Toward a Theory of Aesthetic Learning Experiences

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to reveal ways to provide the opportunity for students to have aesthetically engaged learning experiences. Using John Dewey’s ideas from Art as Experience as a framework, the author uses aesthetic theory to show how such ends can be reached. In addition, he suggests six themes that teachers can draw upon to help students attain engaged learning experiences. The themes, which are elaborated upon fully in this article, include connections, active engagement, sensory experience, perceptivity, risk taking, and imagination. In addition to providing engaged learning, the upshot of providing aesthetic learning experiences is likely to include student satisfaction, an increase in perceptual knowledge, episodic memory retention, meaning making, and creativity and innovation.

Notes

Notes

1 “Borrowing” ideas and strategies depends on understanding the context from which an idea initiates and the motivating rationale behind it and knowing how the idea will play out in its new context, which includes awareness of aesthetic preferences (Uhrmacher, 1997).

2 My aim is to examine Dewey’s notion of an aesthetic experience and this text, which is Dewey’s most “systematic consideration of the arts” (Jackson, 1998, p. xi) does so quite well. For those interested in a synthesis of Dewey’s ideas on the arts generally from his various writings over the years, including Art as Experience, see Jackson’s (1998) John Dewey and the Lessons of Art.

3 Dewey characterized experience in other ways, including metaphysical ones, but these will not be examined here (see Bernstein, 1966).

4 A better metaphor might have been “play,” but in this article I stick with the term “work” because I believe Dewey was pointing out that an aesthetic experience is not to be taken lightly—it involves effort. Play, of course, can be seen as serious business, but this point must be saved for another time.

5 Dewey’s influence on Csikszentmihalyi and Robinson is debatable, but I believe their “interactionist” approach to aesthetics is similar to Dewey’s.

6 Csikszentmihalyi and Robinson use the term perceptual, but to avoid confusion with the themes of perceptivity and sensory experience, I use sensorial.

7 One could argue that aesthetic learning experiences as I describe them lead to engagement because of the theme of active engagement alone. But I believe that active engagement requires the other themes to provide “deep” or aesthetic engagement.

8 For present purposes it is not important that Coleridge (1817/1983, p. 305) used this term to refer to a mode of memory.

9 The name “Claire” is a self-chosen pseudonym by the teacher.

10 Dewey discusses negative aesthetic experiences briefly. But his frequent use of terms such as joy and satisfying in relation with aesthetic experiences certainly suggests that he is much more concerned with positive ones. Admittedly, I am more concerned with joyful learning experiences.

11 Thanks to Marty Tombari for helping me understand current research in brain theory and how it supports aesthetic education.

12 Sir Ken Robinson (2006) distinguishes creativity (the process of having original ideas) from innovation (putting ideas into practice).