REVIEWER EED ARTS
By SEBASTIAN DL
EISNER’S SIX AREAS OF LEARNING
1. Paying Attention to Relationship
- that observations can be made about things either created by humans (the "made world") or
naturally occurring (the "found world"), as well as in artistic and design contexts.
Eisner's perspective emphasizes that evaluating the quality or harmony of something created is not solely
based on technical skills or knowledge. Instead, it also involves an emotional or intuitive response,
suggesting that artistic judgment is a blend of both reason and feeling.
2. Being Flexible
- Flexible purposing refers to the ability to adapt and modify goals during a task, allowing for shifts
in direction and continuous adjustments in methods. It embraces an open-ended approach where outcomes
are not predetermined.
Eisner supports activities that encourage students to engage in flexible, exploratory experiences, fostering
creativity and adaptability. This concept aligns with John Dewey’s (1938) ideas on improvisation in learning.
Eisner builds on Dewey’s perspective, framing it as the "improvisational side of intelligence," where both
children and adults learn to think and act spontaneously in response to new challenges.
3. Using Material as a Medium
- emphasizes the importance of teaching children the necessary skills, knowledge, and processes to
effectively use materials as their ideas become more sophisticated.
The listed materials—such as paint, charcoal, clay, and felt pens—each have unique characteristics that
shape how children interact with them. Different materials require different techniques and approaches,
influencing cognitive development. As children grow, their understanding of a material's potential expands.
When their technical skills align with their creative vision, the quality of their artistic expression improves.
4. Shaping form to create expressive content
- involves the deliberate use of artistic elements to evoke emotions, tell stories, and communicate
ideas. Artists manipulate line, color, texture, space, and composition to shape forms that go beyond
aesthetics, resonating with deeper emotional and conceptual meaning.
Ways Artists Shape Form for Expression:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Abstract Form – Using abstraction to express emotions without depicting real objects.
Color – Selecting hues to set the emotional tone of a work.
Texture & Surface – Rough textures can suggest struggle, while smooth surfaces convey calmness.
Spatial Relationships – Crowded compositions create tension, while open spaces suggest freedom.
Gesture & Movement – Dynamic strokes indicate energy, while stillness conveys reflection.
Proportion & Scale – Enlarged forms can feel powerful; small forms can appear delicate.
Engaging with art—whether through painting, dance, or music—moves us emotionally. Artists think
flexibly, masterfully transform materials, and bring all elements together to create work that stirs the soul.
5. Being Imaginative
- Art and design education provide a space for imagination, encouraging creativity, experimentation,
and the pursuit of ideas that might seem impossible. It allows individuals to explore beyond reality, fostering
innovation and new perspectives.
Eisner emphasizes that engaging in creative "whimsy" is not just personally fulfilling—it also enhances our
understanding of reality. By distorting or reimagining the world, art can make us see reality more vividly. As
he suggests, "the imaginative image... functions as a template by which we can reorganize our
perceptions of the world." In other words, creativity reshapes how we see and interpret the world around
us.
6. Learning to see the world from an aesthetic perspective
- The wide awareness describe above helps us to see the world from a new perspective, through new lens.
- With the role of helping children toward "experiencing the fullness of our emotional life.... About
becoming alive".
7 Process of Learning Through Art & Design
1. Exploring and Developing
- This approach allows an opening up of this ideas and interests culminating and finish objects or
remaining tentative or exploratory
2. INVESTIGATING
- the process of investigation can be extended as a tool for investigating a particular context, a
process of investigative inquiry
3. MAKING
- Involves the forming of objects or events, which embody and represent artists' conceptions,
intentions and perceptions '
4. PRESENTNG
- this can be a sharing of initial ideas, responses to starting points, personal responses to themes an
evolving imagery and objects
5. EVALUATING
- this demands not only skills of discussion, but observation and perception, as well as knowledge
and understanding.
6. RESPONDING
- 'The arts have to be experienced first-hand wherever possible’.
7. SKILLS
- Development and maturation in the arts is dependent upon skills and expertise which need to be
learned and practiced.
THE NORMAL WELL CONDUCTED ART CLASS
Teaching Arts by,
SALMON 1998
- where active learning engages children's in a process of review and reflection, we can describe this
learning as experiential.
Keith Salmon
- British fine artist / land scape artist.
- Living and working in Irvine, Scotland, UK.
ABBS 1987
- Describes the process of evaluation of view, central to personal and purposeful learning, as one
which "attempts to organize the complex elements of our aesthetic response".
PETER ABBS
- English poet and educator.
- Born in Cormer, Norfolk, UK.
- He was the author of ten books of poetry and numerous works on the philosophy of education and
creative writing.
- One of his work is the "Living Powers the arts in education".
ELLIOTT EISNER
- believes that the serious study and practice of an artistic discipline is the most effective way for
children to learn the following: How to perceive and explore relationships. Human relationships. Cause and
effect relationships. The relationship of parts to a whole.
- Ph. D., is professor of education and art at Stanford University.
- He is author of more than fifteen books and many articles.