Appreciating Children's Aesthetic Ways of Knowing: An Interview with Elliot Eisner

Educating children and adolescents who have exceptional academic and artistic abilities challenges traditional modes of curriculum design and instruction. One reason for this problem is the narrow view educators often take of ‘knowing’, casting it in singular rather than interactive disciplines and ways of representation. Elliot Eisner has urged a more radical point of departure for thinking about the mind by recognizing how aesthetic ways of knowing can expand the richness of every student's intelligence. Elliot Eisner Ph.D. is a distinguished professor of Education and Art at Stanford University. He is widely regarded for his thinking and research in the diverse fields of art education, curriculum development, and educational evaluation. Professor Eisner's current work focuses on aspects of children's artistic development and the use of artistic criticism as a means of evaluating educational practices. He has edited Learning and Teaching: Ways of Knowing, the 1985 Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education.