The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Explains the True Purpose of Education— and Students Learn! --Opposites in the History of Japan

--Part Two

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II. Imperialism and Prejudice: What’s the Relation?

After this intense isolation, there was at the end of the Nineteenth Century, what the text describes in the chapter: “Japan Turns to Imperialism.”

Reasons. With Japan deficient in natural resources Japanese industrialists needed supplies of raw materials--especially cotton, iron ore, and oil; they also wanted secure markets for their manufactured goods.

Japan could have achieved this through trade, but instead, we learned, from the end of the last century until Pearl Harbor and World War II, it has invaded, conquered and used the land of East Asia, including Korea, China, Burma, and Malaysia, while exploiting in horrible ways the people who lived there. It’s a big reason why people in Asia are still so angry and don’t trust the Japanese. This feeling that other people exist solely for my benefit and I shouldn’t have to think about them at all—which is at the very core of both imperialism and racism, is contempt. It is the same ugly state of mind had by Great Britain as to the American colonies in the 18 th century, and as to India , and later of Southern slave-owners in 19 th century America . My students were seeing that the way Japan wanted to be superior to other countries is like the way they could look with scorn and suspicion at each other. I feel passionately that every social studies teacher needs to know that the worst things in history have arisen from ordinary, day-by-day contempt; and when we see, through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method, how contempt has worked as a force in history, with the horrors it has caused, we can be more against it in ourselves and others.

II. The Opposition to Prejudice Is in Beauty

And as we studied Japanese culture we saw that there is also in the history of Japan a tremendous desire for respect—shown through the reverence for nature that is at the source of the religion of Shintoism; in Ikebana, the art of flower-araranging which has great symbolism; in Shibui, the study of beauty. And as the class was to see, in complete opposition to the ugly and dangerous imperialism and isolation in Japan 's history, is the work of Basho, beloved poet of Japan , famous for the Haiku, the three-line seventeen-syllable poem.

I am very grateful to be a student in the Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry Class, taught by Class Chairman Ellen Reiss, and to have learned that poetry does in its technique what we want to do in our lives. "All beauty," Eli Siegel stated, "is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves."

I think the poetry of Matsuo Munefusa, known as Basho, does a beautiful job with the opposites of separation and junction. As he writes about individual things—a frog, a child in poverty, locusts—you feel he is uniquely himself though being fair to each of the, honoring them—not separating himself and looking down on them contemptuously. Here are two which my students and I care for. They wanted to read them in Japanese too.

1. A-ma-ga-e-ru

Ba-sho ni no-ri te

So-yo-gi ke-ri

(translation)

A little frog

Riding on a banana leaf

Trembling.

 

2. Poverty's child

He starts to grind the rice

And gazes at the moon.

They loved these poems. And as the class saw how a whole nation is in a fight between contempt and respect, and that contempt for what is different makes one weaker and respect makes one stronger, they changed dramatically. By the end of the semester, students who had looked down on each other, were lending each other books, pens, many of them spoke openly about their lives, and they were eager to learn. There was a friendly feeling in the room, and at the end of classes, these young people would often leave with students of different backgrounds.

One young man, Sandy Taveras, said: "When I was in the Dominican Republic I used to fight with people all the time.” Now, he said, through what he was learning, he had changed. Just the day before instead of fighting with another student, he listened to a friend who stopped him. “I knew I was wrong, and I told my friend so."

My students became much more interested in Global History, and kinder. After the lessons on Japan, as we started learning about the culture of India I was struck by the fact that there was no making fun of unknown names that looked strange, no sniggering, but instead a deep seriousness and excitement about what they would be learning. Students are more alert, they participate in classes, and express themselves in ways they hadn't before.

One young woman of Chinese and Vietnamese descent—Jenny Chan—who earlier just wouldn’t listen to what young men would say, but kept interrupting, now listens eagerly. One day Annelly Ramirez when saw me on the street, she ran up to me and said, "I finally understand what social studies is about! It's getting in here," tapping her head, "for the first time!" And at the end of the semester, Jorge Alvarez wrote:

This class changed me in a big way because before I used to think that my race was the best and we worked the hardest. But I was wrong. I learned I shouldn’t treat others harsh or different just because they don’t look like me or talk like me. I should treat them with respect…and any person can learn this.

I love Eli Siegel and Aesthetic Realism, and Class Chairman Ellen Reiss for making this possible, and it should and will be for all people. And I passionately want the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel as Teaching Method to reach students and teachers everywhere now!