The Peripatetic School of Art
As an example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, I submit the scholastic letter grade scale of A, B, C, D, and F. As a specific instance, take a student with a 3.5 grade point average. This student consistently earns both A grades, and B grades. Another instance, this one a student with a 2.5 grade average, will consistently earn C grades, and B grades.
The 3.5 grade-point-average student aims for A grades (but sometimes falls short). This student could be said to aim high. The 2.5 grade-point-average student does not expect to earn grades higher than B, and therefore could be said to aim lower. Both students are doing the best they can -but one is said to have lower expectations than the other.
As a student I remember taking a test, or quiz, and feeling good about my answers afterward. Before the test was graded, and returned to me, I expected a better test score than I received. After, I was surprised and disappointed when the returned test results were worse than I had expected. After the experience was repeated several times, I discovered one thing: my short-term memory is weak. The Dunning-Kruger Effect (as we know it, today), therefore, speaks to me.
Experiences like this, and the advice of others, determined my aptitude for art. Scholastic courses are required for Bachelor of Fine Art Degree, but the core curriculum of art is in studio studies, in which, at the end of the semester, students either pass proficiency -or fail. How, otherwise, can creativity be graded? This anomaly is addressed fully in specifically art education courses of study. These courses, incidentally, are letter-graded.
If creative education cannot be measured in terms of a simplistic A, B, C, D, or F, grading system, commitment can be so graded. Failure to attend classes in art school results in failure to earn credit for the class, which, ultimately, is the cause of failure to graduate. Nobody ever asks what an artist's grade point average was. The study of art is a commitment, and it shows, for all the world to see. It cannot be quantified.
My most advanced art classes were stand-at-the-easel painting studios. My experience of studying in the studio/classroom was of comparing my work side-by-side with other art students in attendance. The easels at which each student worked were randomly distributed around the room. It was impossible not to see the studio work of, or be seen by, the other painting students in the studio class.
Depending on the disposition of the painting instructor, the studio classroom entrance door may have been left open, so that casual passers-by might enter from the hallway to observe. Visitors might stand side-by-side with students. Painting students learn this way—by seeing each other's progress—unlike an academics classroom, in which the instructor stands at the head of rows of students seated at desks, or before an auditorium, as the students listen while the instructor lectures, taking notes, or jotting comments in the margins of textbooks.
Both art school and the scholastic curriculum involve homework and individual study. The academics classroom, as a consequence, is a more individual experience—unlike the art studio—which is more collaborative. In the art studio classroom everyone can tell who has talent and who does not, while at the same time, (as I am fond of repeating) not everyone is a perceptive a critic of art. That includes objective evaluation of one's own painting ability.
Aristotle maintained there are two kinds of learning; (1) reasoning for one's self (induction), and (2), being taught by others (deduction). Scholastic subjects must be mastered by the learner individually—before test time—at which time, the student is tested -individually. Conversely, the art of painting is taught—and learned—pedagogically. Both teachers, and advanced students (teaching assistants), are present in the painting studio classroom throughout to guide learning.
For artists, the true test is after graduation. Being seen, therefore, is of the utmost importance to students of art. After graduation artists must exhibit -or remain amateurs. It is a predicament similar to the mandate of the academic professions to “publish or perish.” Not everyone who graduates with a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences Degree advances to publishing. Most professions do not require publication for professional participation.
We may never know what the graduates of art school—those who do not show—do after graduation. It is my personal rule to always encourage anyone who wants to be an artist to persist -without judgment. Criticize your own work, I say, but never reject it as unworthy.
Practice makes perfect, and persistence can transform a crude, student-level style of painting, into an unique, original work of art. Some of the best paintings (in my opinion) are very badly painted, and yet they are engaging -unlike the bland output of the academic, blue ribbon contest winner. The over-estimation of ability by the bad painter can thus be transformed into the under-appreciation of great painting by the good painter.