The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Succeeds--& Can End the Failure in America's Classrooms!By Ann Richards Using the Aesthetic Realism teaching method in junior high and high school, I have seen students who had felt hopelessly behind and angry, learn what they had seen as beyond them, pass exams and grow confident, happier, kinder. I love my job teaching English; I have a basis, tried and true, for teaching any fact in the English curriculum. It is in this principle stated by Eli Siegel, the greatest educator in history and the kindest man: "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." When my students see, for example, how a paragraph puts together unity and diversity; how a punctuation mark both separates and joins words in a sentence; how a monologue is a dramatic relation of inside and outside--they see opposites they are confused by, made beautifully, sensibly one in the subject; they respect the world more, and they learn! Some time ago at Norman Thomas High School on 33 rd Street I taught a writing skills class to sophomores, juniors, and seniors who either had failed the state writing exam which is required for a diploma, or who were considered at risk of doing so. On the first day, students came into the room looking wary and resigned; and some made fun of each other for being there. Pablo Miranda who seemed older than his 16 years, sat way down in his seat, and said he didn't want to write a word. Camille Lopez, age 17, who has a baby daughter at home being cared for by her mother, was tired and looked resentful, and took a seat in the back, often laying her head dejectedly on the desktop. I. Reading and Writing Combat Contempt for the World I am going to tell soon about a lesson on the comma, but first I want to say this. The reason these students began to write--and with pleasure and depth--was: they saw, through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method, that writing shows the world is much friendlier than they had thought. In "An Aesthetic Realism Manifesto about Education" there are these sentences:
As we read from various stories, they saw that the feelings of another person could come into them, add to them. And so they came to feel that through writing, how they saw and felt could be in the world and add to the world. They didn't have to feel that they were deeply separate and that the world was cold. For example, early in the semester, Camille was suspicious, particularly of the young men in the class, and quick to see flaws--both in the other students and in me, saying the way I organized the class folders was "stupid." I told her she had a point, and I changed the system to one that is more efficient. Meanwhile, Camille had a look which seemed to say "Keep Out!" and as if what went on inside of her was entirely different from anyone else--that she was in her own exclusive world. Then, among the passages the class discussed, was this, from a fictional biography titled Charles Dickens: The Boy of the London Streets by Rupert Sargent Holland. It tells about a terrible time in Dickens' childhood when, because of his family's extreme poverty, he couldn't go to school, but at age 12 had to work in a factory which made a thick paste or polish called blacking:
My students were very surprised that Charles Dickens, the man who wrote A Christmas Carol, had to go through this. They had wonder and compassion on their faces. I asked, "Do you think Dickens used the things he endured to give up on the world, to be disgusted, have contempt for everything?" No, they thought. I said, I learned that Charles Dickens used what happened to him as a child to be against cruelty and injustice and to have big, kind feelings for other children and parents who were poor. He wrote with passion and anger in his novels, so that the people of England and the world would see the feelings of other people and change the horrible conditions in schools, prisons, factories. My students began to change, and Camille started to participate. In one lesson, the class was assigned to write a monologue of an imaginary person close to their own age, to describe that person's inner thoughts. Miguel Chevarra asked: "So is the purpose in writing these to be kind?" Yes, I said. And I was affected to see Camille write thoughtfully about a teenage boy she named Andy. This is some of what she wrote:
Describing this young man's thoughts was a turning point for Camille. She was immediately less separate from the rest of the class. One day I realized that she no longer spoke in the hard and intimidating way she'd had--remote at one time, jutting at another. She was kinder. When Avery Managua asked for instructions to be repeated, Camille moved away from the wall to the middle of the class, sat with Avery and patiently described technical aspects of outlining a persuasive essay. In May she asked what she could do to have the term project magazine come out well. She told me, "I want to help." As our deadline approached at the end of the semester, she volunteered to take home other students' writing as well as her own to type on a friend's computer so that they all could appear in the magazine. 2. The Comma Separates and Joins We read this definition from The Universal Dictionary of the English Language :
I asked the class: "What does a comma do in a sentence? Take this sentence, for example:
Denise Olivo observed, "The comma separates the two parts." I asked, "Does it separate or does it join them?" After a moment, Pablo, who had earlier asserted he didn't want to have anything to do with this class, shouted, "It does both!" "Yes," I said. "And do you see separation and junction anywhere else?" The students began to look around the room. "My pen and the pen top," said Denise. "The chairs are together in the room, but they can move around," Miguel Chevarra said. One student mentioned: "putting pen to paper when we write." And the window--it separates us from outside but we can see the outside through it. "Are we separate and joined, too?" I asked. "For instance, we don't want to be lonely: we need things and people. And also, we want to be independent, don't want to be smothered and just told what to do all the time. We want to be together and separate in a way that's good for us and everything else." Students agreed. And as they saw that the comma does something well with opposites important in their own lives--it both separates and joins--they were for the comma, interested, ready to learn the various ways it is used. One use of the commas we studied was this, as described in our textbook: "to separate a series of words or expressions." I said: "When we place commas in a sentence we are trying to separate and join things in a way that is fair. And the mistakes we can make with the comma are mistakes about these opposites. For instance, if I write
--What happens?" Pablo commented: "Everything is run in together and it's confusing unless you separate the words in your head." "That's how they're sold!" said Avery. "They're separate, they're not all loaded together." "And what if you keep every word separate?"
' What's wrong with this?" "It's too jumpy!" Jay said. "Did you ever feel the parts of your life were very separate from each other--like school, your mother, your friends, basketball?" Students laughed and nodded, recognizing themselves. "And if we're bored, is it because we've lumped everything together, nothing stands out? Do we want to be exact about how things and people are separate and together? Do we want to see them in a way that brings out their meaning? Is writing a means of seeing how?" We agreed that the correct way to separate the words in the sentence was with a comma after oranges, apples, kiwis, and tangerines.
[The comma before "and" is not always seen as necessary, but whether it is included or not, the purpose is the same and brings up the opposites of separation and junction]
All my students had more ease in writing; and as they looked at a blank page, there was a feeling of anticipation--that they were really going to be able express themselves! The class's improvement showed in how much they wrote, their punctuation, and even in their interest in editing their work. As they saw that even the most technical aspects of writing are related to themselves through the opposites they really learned. * * * *
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Here are further links about how Aesthetic Realism sees the arts & sciences, urgent cultural and economic matters, ethics, and the life questions of every person:Anthropologist and author Dr. Arnold Perey tells of his field research in New Guinea and the classes he teaches today--and much more--at Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology For teachers, parents, and others, here are links that will tell you more about the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method:
What makes a photograph beautiful? How can a photographer improve his or her work? What does the art of photography have to do with justice to people? Find out at Len Bernstein: Photographic Education Based on the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel Some of Eli Siegel's books, essays, lectures, and poems can be read at The Aesthetic Realism Online Library Also, see what critics have said about Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel. Aesthetic Realism Associate Lynette Abel tells here about classes she attended taught by Eli Siegel, reports on classes conducted by Ellen Reiss, and reprints some of the newspaper articles she has written: Lynette Abel: Aesthetic Realism and Life What interferes with our expression? Find out at Aesthetic Realism Encourages Self-Expression the website of Miriam Mondlin Read Ellen Reiss's critical observations about the poetry of Robert Burns (one of our favourite poets). She shows how relevant what Burns was writing about 200 years ago is to what is going on today. His poetry has the terrifically just way of seeing people that is needed by government leaders and every one of us. |
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