me arts ed

Geared Towards Early Elementary

In the information I received about the text it says the book is recommended for primary school teachers but I read further and saw that the foreword is written by Professor of Education and Art, Stanford University, Dr. Elliot Eisner.

The Foreword

Reading Art Really Teaches reminded me once again how important the early years are for the intellectual, social, and emotional development of the child. It also reminded me how important are that cadre of teachers who work with young children. At a time in our nation’s educational history when pressures upon children and teachers for meeting standards formulated by those who know neither the children or the teachers, Art Really Teaches provides a wonderfully generous counterpoint. Implicit in the words and pictures on its pages are several major ideas that I hope would inform both educational policy and practice. First among these is that the use of materials and activities that stimulate the senses is of fundamental importance in the educational development of the young. There is nothing in the head that was not first in the hand.

The senses in western culture have rarely been seen as avenues that afford the mind with something to think about. The truth of the matter is that sensory experience is itself a mindful activity and that exploring the subtleties of color and texture, for example, require an active and alert mind. The result of such exploration is the growth of mind.

A second theme that emerges within the pages of Art Really Teaches is that imagination is not a marginal educational value but a requirement for tasks as simple as forming a purpose or as complex as creating a theory, a symphony, or a painting.

We do not speak much in our national educational agenda about the imagination and the conditions that foster its development. We do not speak much of the position it ought to hold among our educational priorities. Kindergarten teachers have long recognized the importance of the imagination and have provided for its use and development in so many of the activities in which their students engage. Such attention, in my view, could serve as a model for the rest of education.

A third idea that emerges in this publication is that meaning is not exhaustible in literal language or in number. Poetry, music, art, dance are also means through which humans encounter, represent, and share their experience. Our schools are largely egocentric and too often literal. The visual image has the capacity to convey images and feelings that will not take the impress of language. The provision of opportunities in the classroom for children to explore the possibilities of the visual image is a needed balance to our often unbalanced view of what really matters in our schools.

There is now and has been for the past couple of decades a strong pressure exerted by policy makers and some parents to push down the academic curriculum from the third grade to the second, from the second to the first, from the first to the kindergarten, from the kindergarten to the preschool. In my view it would be far better if policy makers “pushed up” the features of the well run kindergarten into the first grade, the first grade into the second grade and even into the third than the reverse. The really good kindergarten is, as I’ve suggested earlier, a model that both elementary and secondary schools would do well to emulate. Both the spirit and the images of Art Really Teaches not only serve as a reminder of what really counts educationally speaking, but affords teachers some practical tools and advice on how to achieve what counts.

This book is available from California Kindergarten Association, 4775 Stirling Street, Granite Bay, California 95746. You can email cka@ckanet.org for more information. Order form is available by clicking here.  Cost: $40.