Overview

Rebecca J. Miller - Elementary Art and Kindergarten - 12th Grade ESL

rmiller@curwensville.org 814-236-1411 Ext. l54

."Joyous as it may be, the act of creating art demands enormous self discipline that teaches students how to handle frustration in pursuit of their idea.

It requires setting goals, selecting a strategy, determining how to apply it, and continually making assessments and revisions - in other words, thinking and solving problems. It is the human mind operating at its very best. "

  • National Art Education Association
10 Lessons the Arts Teach by Elliot Eisner

  1. The arts teach children to make GOOD JUDGMENTS about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

  2. The arts teach children that problems can have MORE than ONE solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

  3. The arts celebrate multiple PERSPECTIVES...there are MANY ways to SEE and INTERPRET the world.

  4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity.

  5. The arts make VIVID the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can KNOW. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our COGNITION.

  6. The arts teach students that SMALL DIFFERENCES can have LARGE EFFECTS.

  7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.

  8. The arts help CHILDREN LEARN to say what cannot be said.

  9. The ARTS ENABLE us to have EXPERIENCES we can have from no other source.

  10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults BELIEVE is IMPORTANT.