Chapter Two Reading-And Reading Right

This chapter starts out by criticizing the method almost all schools use to teach their students to read; Factual instead of analytical. He speaks of how school after school teaches their students to memorize dates, times, weights etc instead of analyzing the hows, and whys of the situation to grasp a better understanding and to analyze the events deeper. From here he discusses the meaning of the word 'bright' in regards to ones knowledge. For him bright=interested in ideas because ideas=intelligence. It is interesting how Dunning discusses the ideas of IQ's and how while two people may start out with the same IQ level, if person A does not push themselves to read material they only partially understand, but person B does, then in a few years they will have two completely different IQ levels with person B having surpassed A. Apparently in the Medieval ages an artist was expected to be a Bible Scholar, and since during that time the Bible was the epitome of scholarly knowledge you were considered well learned having studied it. Although times have changed knowledge is necessary in order to excel in any given work field, especially art because even if one graduates and finds that what they have worked with and come to understand is now considered 'past art' or 'outdated' it is still important to be well knowledged in past art styles. Simply because you can draw does not mean you will excel in you field. In order to obtain a spot in a gallery or have your pieces printed in papers you must be able to first converse intelligently with the necessary people. I love the quote he uses from Cofucius on page 27 "Learning without thought is useless; thought without learning is dangerous." this could not be more true because if you are not going to take the time to understand and analyze what it is you are trying to learn than their is no point, and if you are going to try to understand or claim to understand something without at first trying to learn about it than that can lead to very dangerous situations such as war or putting your foot in your mouth. Interesting book so far, if you are wanting to read it yourself google it under Advice to Young Artists in a Postmodern Era; by William B. Dunning, Ben Mahmoud.