The Educational Connoisseurship Model of Elliot W. Eisner and its Applicability in Evaluating and Creating an Elementary Math Curricula
The American educator and philosopher of education Elliot W. Eisner is an ideal theorist to examine when determining the best ways, means, and measures to set standards for an elementary math school curriculum. Eisner was unapologetic in his demand for what he called the exercise of standards-based artistry and the development of connoisseurship in education, and for what some of his critics have called elitism in approaching the educational process. However, Eisner's called for standards, although Eisner is particularly known for his work in arts education, makes his hands-on theories of education both useful and inspiring to elementary school math teachers. Eisner's examination of process and the artistry of education in The Enlightened Eye proved that he was attempting extension of his thinking to qualitative research into education and to the sciences as well as humanities. "To conceive of students as artists who do their art in science, in the arts, or the humanities, is, after all, both a daunting and a profound aspiration," he wrote later on, but education is not an assembly line, rather "the field of education has much to learn from the arts about the practice of education. It is time to embrace a new model for improvi
From his bureaucratic experiences, Eisner also began to frown upon the stress on teacher's "team meetings," which he said discouraged effective praxis and only encouraged talk amongst educators. He said such communal sharing of knowledge is useless if the theories that are generated cannot be used to help students. For example, hearing about a colleagues' problems teaching decimals may be instructive, and help all teacher draw on a range of techniques, but a good educator is one who can combine the different techniques and improvise regarding the particular situation and set of student's needs. Eisner believed that teachers needed to work together, but they also needed to accept criticism from principles and administrators in the classroom, in terms of the results generated by their efforts-just like students should not be so protected from criticism in assessments of their qualitative and quantitative work, either! Despite his advancement of the importance of connoisseurship and criticism, Eisner began his own education as a teacher in an egalitarian setting. While in college Elliot Eisner worked with African American boys in the American Boys Commonwealth in the neighborhood where he grew up. He said later that this confirmed his view that there must be a solid aesthetic behind art education and a better exploration of art's historical context. Approaches which simply gave children arts materials in the hope that their creativity might flow resulted in programs "with little or no structure, limited artistic content and few meaningful aims" and
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Approximate Word count = 1051
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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