@masterraalkivictorieux Master Ra’al Ki Victorieux
Discover the impact of art on cognitive development with Eisner’s reflections. How do the arts influence our way of thinking? #ArtsEducation #MentalDevelopment https://wp.me/p3JLEZ-9dz
Da click aquí para leer la versión en español: Eisner afirma que las Artes nos Liberan de lo Literal
Eisner argues that the arts are a very important medium for the development of the most subtle and complex aspects of the mind, as they elicit, develop, and refine ways of thinking that make it easier to address everyday ambiguities and uncertainties. He was a professor of art at Stanford University. He has served as president of the American Educational Research Association, the National Art Education Association, the John Dewey Society, and the International Society for Education Through the Arts.
He asserts that perception is a cognitive event; The ability to create an aesthetic experience requires a mind that inspires our imagination and stimulates our capacity for emotionally charged experiences.
Among Eisner’s considerations, I mention a few phrases that give an idea of his approach to the arts:
People tend to seek what they are capable of representing. Instruments influence thoughts.
Instruments of measurement lead to quantification; those of art lead to qualification.
The arts free us from the literal; they allow us to put ourselves in other people’s shoes and vicariously experience what we have not directly experienced. They develop a predisposition to tolerate ambiguity and to explore uncertainty. They allow us to direct our attention inward—to what we believe or feel—a predisposition that is the root of the development of autonomy.
Artistic talent demands the ability to conceive the desired emotional quality and the technical ability to compose forms that successfully evoke the feeling or emotion it wishes to convey. -Artists often place familiar conventional signs in unusual contexts to renew our habitual modes of perception. They evoke meanings related to the “shock of novelty.” Some examples of visual recontextualization are found in surrealism and pop art.
Eisner says that the arts develop the mind. -Today, we no longer see this whole theme of Multiple Intelligences, which is what Gardner developed. Because before, there was this prevailing idea that IQ was the only way to measure intelligence. Like rational intelligence. When Gardner begins with the theory of multiple intelligences… in fact, the arts develop a more comprehensive intelligence, beyond just language, mathematics, or what is considered measurable…
A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing.
In relation to consciousness, Eisner states that the arts affect consciousness in various ways:
I. They refine our senses so that our capacity to experience becomes more complex and subtle.
II. They stimulate the imagination to conceive what we cannot see or perceive.
III. They provide occasions that celebrate the non-instrumental, consummatory aspects of experience.
IIII. They provide the means to express ineffable meanings and feelings.
When we talk about multiliteracy and multiculturalism in terms of the alphabet and visual culture, being multiliterate means being able to inscribe or decode meanings with diverse forms of representation. Fostering an understanding of visual culture includes helping students decode images as texts in order to understand the messages ‘beneath the surface’ or ‘between the lines,’ in a way similar to ethnology. For Graeme Chalmers: ‘Understanding the role of arts education in public schools requires us to examine the values and beliefs of society, its constantly changing institutions, communities, and group relations, as well as the patterns of small groups or ‘tribes’ within schools.’ (…) Cultural anthropology, which seeks a comprehensive understanding based on the collection and description of cultural artifacts, can be a very useful study for anyone interested in establishing the foundations of art education, and it helps to contemplate education and art in their general context.
The interpretation of meaning is largely a matter of social and political analysis due to the impact of multiculturalism, feminism, and postmodernism, among other movements, which relativize and compete with the Greek values of truth, beauty, and goodness.
If we talk about problem-solving, it is good to consider that art has proven to be a territory that develops problem-solving skills, whether technological, design, social, aesthetic, personal, psychological, or internal.
One of the legacies of the Bauhaus from 1919 to the early 1930s is conceiving art education as a as a process that prepares students to conceptualize, analyze, challenge existing assumptions and traditional expectations, and find the best way to solve a problem. “Address problems of social significance with technically effective and aesthetically satisfying methods.” This type of assignment helps students become aware of a variety of considerations—economic, structural, ergonomic, and aesthetic—in the design process.
Children who receive a constrictive education and develop inhibitions and frustration will feel limited and tend to imitate. This is unlike those who have been encouraged to develop freedom and flexibility that allow them to understand, confront, and resolve new situations.
Another problem that art seems to solve is improving test scores in so-called core subjects. Large-scale studies indicate that students who take art courses in high school achieve significantly higher SAT scores than those who do not.
From a professional perspective, the arts develop initiative and creativity, imagination, and planning skills; they foster pride in one’s skill; and, in some artistic fields, they help one learn to cooperate. These are important attributes in the professional field.
Rudolf Arnheim, Ulric Neisser, and Jean Piaget are prominent psychologists who defend the cognitive nature of the arts; that is, their importance in the development of subtle and complex forms of thought. Nelson Goodman, philosopher, states:
“I hold that we must read both painting and poetry and that the aesthetic experience is not static but dynamic. It involves making delicate discriminations and discerning subtle relationships, identifying symbolic systems and characteristics within these systems, identifying what these characteristics denote and exemplify, interpreting the works and reorganizing the world in terms of the works and the works in terms of the world. Much of our experience and our aptitudes intervene in this encounter and are transformed by it. The aesthetic ‘attitude’ is restless, inquisitive, and probing; it is not so much an attitude as an action: that of creating and recreating.”
The concept of ‘Integrated Arts’ seeks to help students understand a given historical period or culture from diverse perspectives. There are several strategies and structures for integration: 1. Students are given a concept to identify with the similarities and differences between different arts. For example, visual, musical, or theatrical rhythm. 2. Students are given a theme or idea to Explore it through art and other fields. For example, metamorphosis from biology, or music, landscape, film, etc. 3. They are invited to define and solve a problem with various disciplines, including the arts. For example, the creation of a playground.
In the Principles for Art Education:
- Foreground what is distinctive about the arts.
- Encourage the development of artistic intelligence.
- Help students learn to experience and create the aesthetic characteristics of images and understand their relationship to the culture of which they are a part.
- Facilitate students’ recognition of what is personal, distinctive, and unique in themselves and their works; to be aware of their own individuality.
- Encourage aesthetic forms of experience in everyday life.
Teaching that does not encourage learning is as meaningful as selling that does not encourage buying.
Overall, Eisner presents a hopeful and complex picture of art education. He also knows how difficult it is to be a good teacher: ‘The role of the teacher is that of a nurturer, a guide, an inspirer, a psychic midwife.’
- Bibliography: Elliot W. Eisner. Art and the Making of the Mind. The Role of the Visual Arts in the Transformation of Consciousness. Paidós.
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