Eisner SIG Newsletter

The purpose of the Eisner SIG is to promote scholarship that applies, extends, critiques, and reinvents Eisner's scholarly contributions and core principles towards the overarching aim of school improvement.

Email: eisnersig@gmail.com
Website: http://bit.ly/1CTpCVV
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Eisner-SIG-488895484598608
Twitter: @EisnerSIG

Greetings all,

As my last undertaking in a leadership position for the Elliot Eisner SIG, I wish to thank everyone in the membership for your participation and support of the SIG. Every effort you provided, whether big or small, has made a difference. Our SIG is vibrant, threaded with cutting-edge ideas, and filled with caring people, interested in education from theoretical and practical perspectives.

I wish to give thanks to the team who deliberated upon and wrote the proposal to initiate the SIG. These include Christy McConnell Moroye, Bradley Conrad, Derek Gottlieb and Benjamin Ingman. Also, a hearty thanks to the leadership team that stewarded us from 2014-2017: Christy McConnell Moroye, Bradley Conrad, Valerie Janesick, and Jodie Wilson. And lastly congratulations to our newly elected leadership team: David Flinders, Aaron Zimmerman and Tammy Cline.

Finally, thanks to the Eisner family for their support of our efforts.

Elliot could always say it best and so I conclude with a few quotations, which may sum up how many of us feel about the purposes of schooling and the kinds of connected research we need in order to understand them:

“The ultimate aim of education is to enable individuals to become the architects of their own education and through that process to continually reinvent themselves.”

And one of my favorites that he said to me in personal communication: “I want researchers to smell the schools they are studying.”

P. Bruce Uhrmacher

Professor of Research Methods and Education

Morgridge College of Education

University of Denver

Thanks, welcome, news, and more.

As the newly elected EE SIG Chair, I am happy to take this opportunity to first add my thanks to the previous leadership team, particularly Bruce Uhrmacher who has been not only a good steward for our SIG, but also instrumental in its formation. Second, let me thank Jodie Wilson who has agreed to stay on as our Communications Director. Third, congratulations to our new Secretary, Tammy Cline, and new Treasurer, Aaron Zimmerman. All of us look forward to working together on behalf of the SIG.

For the Business Meeting in New York, I have invited Nel Noddings, one of Eisner’s former students, as a keynote speaker. Nel has agreed to talk on how Eisner’s scholarship and mentoring have influenced the development of her own work.

Finally, the Elliot Eisner SIG is now officially under AERA review to move from a SIG-in-Formation to a regular SIG. Numbers, as in membership numbers, will be crucial as we move ahead. Please do not forget to renew your membership, and surely you have friends and colleagues who you would not want to miss out on our fellowship and provocative work. It helps the SIG that we received a record number of submissions for the 2018 annual meeting. So, I return to gratitude on behalf of the SIG to thank all of those who submitted sessions and who served as submission reviewers.

David J. Flinders

Professor of Curriculum Studies

Indiana University

Aaron S. Zimmerman (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum Studies and Teacher Education in the College of Education at Texas Tech University. He currently teaches courses on research methods and teacher education scholarship. He has been recognized as an emerging scholar by the Association of Teacher Educators and has received the Distinguished Paper Award from the Midwestern Educational Research Association. His research and writing focuses on the significance of subjective meaning in the lives of early career teachers, and he is particularly interested in how the arts are able to illuminate this meaning in unique and important ways. He has published and presented on topics including early­ career teachers’ interactive classroom thinking, the interpretation of teaching through music, the role of virtue in teaching, and the existential dilemmas inherent within learning to teach. The Elliot Eisner SIG has been an invaluable venue for the sharing and cultivating of his thinking. He is currently the Social Media Chair of the Lives of Teachers SIG and serves on the program committee of the Society of Professors of Education.

Tammy C. Cline (Ph.D. University of Georgia) is the Art Education instructor at the University of West Georgia. Her qualitative research is arts­based and emphasizes the context and narrative of participants’ experience within a study. Her professional interests focus on the creative development of those who self­identify as non­artistic and/or non­creative within the context of K12 education, including teachers, students, and preservice teachers. Of particular interest is the examination of the origins and nature of creativity barriers, specifically as impacted by implicit beliefs. Bridging the fields of education and art, past research includes: Transferring creative confidence from preservice teachers to the elementary classroom (USA), Attitudes and values influencing Chinese creativity (China), A bridge over language: Crossing communication boundaries and enhancing mutual understandings through shared artistic experiences (China), and Perceptions and expressions of creativity in the context of bilingual curriculum (China). Inspired by her mentor Richard Siegesmund who studied directly under Elliot Eisner, she continues to build on Eisner’s philosophies of education and curriculum and the impact it extends towards individual creative growth.

contributed by Dr. Kate Bachtel, Eisner SIG Member, SoulSpark Founder, and SENG Board President

Deep in the earth,

A tiny, burrowed seed encounters

Rufous soil resisting.

Struggle creates

New strength to move freely.

Wiggling through mud, then dust;

Led by tender, sheltered eyes.

Pushing for peak moment,

First light glimpse,

Then a cry, “Up!”

Change with each breath,

Always the seed and always anew.

Each season has its

Twists revealing new directions.

Green vibrations,

Followed by peaceful golden

Sparkle.

Then a dance in joyful color celebration with

Plum, red and tangerine

Preceding the fall's anticipation.

Each comforting breeze disintegrates,

Until weakness invites courage to let go.

Now sail Uranus winds home to

Gaia, Sweet One of Chaos.

Grace in each,

I BeLeaf.

contributed by Eisner SIG member Dr. Bradley Conrad, Capital University, and Tales from the Classroom Principal Investigator

Blog link/webpage: www.talesfromtheclassroom.com
Twitter: @talesfromthecla
Facebook: www.facebook.com/talesfromthecla
LinkedIn: Tales from the Classroom
Medium: Tales from the Classroom

For some time now public schools in America, and the people who work within them, have been under attack. The attack comes from negative media attention, politicians, and public policies aimed at punitive measures to fix the "Nation at Risk" and that were "Leaving Children Behind." The Tales from the Classroom Team is made up of educational researchers who are former or current K-12 public school teachers examining how standardization and accountability are actually affecting American public schools and the people teaching and learning within them. The team of fourteen researchers, many of whom are Eisner SIG members, is sharing the lived experiences of students, teachers, and administrators in light of the standards and accountability movement. To do this, the Tales from the Classroom team is conducting research in elementary, middle, and high schools in rural, suburban, and urban districts across the United States but writing in a way that is digestible to a non-academic audience. We are utilizing our website, blog, social media platforms as well as our forthcoming book Tales from the Classroom: How Public Policy Really Affects our Schools to share those stories and to tell the story of how public policies are really affecting our schools. The blog, which is authored by various members of the team, also invites guest writers to share with parents and other key stakeholders what is going on in the classroom.

The teams consists of:

Dr. Dana Harraway

Dr. Jill Hare

Dr. Daniel Castner

Dr. Sandra Guzman

Dr. Nancy Stockall

Dr. Tim Price

Dr. Alison Dover

Dr. Tina Ho

Dr. Anita Charles

Dr. Kimberly Mahovsky

Dr. Ashleigh Franco

Dr. Joie Norby Le

Dr. Christy McConnell

Dr. Bradley Conrad

A new article by Eisner SIG member Dr. Daniel R. Conn, Minot State University, and Roslyn J.F. Billy, Grand View University

Conn, D. R., & Billy, R. J. F. (2017). Always loved but never entitled: Professor intentions to promote leadership in women. The Qualitative Report, 22(5), 1315-1329.

Abstract: This article focuses on three professors from Midwestern University and how their intentions to encourage women to see themselves as leaders play out in their respective classrooms. Through educational connoisseurship and criticism we describe and interpret the ecological impacts of professor intentions in promoting women as leaders. To this end, we find the professors realize these intentions by the way in which they care for their students. In caring for their students, the professors take an “always loved by never entitled” approach, where they balance building a sense of support and confidence among their students with an understanding that leaders are forged through dedication and a willingness to speak up. It is recommended for professors and high education institutions to consider how implicit curricula could help in developing leadership qualities in women and other historically underrepresented populations.

Would you like to contribute to the next Eisner SIG Newsletter? We would appreciate hearing how you are applying, extending, and/or reinventing Eisner's scholarship. Please send submissions to Jodie Wilson, Morgridge College of Education, University of Denver.