The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Explains the True Purpose of Education— and Students Learn!

I love what I have been learning in the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel as Teaching Method Workshop. I have never heard, in all the Board of Education, UFT-sponsored and college courses I have taken, young people, teachers, and subjects spoken about with the good will, respect, and exactitude that is in these classes. We study these great principles, stated by Eli Siegel: 1.“The purpose of all education is to like the world.” 2. “The one way to like the world honestly, not as a conquest of one's own, is to see it as the aesthetic oneness of opposites.”

And we learn what in us and in our students interferes with education and makes for prejudice: 3. “The greatest danger or temptation of man is to get a false importance from the lessening of what is not oneself, which lessening is contempt.” It is crucial, All For Education said, for teachers to ask, “Where am I prejudiced? Where do I have contempt, or insufficient respect for the world different from me, including my students, the subject we are studying?” Asking these questions has made me a better teacher and kinder to my students, and I am so grateful that as a white man I can have a good effect on young people from many different cultural backgrounds—Hispanic, African-American, Asian.

I teach social studies at Norman Thomas High School in Manhattan . When I was teaching this course for the first time, and my supervisor suggested that I start the Global Studies II curriculum with Japan , I was not comfortable or at ease with the subject.

While there is and should be tremendous criticism of Japan ’s militarism, of the horrible atrocities that took place in Asia in the 1930’s and 1940’s, my own attitude was one of prejudice and contempt. Through this semester I came to see that I and my students could both learn a great deal from the history of this country—including about good and evil, and the fight between respect and contempt which its history has so intensely.

And Aesthetic Realism in understanding this fight enables us to understand the crucial question which the study of Japan brings up: How could ordinary, nice people who cared for Haiku, for the graceful loveliness of the tea ceremony, also be the cause of Pearl Harbor and some of the greatest cruelty ever to take place?

I. Exclusion and Inclusion in the History of Japan and in Ourselves

At the start of the semester, the students in my class were generally bored and seemed dull. They had all taken this class before and failed it. Students of different backgrounds kept themselves separate from each other, and when they did speak, it was only to someone of their own background or race. I am grateful to say that as the class studied the history of Japan , we saw this Aesthetic Realism principle by Eli Siegel as true: “The world, art, and self explain each other; each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites.” And opposites central to this Asian country are exclusion and inclusion; separation and junction or relation, superiority or arrogance and humility. We read this description from Early Japan:

Japan ’s geography has affected its national culture. The Korea Strait , which separates the westernmost island, Kyushu , from the nearest part of the Asiatic mainland, is 100 miles wide, and although it has sizable stepping-0stone islands, it was difficult and dangerous to cross in early times. This strait gave Japan a semi-isolation, placing it within the Chinese cultural area and at the same time setting it apart. During certain periods, a broad stream of knowledge, literature, art and relation flowed from China to Japan . At other times the flow was shut off from one side or the other, and Japan developed on its own.

I asked the class: Do you see opposites in this description? We saw that Japan is both separate from China and affected by it, joined to it, including culturally.

We learned that between the 6th and 9th centuries the Japanese language was written down for the first time, using the Chinese characters and adapting them to the Japanese spoken language. Buddhism arrived, bringing a new kindness, including organized hospitals, also new artistic and literary styles; well planned roads and a centralized government came to Japan as a result of this contact with China , and the ideas of Confucius. The class felt that definitely Japan had become stronger, more itself, as a result of this contact with China , and the ideas of Confucius. "They learned how to do more things," said Tomas Petrofi. Jennifer said that now they could take care of people who needed help. Other students said that they could write to relatives who lived far away.

I said: "This is about Japan , and we can ask: are we, as individual people more ourselves by being affected by other things and people?” We discussed ways in which we are, and students gave examples such as: learning words, new dance steps, having friends, playing baseball, watching the World Series. There was wonder in theclass as I asked "So have these things outside of us we once didn’t know become som mauch a part of us that we think of them as inseparable from ourselves? Do you think that could be true about other things we don't know about yet?" The class felt that it was true.

My students were in a terrific debate about whether they should be excited about learning anything, and feeling, “Why should I study the history of this foreign country when my family is suffering, and I don’t see any future for myself?” Most of these young people do not live near the school, but come from Harlem , Washington Heights, or the Lower East Side . Some of them have seen and endured terrible things, including people in their neighborhood getting shot, great anger among family members, and the cruel effects of our economy. Some of them go straight from school to working 6 or 8-hour shifts in restaurants or stores, and others need a job to help support their family but can't find one. It is understandable that they felt bitter, suspicious, and sometimes explosively angry, lashing out at others. I hate the profit system for what it makes them go through, and I knew it was urgent for them to learn through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method that the world itself has a structure that can honestly be liked—the oneness of opposites—and that the facts of history show this.

When the Japanese wanted to learn from other countries, including China , their culture flourished and this led eventually to other achievement in the arts, including painting. Japan is now seen as the place where the first novel in the world, The Tale of Genji, was written, around the year 1000, by Lady Murasaki.

We learned that after European ships arrived in Japan in the 16th Century there was growing communication and trade with the West. Meanwhile, Japan had an increasing fear and suspicion of being exploited by Portugal and various countries of Europe , and she retaliated. We read this from the book World Cultures, which tells about an increasing prejudice against and rampant contempt for anything and anyone not Japanese:

During the early 1600's the government began persecuting foreign missionaries and Japanese Christians. This anti-Christian drive grew into a general expulsion of foreigners. In 1639, the Shogun closed Japan to the world.

Japan became virtually separated from the rest of the world: the only exceptions were a few contacts with China and Korea , and two Dutch ships which were allowed to trade once a year. "Does this description of Japan sound anything like a person?" I asked. “There is a disposition in every person,” Mr. Siegel stated, “to think he will be for himself by making less of the outside world.” That is a definition of contempt, and only Aesthetic Realism shows that this same contempt, which begins in the individual self, can come to run an entire country and make for great cruelty.

I asked the students, "In what ways do people try to keep the world out?" Sabrina Vargas said "By being grouchy, because then no one talks to you!" Stephanie Chang said "By arguing on and on and on and not stopping." When I asked them if they had ever kept the world out by being present in a class but having their mind somewhere else, I saw many sheepish but delighted smiles of recognition.

-Go to Part Two-