Chapter 6's, Pink, and White Paper

In chapter 6 Frredman talks a lot abut curriculum and the importance of cultural experience. I found it interesting when Freedman talked about how curriculum has changed time and time again, but to me it seems, that art education just wants to keep coming down to content and experiences. Also, she talked about art and integration, and how we need to be careful with integration. If you try to integrate too much with other subjects, it might turn out that art will start taking a back seat to STEM classes. Again, it has been determined that visual literacy can improve upon many other skills that students need such as contextual thinking and creative problem solving. We need to keep in mind that these skills that broaden a students sights on art will have differing of opinions and a multitude of experiences, but it is where we find that common ground of shared experiences, that social learning of visual culture takes place.
What I really enjoyed reading in Eisner in chapter 6 was at the very end, under the heading "What to public needs to understand." Throughout the chapter Eisner describes the importance of curriculum and what standards are and why they are important. I enjoyed at the end when Eisner was talking about a child using clay. How this sculpture is more than a piece made by a student, its more than play. It is a show to show creative thinking and development of an idea, which is being stressed, I believe, in the upcoming common core standards coming soon. Showing students that muddling through experiencing all that visual culture has to offer will be extreme, is what we need to promote in all aspects of curriculum.
Which leads my to Pink. I love Daniel Pinks book. It drives home everything that I have been learning about teaching art during my college career. People, no matter the job description, are needing to be creative problem solvers and thinkers. That is what businesses are looking for. I read this book a couple months ago and the things that still stuck out the most to me before refreshing myself were the age of abundance and outsourcing. Mostly because I cannot help but notice all of this in the world everyday. We go to the store and we have 25 choices for anything we want: food, drinks, toasters, coffee makers, paper, etc. It is amazing the choices that we have to make about what kind of toilet paper we buy. Also, outsourcing and finding the people that can do more than what a computer can do. That is what needs to be learned by students today. We need to think outside the box of the computer screen and become creative problem solvers that have empathy, emotion, and fun. I found it very interesting that even medical schools are requiring classes that show the future doctors what it means to be empathetic to their patients! The chapter on play, well, it made me laugh! If we don't have a laughter club on Monday I may be a little disappointed! Just the thought that this session can improve daily tasks in a business environment is wonderful. We need play, we need release!