A Critical Review of ‘Thinking Outside and on the Box: Creativity and Inquiry in Art Practice’ by Julia Marshall.

This article is looking into creative learning processes, how and what students learn from creative arts projects. Marshall states in her opening paragraph states that the ‘learning that takes place in art practice also is receiving significant attention. The concurrent emphases on creativity and learning in art education challenge teachers to foster the two together’. (Marshall 2005)  This is an area that I have been researching through out the module, art is as academic a subject as any other; the contextual side of the subject hold as much importance as the practical. The focus of her article is on theories of creative stages, with particular reference to Wallas and how these stages related to a specific project she was working on with a group of students in a high school in San Francisco studying art 101. This was the first issue that I had with the article, at no point did she state what age group these students were, this would be clear to a person with an understanding of the American school system but if you don’t them you would have to estimate their ages from the photographs, you also have no idea of how much artistic training they have previously had.

I found the overall content of the article quite basic, she gives a very brief overview of the project that the students are undertaking but not enough to fully understand the project or it’s purpose. Marshall states at the start of the article that whilst doing this project she would be using two students for a case study, but I did not see the purpose of this as she very briefly mentions the students work and their reflections on the project but in my opinion not enough to warrant the case study. There was no real in site into their work and at no point did you get the feeling that the reader is actually gaining anything from knowing this all it really shows the reader is this is insider research and not hypothetical. She could have more effectively given and overview of the project by mentioning areas where some or all of her students struggled or excelled. Stage nine is known as ‘reflection’ Marshall suggests that the teacher, at this point ask the students what they have learnt. Many students spoke of learning to use tools, researching and the design process, I am sure that they learnt much more than this. In my experience if the teacher states from the out set what they expect the students to learn i.e. The proper use of tools and processes then when students are asked to reflect on the project then the teacher will get a much more personal response on their individual projects.

In her article Marshall said that she was very careful to give the student a clear assignment whilst still leaving them wide parameters to experiment. I believe that giving students creative freedom is hugely important, one of the key concepts of art is to be creative, to come up with your own solutions to a problem or to express your opinion. If the parameters are very constrictive it defeats the point of it being a creative subject. When explaining the assignment Marshall showed the student a finished prototype, personally I don’t think this is the best approach at the beginning of a project. I believe that that idea will push them all in one direction. Imagine some one was asking you to think of something, anything in the world but was holding a banana in front of your eyes do you think you could think of anything else? Give the students examples of multiple initial ideas yes but don’t show them your outcome at the start.

The article is base around Wallas’ theory of creative stages which as she mentions has been updated by a number of other theorists but at no point mentions any of them by name or how they have elaborated on Wallas’ theory. This would have been useful for readers who wish to research this topic further.

I think she was trying to much to try and fit the stages of the project into the theory of creative stages and not allowing it to grow organically. Another possible way of approaching this inquiry would have been to get the students to complete the project then ask them to say how their project followed the ten stages. Not only would this give the researcher much more information to base their inquiry on but would also make the students aware of the stages and encourage them to reflect upon a project once it has been completed. The style of writing is very factual, short sentences and headed paragraphs which can break up the flow of the piece. In this occasion I felt that it stopped her from explaining things fully she focused more on what happened when then how it happened and why. In our art classes we try and encourage our students to draw on personal experiences as much as possible, we believe that by doing this the student will have a unique in site into the project and a much firmer understanding of it. Is this why Eric chose to look at the academic pressure that students are under? Does he feel this pressure and is making this product based on personal experiences or is he approaching this project as a outsider? How has either influenced his outcome?  As the age of the students is unknown it is difficult to gage how much these influences should have been taken into consideration.

Emphasising the learning aspect of creative subjects is very important and something which I plan to investigate at length in my inquiry but I think one needs to emphasise not only the range of skills that is learnt but that a creative outcome is a personal response thus each student learns something different from a project. The article contained a lot of useful information particularly for me and my line of inquiry but the way that it was written gave the indication that she had her conclusion before starting the inquiry and was trying to fit the project with the high school students into what she already knew to be true.