"A culture populated by a people whose imagination is impoverished has a static future. In such a culture there will be little change because there will be little sense of possibility."
(Taken from: The Arts and the Creation of Mind)
By: Elliot W. Eisner
What is this word "Possibility" and why does it sound familiar to me???
Post #2 "Yes and....I have a confession"
Confession
After two very challenging weeks teaching along side the Anti-Art teacher from Burn-Out Town, along with other life challenges I felt my "Juicy" creative fule was drying up fast and soon I would crumble into a fine dust. Just two hours ago I seriously contemplated 8740 Suicide. I was ready to just give up and end it so I could slip into a peaceful mindlessness cushioned with bad sit-coms and big pillows. But suddenly Eisner's book fell on the floor and revealed chapter 3. I decided to give it one more glance and there on the page was my salvation!
The quote,
"The surest road to hell in a classroom is to stick to the lesson plan, no matter what" (Eisner)
became illuminated and I heard the choir of dead artists singing, "You're not alone, stay, stay and save them from which they know no better." "We will show you the way, stay!"
So here I am. Eisner has ushered me back and is showing me, in the first few pages of chapter 3, all the reasons why I am witnessing, first hand, the 'killing' of young imaginations.
He is reaffirming for me that my ideas and beliefs are sound and true and that the ill feeling I have in my stomach is from having to be a silent bystander while anti-art torture takes place inside the sacred temple of imagination.
When reading the quote above I knew it was a sign for me to keep 8740 alive and use its enlightened teachings as a protective shield and sword to ward off anti-art ghosts from the dark ages.
The anti-art teacher has been sticking to a lesson that was implemented back in November and is forcing students to finish a very tedious, ill planned, mosaic made by cutting small bits of colors from magazines and pasting them onto intricate drawn boarders around a centrally drawn animal. In the two weeks I have been there over half of the total students have fallen into hell and are becoming defiant, snarling anti-art demons. Most pretent like they are working or do the bare minimum. Some have chosen not to do any more work since it has lost all appeal and instead has become a punishment.
Offense number one:
The anti-art teacher merely transmits information with little or no instruction or examples and instructs students to copy a castel tower "EXACTLY" how it looks on the handout. Eisner explains how each student will mediate and modify what is being conveyed and in this case several students were dropping like flies as the blood left their sweet little faces and they sank down saying, "I hate this, I dont like art, I cant draw like that, I cant make it look exactly like that." The point was not to mimic but to notice and to translate yet the anti-art teacher did not explain the point and did not show tricks or even give tips.
The "Situation" set up by the anti-art teacher did not promote a creative appetite to learn. The students were not learning through qualitative related experiences, even though that was most likely the purpose of the lesson; instead, they were learning how to follow directions and how to dislike art since it was a tedious chore to keep them busy and quiet.
In Creating Meaning Through Art by Simpson, and others, they state, "Factors that got my students involved included my understanding of them, the classroom environment I created , and the teaching strategies that I used." Viktor Lowenfeld wrote that, "Motivation is meaningful if it is adequate to the developmental level and is keyed to specific interests of the child"
Offense number two:
Not participating in improvisation and saying, "Yes and..." as explored in Imagination First. The anti-art teacher teaches art like it is a serious math class and shehe uses what Eisner calls, canned scripts. Shehe expects the correct response to hisher prefabricated, formulaic instruction. "Externally defined routines might be appropriate for workers on an assembly line...; they are not appropriate for teachers."
I know it sounds bad, and I was being a bit mello dramatic, but the anti-art teacher has good intentions after all. Shehe got lost in the woods along the way and has developed, "secondary ignorance"; that is, by not knowing that you dont know." Which is part of how Eisner has helped me to understand how the anti-art teacher had to face, "the arduous task of trying to figure out on 'hisher' own how things went and what might be done better."
(Stay tuned......more to come)
After two very challenging weeks teaching along side the Anti-Art teacher from Burn-Out Town, along with other life challenges I felt my "Juicy" creative fule was drying up fast and soon I would crumble into a fine dust. Just two hours ago I seriously contemplated 8740 Suicide. I was ready to just give up and end it so I could slip into a peaceful mindlessness cushioned with bad sit-coms and big pillows. But suddenly Eisner's book fell on the floor and revealed chapter 3. I decided to give it one more glance and there on the page was my salvation!
The quote,
"The surest road to hell in a classroom is to stick to the lesson plan, no matter what" (Eisner)
became illuminated and I heard the choir of dead artists singing, "You're not alone, stay, stay and save them from which they know no better." "We will show you the way, stay!"
So here I am. Eisner has ushered me back and is showing me, in the first few pages of chapter 3, all the reasons why I am witnessing, first hand, the 'killing' of young imaginations.
He is reaffirming for me that my ideas and beliefs are sound and true and that the ill feeling I have in my stomach is from having to be a silent bystander while anti-art torture takes place inside the sacred temple of imagination.
When reading the quote above I knew it was a sign for me to keep 8740 alive and use its enlightened teachings as a protective shield and sword to ward off anti-art ghosts from the dark ages.
The anti-art teacher has been sticking to a lesson that was implemented back in November and is forcing students to finish a very tedious, ill planned, mosaic made by cutting small bits of colors from magazines and pasting them onto intricate drawn boarders around a centrally drawn animal. In the two weeks I have been there over half of the total students have fallen into hell and are becoming defiant, snarling anti-art demons. Most pretent like they are working or do the bare minimum. Some have chosen not to do any more work since it has lost all appeal and instead has become a punishment.
Offense number one:
The anti-art teacher merely transmits information with little or no instruction or examples and instructs students to copy a castel tower "EXACTLY" how it looks on the handout. Eisner explains how each student will mediate and modify what is being conveyed and in this case several students were dropping like flies as the blood left their sweet little faces and they sank down saying, "I hate this, I dont like art, I cant draw like that, I cant make it look exactly like that." The point was not to mimic but to notice and to translate yet the anti-art teacher did not explain the point and did not show tricks or even give tips.
The "Situation" set up by the anti-art teacher did not promote a creative appetite to learn. The students were not learning through qualitative related experiences, even though that was most likely the purpose of the lesson; instead, they were learning how to follow directions and how to dislike art since it was a tedious chore to keep them busy and quiet.
In Creating Meaning Through Art by Simpson, and others, they state, "Factors that got my students involved included my understanding of them, the classroom environment I created , and the teaching strategies that I used." Viktor Lowenfeld wrote that, "Motivation is meaningful if it is adequate to the developmental level and is keyed to specific interests of the child"
Offense number two:
Not participating in improvisation and saying, "Yes and..." as explored in Imagination First. The anti-art teacher teaches art like it is a serious math class and shehe uses what Eisner calls, canned scripts. Shehe expects the correct response to hisher prefabricated, formulaic instruction. "Externally defined routines might be appropriate for workers on an assembly line...; they are not appropriate for teachers."
I know it sounds bad, and I was being a bit mello dramatic, but the anti-art teacher has good intentions after all. Shehe got lost in the woods along the way and has developed, "secondary ignorance"; that is, by not knowing that you dont know." Which is part of how Eisner has helped me to understand how the anti-art teacher had to face, "the arduous task of trying to figure out on 'hisher' own how things went and what might be done better."
(Stay tuned......more to come)
Lincoln Center Institute
Capacities for
Imaginative Learning
LCI has created the Capacities for Imaginative
Learning as a framework for student learning,
applicable to the Common Core Standards across
the curriculum.
The Capacities operate as both
strategies for, and outcomes of, study according
to LCI’s practice.
Contact Us: 212.875.5535
Email: lci@lincolncenter.org
Visit: www.lcinstitute.org
The Capacities for Imaginative Learning are:
Noticing Deeply to identify and articulate layers of detail in a work of art or other
object of study through continuous interaction with it over time.
Embodying to experience a work of art or other object of study through your senses,
as well as emotionally, and also to physically represent that experience.
Questioning to ask questions throughout your explorations that further your own
learning; to ask the question, “What if?”
Making Connections to connect what you notice and the patterns you see to your
prior knowledge and experiences, to others’ knowledge and experiences, and to text
and multimedia resources.
Identifying Patterns to find relationships among the details that you notice, group
them, and recognize patterns.
Exhibiting Empathy to respect the diverse perspectives of others in the community;
to understand the experiences of others emotionally, as well as intellectually.
Living with Ambiguity to understand that issues have more than one interpretation,
that not all problems have immediate or clear-cut solutions, and to be patient while a
resolution becomes clear.
Creating Meaning to create your own interpretations based on the previous
capacities, see these in the light of others in the community, create a synthesis, and
express it in your own voice.
Taking Action to try out new ideas, behaviors or situations in ways that are neither
too easy nor too dangerous or difficult, based on the synthesis of what you have
learned in your explorations.
Reflecting/Assessing to look back on your learning, continually assess what you
have learned, assess/identify what challenges remain, and assess/identify what further
learning needs to happen. This occurs not only at the end of a learning experience,
but is part of what happens throughout that experience. It is also not the end of your
learning; it is part of beginning to learn something else.
Capacities for
Imaginative Learning
LCI has created the Capacities for Imaginative
Learning as a framework for student learning,
applicable to the Common Core Standards across
the curriculum.
The Capacities operate as both
strategies for, and outcomes of, study according
to LCI’s practice.
Contact Us: 212.875.5535
Email: lci@lincolncenter.org
Visit: www.lcinstitute.org
The Capacities for Imaginative Learning are:
Noticing Deeply to identify and articulate layers of detail in a work of art or other
object of study through continuous interaction with it over time.
Embodying to experience a work of art or other object of study through your senses,
as well as emotionally, and also to physically represent that experience.
Questioning to ask questions throughout your explorations that further your own
learning; to ask the question, “What if?”
Making Connections to connect what you notice and the patterns you see to your
prior knowledge and experiences, to others’ knowledge and experiences, and to text
and multimedia resources.
Identifying Patterns to find relationships among the details that you notice, group
them, and recognize patterns.
Exhibiting Empathy to respect the diverse perspectives of others in the community;
to understand the experiences of others emotionally, as well as intellectually.
Living with Ambiguity to understand that issues have more than one interpretation,
that not all problems have immediate or clear-cut solutions, and to be patient while a
resolution becomes clear.
Creating Meaning to create your own interpretations based on the previous
capacities, see these in the light of others in the community, create a synthesis, and
express it in your own voice.
Taking Action to try out new ideas, behaviors or situations in ways that are neither
too easy nor too dangerous or difficult, based on the synthesis of what you have
learned in your explorations.
Reflecting/Assessing to look back on your learning, continually assess what you
have learned, assess/identify what challenges remain, and assess/identify what further
learning needs to happen. This occurs not only at the end of a learning experience,
but is part of what happens throughout that experience. It is also not the end of your
learning; it is part of beginning to learn something else.
Ping Pong Post #1
“Work in the arts is not only a way of creating performances and products; it is a way of creating our lives by expanding our consciousness, shaping our dispositions, satisfying our quest for meaning, establishing contact with others, and sharing a culture.”
(Eisner)
This makes me think of “the art of fine living” These are the principals of how to live an artful life. Ping over to Freedman, and it refers to her opening quote about, “When students develop a deeper understanding of their visual experiences, they can look critically at surface appearances and begin to reflect on the importance of the visual arts in shaping culture, society, and even individual identity.”
Ping back to Eisner, and his Principle Four, under guiding practice, is art education should help students become aware of their own individuality.
So true so true, after all, artists are individuals not conveyer belts. This is important and I am seeing first hand how art lessons with prescribed outcomes are mechanical, leave no room for expression and teach nothing but how to follow directions and mimic the same basic form. This turns into a monological type of communication which is one sided and as Freeman states, “does not demand a reflective response.”
So true so true, after all, artists are individuals not conveyer belts. This is important and I am seeing first hand how art lessons with prescribed outcomes are mechanical, leave no room for expression and teach nothing but how to follow directions and mimic the same basic form. This turns into a monological type of communication which is one sided and as Freeman states, “does not demand a reflective response.”
I like the way Eisner distilled down the process of how we recognize, make note of, filter and finally share those fleeting ideas we grab, nurture and allow to grow into a separate entity. Through what Eisner says is, “the role of the arts in refining the senses and enlarging the imagination”, he gives us terms to use for the process of realizing, harvesting and then manifesting that which we call art. Through inscribing, editing and communicating, representation takes place. I find it interesting since I have always thought of the creative act as being a spiritual act, one in which the artist is in communion with the collective unconscious. If open to receive the gift of an elusive, or as Eisner says, “evanescent” idea an artist can give birth to art which then becomes a conduit for new interactions and communication. And this reminds me of a wonderful TED TV talk by Elisabeth Gilbert when she speaks of nurturing creativity and the origin of the word Genius. (MUST WATCH link below)
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html
Both Eisner and Freeman speak of visual signs and visual culture. They both mention how important it is for our art curriculums to teach our students artistic intelligence. This will empower them to construct their own visual culture and enter into a multicultural dialogue. And all of this goes hand in hand with Creating Multicultural Learning Communities by Sonia Nieto.
Just as art education is becoming part of the interwoven fabric of a well rounded curriculum so is the realization that all of our curriculums need to be interrelated and in a democratic relationship to help foster the types of inspired imagination that it takes for a culture to progress and evolve. In Nieto’s book, she states that we should, “build on what your students know”. Build on their strengths. “Acknowledging that students have significant experiences, insights and talents to bring to their learning and finding ways to use them in the classroom.”
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