[5] He was the 1997 recipient of the Sir Herbert Read Award of the International Society for Education through Art (INSEA).
His father, Louis Eisner (originally Leibl Iznuk), was born in the shtetl of Pavoloch in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine), and immigrated to America in 1909.
He was an Oxen harness maker and a leatherworker, as well as a member of the International Fur & Leather Workers Union.
Louis Eisner's union activity provided him an opportunity to meet Eugene Debs at a Socialist convention for his campaign for the Election of 1920.
His mother, Eva Perzov (originally Chava Perzovsky), was a stenographer from the town of Chechersk (in present-day Belarus).
Elliot Eisner received his M.A (1958) and Ph.D. (1962) in education from the University of Chicago, where he studied with Joseph Schwab, Bruno Bettelheim, Benjamin Bloom and Phillip Jackson.
He was making a case for something that he was passionate about because he saw that the attention given to it at the time was damaging any real experience that students could have with the curriculum content.
He wrote: “Once considered an elusive, almost mystical gift to a special few, creativity is now being seen as a capacity common to all - one that should be effectively developed by the school”.