Abstract
The ability to appreci-ate can and should be taught as a skill.
Two hundred high school students were seated at a rehearsal of a famous ballet company. One student leaned over to another and stated in a voice loud enough to be heard several rows back, “What are we suppose to be looking at?” Another student more quietly replied, “They want us to learn to appreciate this stuff. How they want us to appreciate it . . . I do not know.”
This scenario is not unique. Art exhibitions, concert performances, museum tours, and other field trips initiated and conducted with the purposes of expanding the curriculum and enriching the experiential backgrounds of gifted learners often do not meet the very goal for which they were designed. Disappointment in the gap between what was anticipated that these experiences would achieve and the actual experiences students have from these encounters leads to this question: Has a differentiated curriculum for gifted students deliberately included the skill sets that introduce, apply, and practice the “art of appreciation?”
The ability to appreciate can and should be taught as a skill. It is often assumed by educators that the confrontation with a classical experience such as the opportunity to watch and listen to the popular opera at the noted city’s famous concert hall should elicit certain response patterns of appreciation from students. However, it has been noted by the students themselves that the experience of viewing the venue had greater significance than did the presentation of the performance. “Well, that is today’s students,” stated one teacher to another. However, were the students’ reactions a consequence of their lack of value for the performance or the lack of having been taught how to appreciate any performance? Should we blame the students who did not appreciate what they experienced, or the curriculum and instruction that were void of the very skill it was expected the students would practice as they watched the performance?
The art of appreciation can be taught as a member of various skills sets. These skill sets emphasize the relationships between comprehending the meaning of the skill of appreciation and reinforcing the application of the skill of appreciation. Developing the competency of appreciation should be taught as a companion to the many and different contexts that give it meaning. There are many pathways to facilitate how to understand, value, and support the development of the art of appreciation.
There is a curricular and instructional sequence to consider in teaching gifted students the art of appreciation. The following learning experiences and charts are part of a curriculum design to teach the art of appreciation.
Introducing key words that relate to the “language of the discipline.” Value Usefulness Beauty Perceptions Assessment Recognition
Assessing the evolution and relevance of something.
Introducing different perspectives used to view and assess something.
Recognizing the appreciation is situationally referenced.
The value of intentionally teaching the art of appreciation to gifted students is related directly to establishing the meaning and value for accomplishments and the realization that there are multiple modes of expressing accomplishments. Educators of the gifted consistently have discussed the importance of assisting students to realize their potential. A concomitant feature of realizing one’s potential is to understand and appreciate how potential is expressed in the accomplishments of others. To appreciate something is not necessarily synonymous with “loving” it as what has been experienced from it. To appreciate something is to value the experience for its range of qualities. The students in the scenario who had gone to the ballet rehearsal could have been previously taught to appreciate the dance as it was related to movement in sports. The students could have been taught to appreciate the ballet story in movement as they had been taught to appreciate a story for its language patterns. Importantly, the students would have been taught the art of appreciation.
Footnotes
Conflict of Interest
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Bio
Sandra N. Kaplan, EdD, is a professor of clinical education at the University of Southern California and past-president of the National Association for Gifted Children. She is currently the editor for the Gifted Education Communicator and is the Education Chair for the California Association for the Gifted.