To 2001, ο διακεκριμένος καθηγητής της εκπαίδευσης και της τέχνης στο
πανεπιστήμιο Στάνφορντ των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών, Elliot W. Eisner, έδωσε μία
διάλεξη στο Summer Music and Art Institute for Teachers στο Κλήβελαντ. Στη
διάλεξη αυτή που συνοπτικά παρουσιάζεται στο παρακάτω κείμενο, ο Eisner
επιχειρηματολόγησε υπέρ της χρησιμότητας και της αξίας των τεχνών για τη
συνολική εκπαίδευση του παιδιού και για την αναγκαιότητα εισαγωγής τους στα
προγράμματα σπουδών.
Professor Eisner's address pushed the discussion of arts and education to a new level,
raising the bar on future expectations for the role of the arts in educating the whole
child. He may well have surprised a number of people in the audience with the two
main points that were the basis for his conference address.
• The arguments being made for the re-introduction of the arts to the core curriculum
are neither the best nor the right arguments.
For one thing, the arts have far greater utility to learning than simply being a tool to
teach other subjects. (In many districts this is the seemingly justifiable but “back
door” rationale for bringing limited, curriculum-relevant arts experiences into the
classroom.) For another, the research is not conclusive enough to make a convincing
case for the much-heralded notion that studying music improves analytical brain
functioning. It is not clear that there is a direct causal relationship between studying
music and improved math scores, as attractive as that idea may be. Rather, Dr. Eisner
believes it is past time to make the case for teaching the arts for their own sake — and
the arguments to support this case are compelling in their own right.
• Not only should we teach, with professional expertise, the disciplines of music,
dance, theater, and the visual arts to our children, but also we should change the ways
of teaching and learning math, science, history, and other core subjects to more
closely resemble the way teaching and learning take place in the arts.
Regarding his first point, Dr. Eisner presented nine cognitive development attributes
he believes convincingly make the case for including the arts in the core curriculum.
These, he said, are among the essential skills an individual must acquire in order to be
an educated and functioning adult in society — and which are learned nowhere better
than through the serious study of an arts discipline.
Dr. Eisner believes that the serious study and practice of an artistic discipline is the
most effective way for children to learn the following:
1. How to perceive and explore relationships. Human relationships. Cause and
effect relationships. The relationship of parts to a whole.
2. How to think and express within the constraints and affordances of a medium.
Or a set of rules. Or an existing set of conditions. How to choose when faced
with a range of possibilities.
3. Nuance matters. How to pay attention to subtleties and be sensitive to slight
differences that can make very big differences to others, or to potential
outcomes.
4. Form can express feeling. How the shape of the built environment or the
elements within it affect our experience of place. How the forms we choose
for communication affect the way we are heard.
5. Purposes are best held flexibly. Exploring opportunity is the essence of
creativity, and being flexibly purposive is the key to solving problems.
6. Not all we know can take the form of language. Intelligence, awareness, and
understanding are cultivated by developing the ability to think in images and
symbols.
7. Surprise is the reward of imagination at work. Experiment and discovery are
the rich pathways to ownership of learning. Measurement (as in “outcome
measures” and “proficiency testing”) measures little real learning.
8. There are many different and completely valid ways to be in the world. There
is not always a single or even a right answer. Cultures, lifestyles, beliefs that
are different can also be interesting — even exciting.
9. Some activities are self-justifying and important for their own reasons. The
journey is the purpose. We do some things:
o because we like the process — sex, play, practicing an instrument;
o because we like the outcome — a clean kitchen, the ability to perform
music with others, a coffee mug we made ourselves;
o because there is a reward — a paycheck, applause, the respect of our peers;
o because it is the right thing to do.
Based on these arguments, said Eisner, the notion that the value of the arts lies in their
ability to help teach other subjects, is upside down. Instead, he said, the rest of the
core curriculum needs to make use of the teaching and learning approaches that
address the same cognitive development that comes naturally and powerfully through
a study of the arts. Nuance and surprise and relationships should be part of the
learning platform for all subjects. As these nine skills come to be valued and nurtured
in other academic subjects, Eisner believes that learning becomes a creative process
and accomplishment in these other subjects then takes on the character of a work of
art.
In summing up, Eisner advocated for a point of view expressed frequently throughout
his address: standardization of learning should not be the goal of schools. We should
embrace the fact that there are differences in people — in aptitude, interest, and
proclivity. “The good school increases variance among students and elevates the mean
in the process.” He closed by bringing his themes home to the purpose of the
gathering in Cleveland. “Teacher training does not end with the receipt of a diploma.
It must be completed in the schools. A good school is one that has an environment
and an ecology that supports the growth of all the participants — not just the kids.”
Elliott Eisner, Ph.D., is professor of education and art at Stanford University. He is
author of more than fifteen books and many articles. The focus of his academic
research is the development of aesthetic intelligence and the uses of critical methods
from the arts to improve educational practice. He was originally trained as a painter
and designer.