Studio Thinking

Studio Thinking reports a close study of what is actually taught and learnt in visual arts classrooms, and argues that the strongest case for arts education is not the one usually made for it. Many people believe art education matters, the authors write, but few can say precisely why, and the familiar defence rests on claimed gains in unrelated school subjects. Working from careful observation and analysis of twenty-eight art projects taught in five secondary school studio classrooms, Lois Hetland, Ellen Winner and their colleagues describe what experienced teachers do and what students take from it. From that material they identify four studio structures of learning, the recurring shapes a studio class takes, and eight studio habits of mind, among them developing craft, engaging and persisting, and envisioning, meaning the capacity to picture mentally what cannot be directly observed. Their argument is that these habits are the real benefits of studying art, that skilled teachers instil them deliberately, and that they may carry into learning across the curriculum. The book offers art teachers a research-based language for describing what they intend to teach, and offers advocates a firmer basis for explaining arts education to policymakers.

Written from the publisher description, Teachers College Press.

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People

• Ellen Winner