly proves value to us as museum educators. Is this not what we are striving to create? Are we not striving to build skills within our visitors that provide the foundation for life-long learning? Perhaps, we are looking for more than that--to provide information (more on that in the next post). Regardless, we cannot neglect the importance of developing the baseline skills that later serve to create meaningful museum visits for our audience members.

Article in Review: "A Brief Guide to Developmental Theory and Aesthetic Development" by Karin DeSantis and Abigail Housen

Before I describe the stages of aesthetic development as defined by Abigail Housen, it is imperative to take a look back at earlier developmental theories that have paved the way for such a categorization of behaviors in terms of visual properties.

Developmental theory is grounded in the knowledge that learning occurs as a result of individuals interacting with their environment (people, people's behavior, objects, products of the natural world, etc.) and reflecting upon this interaction (2). Experience is the catalyst for learning; individuals learn by understanding the world around them and the experiences had within this world. "In other words, for learning to occur, an individual does something, experiences and thinks about the results of the action (including verbal 'actions'), and decides what these results mean to her/him" (2).

Ultimately, the search for knowledge occurs when an individual encounters "some kind of dissonance--when individuals see something that they do not understand or cannot do, or when a strategy on which they rely does not achieve the desired goal" (3). The process of understanding can be linked to a process of

a) assimilation (taking in information from experiences and then applying it); and
b) accommodation (changing existing mental strategies as a result of new perceptions within one's environment).

The process of development call equilibration is the way one seeks to resolve the conflicts between existing perceptions of the world or ways of thinking about the world and the information presented by new experiences (4).

The concepts of assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration all neatly fall in line with the principles set forth by Dewey. It is by previous experiences that our current experiences gain form, color, and meaning.

Piaget:

Jean Piaget's theories on cognitive development find their articulation in a sequence of stages. These stages:

1) are in a predictable, measurable order;
2) are equally important;
3) have their own unique characteristics;
4) each bring a new level of thought and meaning; and
5) are contiguous, meaning that individuals move from one stage to the next, never skipping any single stage (5).

The four main stages Piaget defines in the cognitive development of children are as follows (5-6):

1) Sensori-motor Stage: Ages 0-2 years. At this stage, infants understand the world strictly by using their senses, through their movement, and seeing how these two sources of knowledge relate to one another. Children learn by taking action on physical things, usually repeating their actions in the process of attempting to control that experience (5).

2) Pre-operational Stage: Ages 2-7 years. During this stage children move away from only relying upon their senses and movement to using symbols and words as they develop the skill of representation. Words, especially, replace actions and things that are not physically present. Children at this stage use imaginative play. They also lack the cognitive ability to place themselves in another's shoes.

3) Concrete-Operational Stage: Ages 7-12 years. Abstract thought on real experiences is the hallmark of this cognitive stage. The catalyst for this capacity to exercise abstract thought is always physical objects.

4) Formal-Operational Stage: Ages 12+. The adolescent at this stage begins thinking in terms of the hypothetical, can speculate, and thinks in terms of ideas rather than just physical objects. Egocentrism, or the lack of "the cognitive flexibility to take someone else's position," has passed, as the adolescent can now view things from another's perspective (6).

Certainly, the theories set by Piaget inform our understanding of how children develop cognitively. Knowing these stages of development can not only help VTS facilitators to select images that will target the cognitive behaviors dominant for a certain age group but it also can assist facilitators in understanding the responses generated by their audience. As with any educational endeavor, the more you understand the cognitive composition of your students, the better able you will be in teaching in a way that has meaningful influence both intellectually and emotionally.

Vygotsky:

Lev Vygotsky, rather than studying how children come to think, focused his research on how other individuals in a child's life can contribute to their intellectual growth--what is called the social development theory. For Vygotsky, all learning starts with the interaction of a child and those individuals who are the primary people in his/her life (parents and teachers). In order for learning to occur, facilitated interactions must happen between the child and one of the central people in his/her life. Initially, the child simply observes these interactions, but in time he/she takes in these interactions and they become components of the strategies by which he/she lives (7).

Over time, as a child continues to encounter and perform behaviors seen around them, they develop mental scripts to guide their social interactions. Learning then occurs first on a social plane (interpersonal) and then on a personal plane (intrapersonal) as the child begins to verbalize his/her experiences. "This process leads finally to learning that is no longer wholly dependent on interactions, but also requires that the individual be able to reflect on a range of her/his existing 'menus' or cognitive strategies" (7).

Vygotsky also claimed that learning generally occurs when a problem "is both within the range of an individual's existing capabilities and involves the support or assistance of an adult or more capable peer" (8). What Vygotsky labeled the zone of proximal development is the distance between where a child actually is developmentally and that child's potential developmental level.

Vygotsky's theories, more so than Piaget's in my opinion, apply very clearly and closely to the work done in VTS lessons. The idea that facilitated interactions can succeed in creating mental guidelines for behavior seems of vast importance. The zone of proximal development is thereby a tool through which VTS facilitators can map out a group's learning potential (perhaps too hard to target a single individual) and strive to obtain some progress. Once again, the only stumbling block here is coming to an understanding of the cognitive composition of a child or group at a given moment, so as to make movement forward developmentally. Can this be done in a VTS lesson? If so, how?

Some Inspiring Quotes on Effective Teaching

"It makes sense, then, for those of us who are particularly invested in the value of art to maximize any opportunity and to teach in such a way as to increase capacities--and indeed maintain the openness with which naive viewers begin."

-Philip Yenawine

"In the arts as well as elsewhere in education, the best teacher is not the one who deals out all he knows or who withholds all he could give, but the one who, with the wisdom of a good gardener, watches, judges, and helps out when help is needed."

-Rudolf Arnheim

The quotes above perfectly sum up two important characteristics of teaching--both of which have immense implications for our work within museums. They are:

1) Maintaining Openness and
2) Being a Careful Observer/Facilitator

In the first quotation presented here, we are introduced to a teacher whose focus is to amplify existing traits within their students, maximize the opportunities surrounding their students, and to maintain a sense of freedom, comfort, and exploration among the environment in which their students are placed. Particularly important is this last trait--maintaining openness--for it is only when we as teachers continually present to our students an atmosphere of inclusion, discovery, and risk that our students truly take the steps necessary to fill that void with their own creative energies. Our students cannot progress into an arena of self-generated creativity if we do not allow space for them to move, investigate, and map out their own terrain. In our museums, we must give permission and grant access to the body of knowledge we hold in order that those we teach can see new ground to explore, manipulate, categorize and define.

The second quotation reminds us that we take a backseat to the process our students go through in order to get to their desired educational end. Yes, we play a key role in providing room for our students to move intellectually, but how they move is up to them. We can guide them on their journey, blocking certain pathways so as to set them on a course to success. We can certainly set parameters; however, the organic movement of our students within that space is of the most important worth. Surely, the end product of learning is a desirable and admirable goal, but the process of learning can hold power far greater than any concrete knowledge can.