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embodied concerns that are non-non-sequiturs. These culturally specific concerns
are profoundly amorphous, and so we will begin with the simplest format, story-
telling.
Story telling as a linguistic exercise is useful for development of older children,
who are comfortable with verbalizing thoughts. However, by “story telling” we
refer to something beyond merely descriptions of imagined events. It is the ability
to organization of conceptual objects and understood dynamics. Early training
on the violin, or listening to Mozart Campbell (
1997
), was believed to enhance
general intelligence, the impetus for this resting on dubious understanding of
the brain. For these younger children though, this can be a frustrating, as the
necessary neuroanatomy has yet to be fully developed. There is even some informed
speculation that pressure to conform to premature learning has long-term harmful
effects (Several criticisms are discussed in Bjorklund and Pellegrini
2001
: 248).
Though intuitively one would think early academic exposure might be stimulating,
the scant evidence does not indicate this. More precisely, not all expression is
equally “good for you.” Written story telling may only be helpful to students
who demonstrate a certain level of linguistic affinity. It likely only aggravates
development to train earlier. Whereas pre-language-fluent children would likely be
better off making torn paper collages, in order to describe an event.
It appears highly likely that art, as it is commonly understood, certainly including
organizations of kinesthetic movements as dance and sounds as music, is practiced
exclusively by humans. But to say this, immediately calls to question, how we
distinguish art from non-art. Not too long ago, the label “artwork” was primarily
limited to paintings, sculptures, media that had long traditionally been identified as
art. Dance, music and drama were always considered art forms, though audiences
felt comfortable that only an occasional break of 'the fourth wall' would challenge
these labels. Serious reconsiderations were applied to architecture, craft, and so on
(Benjamin
1929
). John Cage, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, and countless others
had certainly revealed insufficiencies inherent in this labeling scheme (Cage
1961
;
Joseph
2003
). Subsequently, it became popular to announce that, “anything could
be art!”.
This is equally disturbing. While originally, the label was used in ways the
audience was not fully acknowledging, this alternative rendered the label fairly
useless. Perhaps, a precise definition is elusive and subtle, but a
distinction
is made.
Certainly, the thermostats on the wall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art do not
receive the same attention as the paintings (Fig.
12.2
).
“In the early nineteenth century, theater, such as the plays of William Shake-
speare, attracted rich, middling, and poor alike, each seated in its own section and
all participating in the performance. Audiences maintained control of the show
by demanding encores of favorite parts, throwing vegetables, and even leaping
onto the stage to interact with the actors, As middle- and upper-class Americans
became more uncomfortable mixing with the lower classes, they began to demand
separate theaters in which the audience remained passive and silent [
]By
the end of the nineteenth century, Shakespeare, along with opera, classical music
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