Dear Gunnar
i had qualified my previous post by saying that it was unsophisticated,
meaning it was more of a hyperbole than a fact based scientific argument.
my main point, which you seem to miss, was that the idea of 'talent' is a
construct so embedded in some cultures that it bypasses questioning of its
meaning/value.
as i remember, the culture where i grew up (although it has adopted many
euro-american educatoral practice by now) didn't have 'talent',
'intelligence', 'creativity' looming so large in educational discourse and
having extensive scientific research into these qualities.
think about how the Karate Kid and the (recent) Spiderman acquire their
unbeatable competence and we might notice some difference in mentality that
underlies and circumscribes how different cultures perceive the notion of
competence.
sorry, but i come to believe that talent, competence, intelligence,
creativity, are results of learning, where i believe many others believe
they are the cause of learning.
rosan
Gunnar Swanson wrote:
> Rosan,
>
> Rand grew up as an Orthodox Jew in early 20C New York. There are many
> parallels between Jewish-Americans of the early 20C and Asian-Americans
> of late 20C. While one might be able to claim that the culture where
> Rand worked was individualistic, materialistic, or favored fortune over
> hard work, none of those describes the dominant mode of thought in the
> culture where he grew up.
>
> I had some real differences with Rand and may not be the best source
> for characterization of the way he would react to a given conversation
> but I can say with a good deal of certainty that he would be mystified
> that anyone assumed his comment that talent is a fundamental skill, a
> rare commodity, and can't be taught would imply that hard work wasn't
> essential. He would claim that all the hard work in the world would
> never make up for a lack of talent any more than all the talent in the
> world would make a lazy person excel.
>
> If we assume at least for argument's sake that Rand was right, an
> interesting question is when and how one can determine talent. I know
> many people who teach at schools where admission of freshmen is by
> portfolio. They tell me you can see talent in the work of seventeen
> year olds. While I'm certain that you can see lack of any strong
> interest and aptitude, thus being able to eliminate the least suited
> potential students, I'd need to see more to believe.
>
> My experience is that it is hard to tell early on which graphic design
> undergraduates will be truly good. Students who do very well in early
> classes are often the ones who come from a level of cultural privilege
> as implied by Prashant's earlier post. Students who are not spectacular
> in early classes often bloom later, passing the ones who start with
> advantages. I think it's usually clear in less than four years but not
> early enough to declare who should chose other majors before it's too
> late, if one were inclined to such weeding out.
>
> That's not bad by comparison to some other talents. I suspect it's four
> or five times that long before you can tell whether a cellist is
> talented. There is also room in the world for more difference between
> the talents of excellent graphic designers than between cellists and
> there are more reasonable and interesting paths for non-concert-quality
> graphic designers.
>
> Given a choice in students I would choose a student who is smart over
> one who is talented (assuming I knew for certain what that meant) and
> one who is hard working over one who is smart. I can only assume that
> Rand would point out that making such a choice would be like being
> asked which leg you want lopped off of the stool you are about to sit
> on.
>
> Despite my having a not-insignificant measure of success as a designer
> and critic, I suspect that Rand would not have thought of me as
> particularly talented so I may be missing a point. Just because we
> previously pointed out that some talent standards are somewhat
> tautological with those judged talented best suited to judge talent,
> that doesn't mean that such standards are not valid. This brings up an
> interesting problem for design researchers: It is the impression of
> many designers (myself included) that many design researchers don't
> "get it," largely because they are blind to distinction we would find
> obvious.
>
> Gunnar
>
> On Dec 30, 2004, at 1:20 PM, Rosan Chow wrote:
> > the american/canadian parents answered 'my kid is smart'.
> > the chinese/japanese parents answered 'my kid works hard'.
> [snip]
> > if paul rand had grown up in a culture where individualism was not the
> > dominant mode of thought, maybe he would have been quoted by saying
> > 'design is hard work'.
> >
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