Aesthetic Ability Research Articles

Using research in teaching: Notes from National Assessment: Recognizing and naming solids

Little attention was given to the study of geometry in the elementary school until the curriculum changes instituted during the 1960s. The goals for geometry in the modern programs varied from visualizing and describing spatial concepts and relationships to developing aesthetic abilities and critical thinking skills. In addition to the importance of developing spatial concepts, some mathematics educators feel that geometric ideas are helpful in developing certain measurement and number ideas. Thus geometry has several basic ro les to play in the elementary school mathematics curriculum and its inclusion is well justified.

Goethes Vorstellung von einer idealen Lesergemeinde

In Goethe's own judgment the success of his works was frequently due to a misunderstanding. In principle he did not regard his writings as suitable for the general reading public. As a result the conviction manifested itself in him quite early that in his works he was actually addressing only a small congregation. He thought of this congregation as distinguished less by aesthetic abilities than through special properties of character. Only such readers whose views were congruent with his own could derive ethical benefit from his works, and he considered these benefits to be of the highest importance. It would easily have been possible for Goethe to use his strong personality to exert his influence on his congregation. Especially in the poet's youth, the temptation to do so was always strong. Goethe, however, consistently declined to play the role of a prophet, wishing to act only as a poet. In his later years Goethe increasingly used the word `congregation' in his works to describe the public to which he was speaking. This congregation is characterized in great detail in a littleknown late poem.

On the Nature of Musical Talent

One of the outstanding applications of psychology to education during recent years has consisted in the development of methods of measuring intelligence and the results have been so successful that intelligence tests now form part of the normal procedure in selecting pupils in school for higher forms of educational training. If intelligence tests had no other value, their use would be justified in that they have enabled us to find out many facts regarding the nature of intelligence; for example, we now know that “The observed facts indicate that all branches of intellectual activity have in common one fundamental function (or groups of functions) whereas the remaining or specific elements seem in every case to be different from that in all the others.” (Spearman.) Now it is well known that aesthetic abilities are generally regarded as standing quite apart from say ordinary vocational aptitudes. The musician and the artist have often been treated by educationists as being a class by themselves, an attitude which has been fostered by the musicians who have let the idea become current that their subject is not capable of being assessed in the same terms as those of the other school subjects. This is amusingly illustrated by the case of the musical adviser to a certain education authority who refused to attend schools at the same time as the inspectors of the ordinary school subjects.