Special talents and defects : $b Their significance for educationHollingworth, Leta Stetter
Science
Special talents and defects : $b Their significance for education
Hollingworth, Leta Stetter
Educational psychology; Educational tests and measurements; Exceptional children
In geography map-drawing is required. In nature study, notebooks with
drawings of natural objects seen are frequently kept. In sciences taught
by the laboratory method drawing is an important element in success.
Zoölogy, physiology, and botany are especially taught through drawing.
In mechanics, and in engineering, drawing plays a prominent part. Thus
it comes about that school marks in all these subjects depend to some
extent on drawing of some kind. If psychological study shows capacity
for drawing to be largely or utterly dissociated from general
intelligence, the use of drawing to so great an extent, as a method of
recitation in the sciences especially, may be undesirable. The belief
that drawing used in this way fails to meet the need of many pupils,
otherwise apt in science, led Ayer to undertake the interesting
investigation to which it will be necessary to give our attention in
detail, throughout this chapter.
III. PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF TALENT IN DRAWING
It is quite interesting to notice that the analysis of ability in
reading, spelling, and arithmetic has been approached largely through
studies of the particularly deficient, while in the case of drawing and
music the approach has been through study of the gifted, to a greater
extent.
The psychographic study of individual talent in drawing was preceded by
many investigations of what children draw, at what ages various details
appear in drawings, how the drawings of one group compare with those of
another, and what people say about the drawings they make. These
studies, up to 1915, have been brought together by Ayer, and are so well
summarized by him in relation to the study of aptitude, that there is no
need to summarize them again. Those who desire to become familiar with
the whole literature of the psychology of drawing will do well to
consult Ayer’s work.
Several analyses of ability to draw have been undertaken, some through
study of the particularly deficient, some through study of the
conspicuously talented. Meumann thus states the causes of inefficiency
in drawing:
(1) The will to analyze and to notice forms and colors has not been
stimulated.
(2) The intention to analyze may be aroused, and yet the individual
may find the analysis too difficult. This is a matter of innate
talent.
(3) The memory of that to be represented may be deficient. It may be
incomplete or vague in form or in color. The memory of spatial
relations may be inadequate. This, too, is a matter of innate talent.
(4) There may be lack of ability to hold the image during the act of
drawing. This capacity is innate.
(5) The memory image and the perceptual image may not be coördinated
with the movements in drawing. This capacity is innate.
(6) The sight of the drawing in its imperfection as compared with the
memory image may disturb the image.
(7) The drawer may lack schemata on which to found his drawing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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