Gaetano Porcasi is a Sicilian artist and school art teacher. His paintings are considered unique not only for their social and political commitment but also for the technique and choice of typical Mediterranean colours from which a strong and deep Sicilitudine (Sicilian mood) emerges. The 2003 itinerant exhibition Portella della Ginestra Massacre is a good example: in 1947 a group of Sicilian farmers was shot and killed in Portella by the outlaw Salvatore Giuliano and his men under orders from the local Mafia mobsters and big landowners in order to stop the farmers’ attempts to occupy and plant uncultivated local land. His historical paintings which denounce the violence and oppression of the Mafia find their counterpart in his paintings which depict sunny Sicilian landscapes rich in lemon, orange and olive trees, in prickly pear, agave and broom plants. They show the wealth of a land that has been kissed by God but downtrodden by man. In painting the sky of his native Sicily Gaetano uses several different hues of blue and it’s from this sky that his pictorial journey starts. In his paintings the history of Sicily, which has always been marked by its farmers’ sweat and blood and by their struggles for freedom and democracy, finds its pictorial expression in the fusion of the red flags of the workers with the Italian flag in a sort of Italian and Mediterranean epopea. The red flags and the Italian flag stand out against the blue sky that changes its hues according to the events, the seasons, the deeds and the moods that are painted on the canvas. The luxuriant nature of Sicily with its beautiful, sunny, Mediterranean landscapes seems to remain the silent, unchangeable and unchanged witness to events and the passing of time. Here people are only accidenti, they aren’t makers of their own life. Thus Gaetano makes a clear-cut metaphysical distinction between a benign, merciful nature and Man who breaks the natural harmony to satisfy his wild, unbridled ambition and selfishness and who becomes the perpetrator of violence and crime. Gaetano is also an active environmentalist and his fight against all forms of pollution has already cost him a lot of aggravation.

The love affair with what the SAT predicts seems to take a backup role to what the test shows. Common sense dictates that we’d get a handle on meaning before we use it to predict with any value; unfortunately, as we well know, common sense rarely reigns.

I can’t tell what Aldeman is trying to say. I suspect that we’ll have a better handle on it when he figures it out, too.

I’ve responded to your comment here:

http://www.matthewktabor.com/2009/11/12/i-dont-want-to-ruin-my-gpa/

The simplicity with which some are looking at both tests and GPA is appalling. I read today an article pointing to Aldeman’s original piece that was titled, “Idea of the day: ditch standardized tests.”

We need evaluators to commit to intellectual honesty regarding what these tests – and GPA – mean. What we’re seeing is folks sticking to evidence on meaning when it’s convenient to their argument, ignoring meaning when it isn’t, and weaving in context as they see fit.

The debate tells us a lot about how some of the most respect names/think-tanks view education.