DANIEL PINKS SIX SENSES: MEANING IN ART CURRICULUM

Daniel Pinks Six Senses: Meaning in Art Curriculum

Emily Brewer
University of Missouri

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Daniel Pinks Six Senses: Meaning in Art Curriculum
In Daniel Pinks book A Whole New Mind, he talks about six specific high-concept and
high-touch aptitudes (p. 61) which he calls the six senses. These senses include Play,
Symphony, Story, Design, Empathy and Meaning. This paper will focus mainly on Meaning and
its role in art curriculum and how it can also tie into the other five senses.
Meaning isnt that what art is all about? According to Pink (2006), as we now live in
the Conceptual Age, we feel more fulfilled with material belongings and long to find purpose and
meaning. Children also look for purpose and meaning when they start to ask a lot of questions.
Why do we do this? What does this mean? Why are we here? What is this for? As art educators,
we can use all of these questions to help our students explore what they believe and why. In The
Art of Reflective Teaching course here at MU, we are reading Christopher Uhls Teaching as if
Life Matters. In chapter 3 it talks about how to ask the right questions to help students dig deep
into to what they are really wondering about to help them find answers. Questions and wonder
lead to knowledge and meaning. We can honor questions that our students have and explore their
ideas through art.
Kerry Freedman, in her book Teaching Visual Culture, talks about curriculum being
transparent. Our students should know why what theyre learning is important and how it is
relevant. If, for example, we accept the view that the teaching of art should help students to
establish meaning in their lives, then we need to make our purposes clear to them and the ways
in which they can establish meaning should be included as part of curriculum (p. 111). In order
to fully understand what they are learning, students need to be able to relate it to other ideas and
ping back and forth to reach that deeper understanding. This idea also goes along with

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integration and how students can relate the ideas they learn to areas outside the art classroom.
Deeper connections create deeper meaning.
Here are some ideas about how to bring Meaning into the art classroom.

Make art relevant. Students need to make a connection for any lesson to be meaningful.

Honor their questions. If they are asking a lot of questions about something, they are
most likely very interested in that area use that as a jumping off point to create art.

Integrate what they are learning in other subjects into your art curriculum.

Share personal stories. You can create powerful artwork by having students talk about
memories, traditions, and feelings. Liu and Brandon-Noppe (2011) call this embodying
experiencing a work through your senses and emotions, and physically representing that
experience (p. 36).

Give students choices. Letting students choose things lets them know that you care about
what they want.

Encourage intentionality. When creating art, encourage students to make their choices
intentional. This will help them to be conscious of their decisions and will have a deeper
connection with their work.

Play and Meaning

Its important to play, not only to experiment and find potential for art making, but to feel
better as a human being. Students can get caught up in finding the right answer all the time.
Playing can help them let go of the constant left brain thinking and begin to see things as having
more than one right answer. Being able to let go for a little while can be very meaningful. When
people play, they explore and new connections are made.

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I took a watercolor class during my undergraduate studies where we had a week to
experiment and see what watercolor could do. What's so great about it was that people who had
never used watercolor before didn't know how to use it "properly" and so they were not hindered
by the rules of watercolor and played with it in whole new ways. There is no right or wrong
when youre exploring.
In-class idea: Give students a day to play with new media and explore new ways of
creating. This may lead to wonderful discoveries, not only about the material, but also about the
student themselves. They may discover that they love working with oil pastel, gouache or
printmaking.
Symphony and Meaning
Symphony is the ability to put pieces together, to see the whole picture, to recognize
patterns, and understand connections. Composers and conductors have the ability to see the big
picture and know how to connect and combine different instruments, sounds, notes, beats and so
on to create beautiful music that is universal. Giving students the opportunity to view things from
different perspectives and challenging them to create new connections can lead to innovation and
invention. Innovation gives new meaning to words and objects like a phone, for example. When
you ask someone to take a picture, many times you will see people take out their phone. Today,
phone means camera, calculator, shopping list, music player, mirror and so on. We are living in a
time of innovation and invention.
In-class idea: Explore questions like What if and Why not? In Lui and BrandonNoppes book Imagination First, there is an Imagination Spark called Thinking inside the box.
This idea gives students scenarios where they have to use objects around them in new ways. This
challenges them to make new connections and new meanings.

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Design and Meaning
Pink says that design is utility enhanced by significance (p. 70). In society today, we
are looking for more than function, we are looking at style. We want things that can set us apart.
We want to be different, so we are given choices. Choices are important when it comes to
creating art because students can find their own sense of style and design. We need to encourage
creativity and individuality because we are all different.
In-class idea: Have students create a personal logo. Encourage them to choose ideas that
are meaningful to them that make them stand out. Students at the middle school and junior high
levels can have trouble finding their place in the world. This could help them on their journey to
finding their identity; their meaning.
Story and Meaning
In the Conceptual Age, we long to find meaning and deeper understanding. To do that,
you need to open up to other people. Stories are a pathway to meaning. Sharing and listening to
stories can give people new perspectives and can challenge or confirm their beliefs.
Stories can also help us find our identity and find out where we come from. My uncle
made a genealogy book of my dad's side of the family, but it didn't just list names, he included
hand written letters, photos, maps, drawings and diary entries all the way back to the early
1800's. He told stories of how the early Thornhills came to America, their lives, their journeys,
all the way up to 2006 and made it into a hard cover book. Now my children will be able to see
and know where they came from and will be able to tell their children about the great adventures
of Gertrude and Fillmore.

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Stories help people connect with each other. They make life more exciting and
meaningful. As artists, we tell stories with our artwork. As art educators, we can teach our
students how to connect with others with their own stories.
In-class idea: Have students represent their story in a self-portrait. Explore ideas like
culture, traditions, and special events. They could also explore the idea of firsts the first time
they went to a baseball game, the first time they rode a rollercoaster and so on. Attaching a
personal story will make their work more meaningful.
Empathy and Meaning
Empathy is what connects us to others and helps us to understand them and their
situations. Empathy is feeling what other's feel; being able to put yourself "in their shoes." This
goes hand-in-hand with Story. We can teach empathy in the art classroom by sharing and
listening to the stories of others. I believe that teachers need empathy to connect with their
students and build a safe community in the classroom. Students need us to understand where they
are coming from to help build trust and that safe community. Teachers are not the only ones who
need to show empathy, students also need to.
Ladislaus M. Semali and Judith Fueyos article Transmediation shows how ideas can be
presented in different ways. Does art always have to be visual? No. Maybe its time to think
beyond what we know and have always done. What about the power of role play?
In-class idea: Have students walk in other peoples shoes. Take a look at events in history
and have students act out specific events. They could even turn this into a video project.
We can help our students find meaning by incorporating Pinks senses in the art classroom. We
can challenge them to explore and play, to look at everyday objects in new ways, and to be
different and share their stories. Meanings can be found everywhere, especially in the art room.

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References
Freedman, K. (2003). Teaching visual culture: Curriculum, aesthetics, and the social life of art.
New York: Teachers College Press ;.
Liu, E., & Brandon, S. (2009). Imagination first unlocking the power of possibility. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Pink, D. (2006). A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future. New York:
Riverhead Books.
Semali, L., & Fueyo, J. (n.d.). Reading Online - New Literacies: Transmediation as a Metaphor
for New Literacies in Multimedia.
Uhl, C., & Stuchul, D. (2011). Teaching as if life matters: The promise of a new education
culture. Baltimore, Md.: John Hopkins University Press.