Eisner made many good points in Chapter 3, Teaching the Visual Arts. This chapter had some vital information that I believe a teacher should know before or soon after entering the classroom as a teacher. I found Eisner's description of secondary and primary ignorance intriguing. I feel teachers need more feedback from peers and administration, at least I would like that. I get little to no feedback in my position and find it hard to adjust my teaching when I only have personal reflection to base it on.
Page 50, second full paragraph. Alleluia! "The effects of teaching my not show up until long after students leave school and in ways teachers never dreamed of." Eisner, you just gave me an excuse to use for all those students who just don't get it. :) Ok maybe not but on a more serious note I really agree with this ideas because I hope/believe that our students are taking more in than they let us realize as teachers. They may not immediately regurgitate the information on the test but later down the road they will utilize the previous knowledge they have learned while in school.
These two chapter by Eisner had so much information I believe an entire course could be based on them. The last part of Eisner's chapter 4 titled The Ability to Transform Qualities of Experience into Speech and Text connected with the two articles by Barrett which discussed his principles of interpretation. All three of these pieces were based on getting individuals to put their thought into verbal and written text.
I feel many of my k-12 students have trouble with the task of interpretation. As a teacher I attempt to model and use a variety of strategies to help them understand interpretation, but it is always the same students contributing in class discussions. VTS has done some amazing things for my upper elementary students but I need the time to incorporate it into my other class to see the effects. Interpretation is one of the hardest things for me to teach...I'm marking Eisner's pages and printing Barrett's article so I will be able to refer back to these in my teaching.
Last note about Eisner, "You many need a little more green over here" (p. 72). Oops..I'm pretty famous for this with my middle and high school students. I guess I should change my response when my students ask if there is anything else they need to do to their project. :)
I truly do believe that teachers may not perceive all that our students know and understand when they leave our classrooms. I like to think we are shaping the way they see the world and interact within it. They may not really use some information until they design their own living space or create a website for work. It is important that we give them many opportunities to demonstrate what they know however as we make the visual arts experiences relevant to their own lives.
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