Sensing Change
1 Teaching the Senses
In the first few chapters of his groundbreaking book, A Whole New Mind: Why right brainers will rule the future, business guru and bestselling author Daniel Pink describes the current socioeconomic landscape as one which is globally competitive, technologically and mechanically advanced, and largely saturated with goods, services, and visual culture; forces which are pushing us forward into a new age and a whole new way of thinking. In our march toward what Pink calls the conceptual age, “We've progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. And now we're progressing yet again - to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers” (Pink, 2005), characteristics which are distinctly encouraged by the arts and manifested in those who labor to make and understand them. The implication of this new reality for arts education is clear; the skills and sensibilities nurtured by the arts and for the arts are precisely those which will define the paradigms of our economy and culture in a future that may already be upon us. If we embrace Pink's predictions regarding our society and economy, we are obliged to make art education indispensable, even to students who don't see themselves as career artists. If we accept Pink's thesis that the Conceptual Age is upon us, we cannot afford to marginalize the arts, but should be looking for ways to incorporate its tenants and principles into every aspect of the education process, letting synthesis, experimentation, critical questioning, divergent thinking, and meaningful context become the glue that binds disparate content objectives together, forging a unified effort in the development of whole persons, capable of plasticity of thought and big picture perspectives. Many people are asking, what can we give to the society that has everything? What career path does one take when so many jobs can be outdone by technologies or outsourced to other countries? What does success in “The Conceptual Age”look like? Art educators are uniquely poised to respond to these questions by cultivating the six essential capacities, or “senses”, Pink describes and incorporating