SchoolArts - April 2007

own stories, they are engaged and care about their art. This suggests introducing students to narrative art and providing opportunities for them to create narratives.

3. Symphony. Pink says individuals must be able to think in symphony, or connect ideas from many disciplines. He is neither new nor alone in advocating an education this broad. In the 1960s Buckminster Fuller stressed the importance of understanding both science and art when he described how the structure of dandelions inspired his geodesic dome design.

4. Empathy. Pink believes that we must develop relationships in order to understand our fellow humans. Art courses can foster lone artists’ pursuit of perfection, but often students sit in groups at tables and communicate as they work. Pink sees this interaction as an important outcome. His idea of developing empathy among our students suggests cooperative learning and development of learning communities.

5. Play. Pink considers play, laughter, humor, and games as beneficial to health and creative thinking. Creators often allude to an attitude of play in their work. Humor is a higher-order thinking skill because understanding a joke usually involves connecting two unrelated ideas.

6. Meaning. Pink’s assertion that we all seem to be searching for meaning in our lives echoes Sydney Walker’s advocation for meaningful art projects in Teach-

ing Meaning in Artmaking.

Student art should have personal meaning to be relevant.

With just a little tweaking, many of these right-brain thinking skills could easily be incorporated into art projects or become sketchbook assignments. For example, he suggests carrying a notebook to record good examples of design, redesigning an annoying household object, and dedicating your work to someone to make it more meaningful.

Because Daniel Pink validates what most art teachers are already doing in their classrooms, I hope that all of those art teachers dancing in the aisles over his ideas will share his book with administrators and community leaders so they will also consider this vision.