Maine Motif Issue 2, Vol. II (Winter, 2018) | Page 17

Our final session of the book club was a meeting with author Lisa Phillips. It was a great experience to be able to talk with the author of a book that you just read for two hours. I would highly recommend getting this book in the hands of admin, boosters, and other significant stake-holders for your program. The Arts and the Creation of Mind- Elliot W. Eisner The second book club of the school year was focused on “The ARTS and the CREATION of MIND” by Elliot W Eisner. The group met four times for 90 minutes at a time. I was unable to attend the last session as it fell in my concert season. I was still able to participate by submitting answers to prompts before the club met. This book was very specific to the visual arts. It was a heavy read that required significant annotation and research. It took a long time to get through the chapters because of how it encouraged me to think about arts education philosophy. I had to translate much of the context into the realm of music education. The book inspired conversations between us as colleagues that went beyond the pages and into the practical applications in our classrooms. It was nice to discuss the problems and praises of our careers with such a spectrum of thoughts and philosophies represented by our groups’ members. Lauren teaches General and Choral Music at Falmouth Middle School grades 5-8. You can contact her at [email protected] .