The Necessity of Aesthetic Education: The Place of the Arts on the Curriculum

The Necessity of Aesthetic Education is a manifesto. That which is experienced through engagement with art, through the many various and diverse art forms and media, is uniquely and essentially valuable to the lives of human beings. In order to fully appreciate and gain the most out of the arts, which offer a variety of aesthetic experience, there are concepts, skills and techniques integral to such understanding. In this book, Laura D’Olimpio argues that aesthetic education ought to be a compulsory part of education for all school-aged students, from pre-primary to high school, on the basis of its distinctive value. Such an argument is timely, given the so-called crisis in the arts and humanities, with declining student numbers in subjects that do not have a direct vocational correlative, and increased focus on science, engineering, technology and mathematics (STEM) subjects. As funding cuts increasingly slash the support for the arts, there is a need to argue for why the arts and arts education is valuable, for their own sake, as well as for the positive contributions they can and do make to society. Through critical engagement with a range of thinkers including Maxine Greene, John Dewey and Elliot Eisner, D’Olimpio offers a unique and important contribution to aesthetic education, and to research within philosophy of education.

Defending aesthetic education is a vital task and the reasons we offer to justify the arts on the curriculum matter. I offer a philosophical argument for the necessity of aesthetic education for all school-aged students on the basis of its distinctive value, which is the aesthetic experiences the arts afford. It is aesthetic experience that is distinctive to the arts and a vital component in the flourishing life. As educators we have a duty to introduce our students to elements of a fulfilled and enjoyable life, which, I claim, includes the multiple and various arts and their associated aesthetic experiences.

This article takes as its provocation Marx's intriguing statement about the disjunction between the flowering of Greek art and the underdeveloped stage of social and economic development made as an epilogue to the Introduction to the Grundrisse in order to ask what are the relations between that which has been considered art and what Marx calls `production as such'. In the elaborated conditions of contemporary capitalist societies, we can ask: Is art still being made? To examine this question I juxtapose what Bauman has called `thinking sociologically' with a proposition that art thinks aesthetically. So how can art historians deal with that challenge of thinking aesthetic practices both socially and historically? I track a genealogy of art historians (Clark, Antal, Shapiro) who have attempted to think socially about artistic practices. This leads into a section about the necessity for both sociological and aesthetic education if we are to avoid totalitarianism or free-market individualism (Bahro). Finally, thinking sociologically, by taking as a case study the work of Aby Warburg, I explore the technological conditions of art historical production itself particularly in relation to photography and the way this shapes our access to the image. Warburg represents the possibility of another model for art historical thinking about the image as Kulturwissenschaft, a parallel to Sozialwissenschaft in its ambition and relation to the great intellectual revolutions c.1905 (Freud, Bergson, Einstein, Hussserl). Like Marx, Warburg questioned the continuity of the imaginary space of art thinking in the age of technological industrialism. Where art is now, where art history is, are not just sociological questions to which Marx might offer a dismal answer. I conclude that what is necessary is a constructive conversation between thinking sociologically and thinking aesthetically, knowing synthetically and knowing for oneself — curricular issues made more intense by the shared conditions in which all intellectual production is being transformed in contemporary sites of intellectual practice, the university, by `production as such' leading thought to risk the same fate as art in contemporary society, as Marx hypothesized. As a final thought, I suggest that in contemporary art work that confronts trauma and catastrophe, often using new technologies as aesthetic processes, we may find a counter-argument.

The main purpose of this paper is to determine and distinguish, in a sparing and, by necessity, brief manner, the ideas and statements of theatre education, and present facts and experiences (conceived as a change) providing grounds for building up the concept of theatre pedagogy. The paper is divided into three parts, presenting the synthetic assumptions of Professor Irena Wojnar’s Theory of Aesthetic Education by its field-determined specification, i.e. the concept of theatre education and proposal of a difficult synthesis of pedagogy and theatre, its sources and foundations, as well as cultural and pedagogical premises for its legitimacy. The issues addressed are grounded in the pedagogy of culture, yet at the same time stem from Professor Irena Wojnar’s Theory of Aesthetic Education, offering a clearly outlined general concept of education that focuses on the problem of value and its connections with human enrichment processes. Theatre education is construed here as the refinement of the imagination with regard to values carried by the art of theatre, through the educational situations it creates, and treating it as a specific form of self-education, self-creation or simply making it real. The analysis of multiple relationships and dependencies between values carried by theatre and human education (considering the context of contemporary culture) identifies the main points of interest for theatre pedagogy, at the same time setting the direction for research work. Although it would be hard to treat it as a separate sub-discipline at this stage of its development (perhaps only as an intellectual short-cut), it may undoubtedly serve as a certain interpretation guideline, an observation point, if not as much as a perspective for discussing theatre-related issues. In any case, while addressing the issue of the human being and theatre, in its educational context, and enhancing one’s personal potential, it covers an area of reflection not covered by other fields of theatre studies and research, as well as phenomena affecting and related to theatre.

Conclusion: The necessity of aesthetic education

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China states the need to accelerate the construction of a high-quality education system, to develop digital education, and to achieve educational equity. In the case of music and cultural education in Yancheng, a coastal city in Southeast China, the current trend is to promote the transformation from traditional music education into digital music education, which is conducive to achieving the educational goal of “fostering virtue through education” by the implementation of aesthetic education, and better inheriting local folk songs and operas such as Fishermen’s Work Songs, Funing Cattle Songs, and Huai Opera. This requires educators to constantly consider the necessity of digital music culture education, to propose innovative measures for digital music culture education, and to summarize educational experience that can be drawn on for reference and promotion nationwide.

money-neglected bandwagons, among them aesthetic education programs, humanities and allied courses, and integrated cores. The tax-paying public is reluctant to continue pulling even traditional bandwagons around the schoolyard, so educators are rallying beneath the banner of the back-to-basics thinking that the public understands the necessity of basic education and might be willing to support disciplines making legitimate claims under its flag. If educators can make convincing arguments for the role of the in basic education, much progress can be made in reassuring the public and recovering the ground recently lost. If not, then chances are high that the academic landscape will be littered again with what will be perceived as yet another arts movement, and an alreadycautious public will be deaf to pleas to support school programs.

The Necessity of Aesthetic Education – The Place of the Arts on the Curriculum

The necessity of aesthetic education: the place of the arts on the curriculum

The necessity of aesthetic education: The place of the arts on the curriculum