Eisner currently teaches at Stanford University. His beliefs are grounded in the philosophies of Dewey, and he agrees that there is an important distinction between education and learning.

Eisner argues that the teaching of small manageable pieces of information prohibits students from putting the pieces back together and applying them to new situations. Briefly, Eisner believes that the evaluation concept is too complex to be broken down to a mere list of objectives (a quantitative evaluation). The "Connoisseur Model" is named after his work. In this model, Eisner claims the knowledgeable evaluator can discern good from bad education, using a combination of savvy and experience. He contends that there are some valuable goals of education such as appreciation of art, open-minded skepticism of science that are not easily broken down into small bits of manageable information which can be taught and reinforced (ala Skinner). He goes on to say as long as we evaluate students based on the small bits of information students will only learn small bits of information. Eisner contends that evaluation has and always will drive the curriculum. If we want students to be able to problem-solve, then we must value and evaluate problem solving, a skill which cannot be learner by rote practice (Gagne).

Eisner states: “the aim of scholarship in education is not disinterested knowledge-even if there were such a creature-but the improvement of schooling” (online). In his article,, he argues that acquiring a critical consciousness of method or knowledge is unlikely when a particular paradigm is so dominant that is has not competitors. What is pervasive often goes unexamined. When alternative are suppressed or unavailable, we tend to accept what is accepted” (Eisner, ) He argues that “it is difficult to imagine a more potent lever for changing the priorities of schools than the evaluative methods we employ. What we count counts. What we measure matters. What we test, we teach” (The Meaning of Alternative Paradigms for Practice ).

Eisner gave us both the term and the theory of educational connoisseurship, or the art of appreciation. According to Eisner, connoisseurs can enjoy and understand the qualities of a performance, of a food, of an act, of a text, in private to themselves. Eisner contrasts the act of a connoisseur with those of a critic. He contends that critics are people who transform the contest of connoisseurship into a public language that makes it possible for others less sophisticated in that particular domain to notice the qualities that the critic writes about (The Role of Teachers in Educational Reform).

Later Eisner became interested in the combination of various (separate) disciplines such as art (he has served as president of the National Art Education Association) and science education. He also worked with inner city African-American children which proved critical in his understanding of the relationship between education and the arts.

Selected Books

The Enlightened Eye

Do American Schools Need Standards?

Cognition and Representation