The Arts and the Creation of Mind Elliot W. Eisner

Learning in and through the arts can develop complex and subtle aspects of the mind, argues Elliot Eisner in this engrossing book. Offering a rich array of examples, he describes different approaches to the teaching of the arts and shows how these refine forms of thinking that are valuable in dealing with our daily life
"Not since John Dewey has an American author written about art, education, and the creation of mind with such power and sensitivity."--Michael Day, "International Journal of Arts Education"
"A primer for the future. . . . This book will serve as an inspiration for those needing the language to convince policy makers and curriculum developers of the value of the arts in education, while also serving as a vehicle for illustrating the educational aspirations the very best education can offer."--Rita L. Irwin, "Journal of Critical Inquiry Into Curriculum and Instruction"
"[Eisner] has composed a text that is as insightful and inspirational as the educational research he envisions."--James G. Henderson, "International Journal of Education & the Arts"
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Elliot W. Eisner is Lee Jacks Professor of Education and Professor of Art at Stanford University.

" Elliot Eisner is long regarded as one of the most eloquent and best informed of those critical of the technicism dominating so many schools. At once, he is known as a trailbreaker in contemporary efforts to make the artistic-aesthetic dimension of experience central in public education's classrooms. This book reimagines the kinds of reforms needed in education, as it brings together Eisner's generative notions about learning and teaching, arts-based research, and (climactically) a conception of mind as process, a way of being in and acting upon the world. Encounters with the arts, Eisner tells us, can nurture and enrich mind in its becoming. The very idea of " creation" in this context opens perspectives on ways of making " mind" the beating heart of live and humane schools." -- Maxine Greene, Teachers College, Columbia University