What Dewey’s Aesthetics Has to Offer Education

Kevin Pugh & Mark Girod

Under review as:

Pugh, K. & Girod, M. (2002). Science, art and experience: Constructing a science pedagogy out of Dewey's aesthetics. School Science and Mathematics (under review)

After establishing a connection between science and art and aesthetics, conceptual implications are drawn from Dewey’s (1934/58) aesthetic theory. The concept of a transformative, aesthetic experience is developed and a series of pedagogical derivatives are identified. These pedagogical moves are illustrated with references to empirical studies conducted with the outcome of teaching for transformative, aesthetic experience as the goal.

Dewey presents a powerful vision of art’s potential. In his view, "the arts do more than provide us with fleeting moments of elation and delight. They expand our horizons. They contribute meaning and value to future experience. They modify our ways of perceiving the world, thus leaving us and the world itself irrevocably changed" (Jackson 1998, p. 33). Art, Dewey (1934/1958) tells us, "quickens us from the slackness of routine and enables us to forget ourselves by finding ourselves in the delight of experiencing the world about us in its varied qualities and forms" (p. 110).

But does not education in general possess this same potential? We believe it does. Further, we believe this potential can be realized through a reflective application of Dewey’s aesthetics. This is the task we have undertaken in the context of science education. At first, it may seem odd to pair beauty and the arts with science. Much has been written on the differences between the two as well as the cultures in which they are practiced. C.P. Snow’s, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959), provides a detailed account of fundamentally perceived differences between science and the social sciences (in which he includes the arts) in epistemology, ontology, and cultural values and norms of practice. Recently, however, we have seen a resurgence of attempts to connect the arts and sciences. To name just a few: Root-Bernstein (1997) has argued that science and art share a common underlying aesthetic motive and aesthetic theory; Holton (1978) argues for the role of imagination and artistic creativity in science; Chandrasekhar (1987), suggests scientists find motivation and desire to participate in science through aesthetics; McAllister (1996) appeals to aesthetics as a critical factor in a highly rational account of scientific progress and revolution; Flannery (1991) identifies aesthetic aspects in the process of learning and doing science; while Fischer (1999) seeks to blur the boundaries between science and art almost completely.

In line with these recent attempts to connect science and art, we, along with other scholars, have drawn on Dewey’s theory of aesthetics to gain insights into how science education could be an aesthetic enterprise. Dewey’s work is particularly useful for connecting art to science education because he develops an elaborate conception of what it means to engage in aesthetic experience, and this theory of aesthetic experience can be seen as an extension of his ideas regarding experience and education (Author, 1999a; 2001a; in press-b; Wong, Packard, Author & Author, 2000; Wong, Author, & the Deweyan Ideas Group at Michigan State University, 2001). Over the last few years, we have experimented with putting Dewey’s theory to work in various elementary, middle school, high school, and university classrooms, and researching the results (Author; 2001b; 2002; in press-a; in press-b). This sort of empirical investigation of aesthetic approaches to science teaching has been lacking. As a result of these efforts, we have identified some specific applications of Dewey’s aesthetics that have proven fruitful. The purpose of this paper is to present these applications for the benefit and critique of the scholarly community. Our intent is not to offer a "recipe" for aesthetic teaching, or even to suggest that the methods presented here are "best practices." Rather, we present these methods as ideas in the Deweyan sense. In other words, we present them as promising possibilities that need to be further tried out, tested and reconstructed in experience. We have found them to be fruitful in our own experience, but we feel the educational community needs to help determine the worth of these ideas. Furthermore, we believe that bringing this discussion to the educational community will afford the development of new insights, knowledge, and ideas about how education can foster transformative, aesthetic experiences.

Before continuing on, we wish to acknowledge a dept to Philip Jackson who has not only clarified Dewey’s aesthetics, but provided insights into the consequences of Dewey’s aesthetics for how we should go about living our lives and crafting our education (see Jackson 1995; 1998, 2001).

In Art as Experience, Dewey (1934/1958) develops the construct of "an experience." An experience refers to a special class of experience; it refers to those experiences that are particularly meaningful, important, and aesthetic. Two of the most general qualities of an experience are an expansion of perception and an expansion of meaning or value (Jackson, 1998). In an experience, individuals come to see, experience, appreciate, and value aspects of the world in a new way, resulting in a transformation of the individual’s relationship with the world. Dewey felt that art played a special role in fostering these transformative experiences. We argue that educational concepts (and in our work, we have focused on science concepts) can also expand perception and value, thus transforming students’ relationship with the world. Author (in press-b) refers to such experiences as transformative experiences. He offers the following definition:

Similarly, Author (2002) has drawn on Dewey’s work to develop the construct of aesthetic understanding. Aesthetic understanding is a rich network of conceptual knowledge combined with a deep appreciation for the beauty and power of ideas that literally transform one’s experiences and perceptions of the world. Aesthetic understanding pushes students to see, think, and act differently as a result of new learning. The critical elements in the construct are: 1) changed perception - of both self and world; 2) renewed interest and excitement, and; 3) added clarity in thought or comprehension.

While we have used some different language in trying to conceptualize what it means for students to experience aesthetic outcomes (of the type Dewey describes) in the realm of science education, we are generally interested in the same goal. We want students to be differently in the world because of powerful science ideas. As part of this goal, we emphasize the importance of changed perception and increased interest in science ideas and aspects of the world illuminated by those ideas. For the purposes of this paper, we will refer to this outcome as transformative, aesthetic experience.

Through our efforts at putting Dewey’s theory of aesthetics to work in our own teaching, we have found some ideas for creating a transformative, aesthetic science education to have merit. By merit, we mean two things. First, we have found them to be fruitful in the sense that they have caused us to think about curricular and instructional issues in new and unique ways. Second, our research results suggest that educational approaches based on these ideas are effective at fostering transformative, aesthetic experience. This research is in its preliminary stages and, hence, should be interpreted cautiously, but the initial results are promising. In one study (Author, in press-b), experimental methods based on the ideas discussed in this paper were implemented in a high school zoology class and student outcomes were compared with those of students in a comparable class taught using inquiry methods. Overall, the results indicated that a significantly greater percentage of students in the experimental class engaged in transformative, aesthetic experiences. In a second study (Author, 2001a), it was found that 5^th grade students taught for aesthetic understanding had more positive attitudes toward science and efficacy beliefs about themselves as science learners than students taught for the goal of conceptual understanding. Moreover, in both of these studies students in the experimental classes displayed a significantly higher level of conceptual understanding on follow-up assessments of conceptual understanding.

Below we describe the ideas that we have found to have merit along with a description of how they were derived from Dewey’s work and the related work of other scholars. The ideas can be lumped into two general categories: Those that involve crafting ideas out of concepts and those that involve the modeling and scaffolding of transformative, aesthetic experience. There is some necessary overlap of these categories, but enough distinctiveness to merit the separation. Without further ado, we will address each of these categories.

A misgiving Dewey (1934/1958) expresses is that "when an art product once attains classic status, it somehow becomes isolated from the human conditions under which it was brought into being and from the human consequences it engenders in actual life experience" which in turn renders the general significance of the product "almost opaque" (p. 3). As a result, the product fails to expand perception and vitalize experience. The same could be said of the "classics" that comprise our curriculums. When intellectual products attain classic status, they become isolated from the conditions in which they had an original significance and from their potential consequences for everyday experience. As a result, their importance is mindlessly accepted but not fully appreciated. Another way of putting it is that we often teach concepts instead of engaging our students in ideas. Dewey (1933) explains that concepts are established meanings ("classics") whereas ideas are possibilities that must acted upon and tried out. Concepts are forms of knowledge. Ideas are ways of being in the world. They are inseparable from human experience (Wong et al., 2001). Hence, we see one of the primary duties of the teacher to be the crafting of concepts into living ideas so that the content may become a catalyst for transformative, aesthetic experience. Of course the teacher cannot do this alone. The experience requires a transaction involving the teacher, content, environment and student (Dewey, 1938). Nevertheless, the teacher plays a critical role in this transaction. Below we describe the methods we have used in our attempts to foster engagement with ideas.

Restore concepts to the experience in which they had their origin and significance. In one of his early and oft cited writings on education, Dewey (1990/1902) admonishes teachers to "psychologize" the subject matter. In other words, it needs to be "turned over, translated into the immediate and individual experiencing within which it has its origin and significance" (p. 200). One interpretation of this statement is that concepts need to be restored to the experiences in which they were first developed and debated as ideas. Thus it is important to remember that even the most mundane, taken-for-granted concepts were once powerful — perhaps even disturbing — ideas. Take the Copernican view of the solar system as an example. Today the concept that the earth revolves around the sun is so ordinary that we don’t even think about it twice. But it was once an exciting and disturbing possibility that inspired new actions and transformed the way people thought about the earth and humanity in some surprising new ways. Hence, one way of crafting ideas out of concepts is to help the students appreciate and experience the birth of a concept as an idea. Doing so may involve such things as helping students understand the historical context in which the concept first originated and helping them recognize the important transformations that resulted from it. This is sometimes easier said than done. We don’t often spend our time contemplating the original significance of the content we teach (after all, most of the concepts are "classics" whose significance we don’t question), and hence don’t have ready answers (neither do most textbooks or other curricular material). Discovering the original significance may require some research, conversations with knowledgeable others, and sustained reflection on what you sense as the real significance.

As an example, one of us was recently involved in the task of teaching Newton’s Laws to a 7^th grade science class (Author, 1999b). Newton’s Laws represents one of those classic concepts whose importance is often taken for granted, but never really appreciated. Hence, when the author was preparing to teach this content, he spent considerable time discussing with others and contemplating the original significance of Newton’s Laws. Eventually, he was able to come up with a significance that he believed in — one that captured the transformative power of the original idea. This significance was then crafted into the following statement, which was shared with the students:

This statement, presented in the context of a discussion of historic religious/philosophical beliefs and the rise of the scientific world view, was intend to help students appreciate just how revolutionary Newton’s Laws were at the time of their inception. But this statement does not represent the only possible original significance of Newton’s Laws. Other teachers may discover or identify with a different significance. Nevertheless, such statements or other activities (such as having the students themselves discover the original significance of a concept) that help students appreciate the original significance of the content are important because they help remove the barriers to reflection caused by the "classic" status of the concept. They help students see the concept as the compelling idea it originally was.

Foster anticipation and a vital, personal experiencing. Another aspect of psychologizing the subject matter is to connect it to students’ experience in a special way. Nearly all instructional approaches emphasize the importance of connecting subject matter to student experience, but Dewey had something more in mind that what we typically do. He felt that teachers need to connect subject matter with experience in such a way that it induces "a vital and personal experiencing" (1902/1990). In other words, students need to have vital experiences with the subject matter in their everyday lives.

In order to induce a vital personal experiencing of the subject matter, teachers need to do more than simply show students how the subject matter relates to their experience. This is a good start, but the teacher also needs to create anticipation. Anticipation is key to transformative/aesthetic experience, because it is an instigator of action (Wong et al., 2001). Anticipation is the force that moves an experience forward. Just as suspense moves a drama forward, anticipation moves students to act on and experience ideas.

How can anticipation with respect to experiencing ideas be fostered? One approach is to carefully craft the subject matter in a similar way that an artist does. A drama writer, for example, carefully chooses what words, images, descriptions and action sequences will go into a manuscript (many are rejected). These vital elements are then crafted together in a particular order and form so that they build on themselves and create a growing suspense and plot line. Teachers can do the same thing with the content they have to work with. They don’t have to teach everything in some indiscriminate order (thankfully, most don’t!). They can carefully select the elements of the content that are most vital and craft these together with an eye towards the development of anticipation and personal experiencing.

An intriguing example of how content can be crafted in an artistic way with eye towards the development of anticipation and personal experiencing is presented in the movie Dead Poets Society (1989). In this movie, Robin Williams as the character of Mr. Keating (an English professor at an all boys prep school) introduces his students to the world of poetry and literature through this carefully crafted monologue:

Through these carefully selected statements, Mr. Keating conveys the importance and meaning of poetry and language. He creates anticipation regarding such things as how words can change the world, what it means to be filled with passion and express this passion through poetry, and how one might personally contribute to the world. Such statements and anticipation can move the individual to engage in a vital personal experiencing (or "passionate experimentation" to take a phrase from one of Mr. Keating’s students) with poetry and language.

We, the authors, lack the mastery of language possessed by the script writers for the movie Dead Poets Society. Nevertheless, we have made our own fledgling attempts at crafting the curriculum in compelling way such that it fosters anticipation and evokes passionate experimentation with the subject matter.

For example, one of us was presented with the task of teaching adaptation and evolution in a 10^th grade zoology class (Author, in press-b). The author determined that a vitalizing element in these concepts was related to a fascination with animal design. Hence, after viewing and discussing some home video clips of remarkable animals (e.g., a grizzly bear and moose) and having the students write and talk about their favorite animals, the author shared the following statement:

The rest of the unit was then focused around the activity of learning to see and appreciate animals for the amazing creations that they are. The intent here was to tap into existing interests and create anticipation about how animals could be seen in an exciting, new way. If fostered, this anticipation would lead the students to have their own vital and personal experiencing of the subject matter by moving them to see animals differently in their everyday lives (which most of them did).

Another way of connecting the subject matter to experience in such a way that it creates anticipation and induces a vital, personal experiencing is to use compelling metaphors. We discuss this method next.

Use of metaphor. Educators have read Dewey quite clearly on the issues of action and undergoing. This is often distilled to refer to learning by doing — in that learners act on the world, and in such, the world acts upon them — helping to shape, guide, and craft new learning. Much is bound up in Dewey’s use of action and undergoing. To fully understand the acquisition of ideas one must see in Dewey his debt to Charles Sanders Peirce. Through deep study of the writings of Peirce, Dewey shifted away from the inductionist epistemology of James to an epistemology grounded in realism, referred to as abduction.

Abduction is offered by Peirce and Dewey as an alternative to more mainstream perspectives on the acquisition of new knowledge such as deduction and induction. Whereas deduction and induction "prove" the existence of something, "…abduction merely suggests that something may be" (Peirce, 1934, vol. 5, pg. 171). In abduction, Peirce focuses on his triadic process of ideation. Prawat (1999), comments on this process, "Peirce viewed abduction as the first and most important stage in inquiry. As a communicative act, it involves a sign (i.e., the metaphoric instantiation of meaning), an interpretant (i.e., the set of experiences one anticipates having in relation to an object), and the object or event one wishes to understand" (pg. 62). Through this highly situated activity (situated in the real world, as well as in discourse communities) Prawat suggests (1999), "Ideas, or rather the metaphoric signs that instantiate ideas, connect the antecedent and the consequent. The double meaning is represented at one end by iconic or imaginal representations — the so-called "existential stuff" that supplies the mind with its "footing" — and at the other by the yield the learner realizes from cashing in on this antecedent knowledge" (pg. 61). Through Peirce, Dewey was able to identify a clear path through the epistemological trappings of past theories of knowledge acquisition. It is the "brush clearing" of this earlier work that is left out of Dewey’s (1934/1958) commentary on aesthetics. What is central here, however, is the inherent realist position to which Dewey holds steadfast and that metaphor, through the ideational process, plays a central role in new learning. Prawat (1999), again, "Peirce viewed the process of idea development as one of metaphoric projection. Metaphors like ‘food factory’ for leaves or ‘pump’ for heart are sematically complex signs that represent a blending of the imaginal or iconic, the indexical, and the symbolic" (pg. 60). In this regard, metaphors are a natural fit for the acquisition of ideas.

Cognitive scientists have long touted the power of metaphor to connect concepts to objects and events in the physical world (Johnson, 1990; Ortony, 1979). Scientists have similarly employed metaphor to aid creative thinking (Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 1999). Like ideas, metaphors are about possibilities — possible connections, representations, or explanations. Too often learning is portrayed as resolving gaps in our knowledge or solving problems that we may encounter. We argue, however, that using metaphors allows learning to be about what may be, to appreciate the affordances of new ways of thinking, seeing, and acting. Hence metaphors can engage students in the experience of an idea.

In an interesting study of Deweyan epistemology (Author, 2001a), several science units were organized around metaphors that sparked Deweyan ideas. Erosion was taught to 5^th graders as a battle between the earth’s resistive features and those forces that destroy it, air pressure was taught imagining humans at the bottom of an ocean of air, and rocks were portrayed as short stories eager to reveal information about the earth’s past and the geology of the local environment. Two students exemplify learning with ideas. A common element among these responses is that the metaphor has receded into the background leaving scientific ideas and new ways of seeing and acting in the world at the fore.

The role of expanded perception is clear in Dewey’s notion of experience. For Dewey, full perception is necessary for full understanding and full appreciation. Through the process of experience, perception was expanded to include the nuance of detail that the viewer had previously been aware of. Metaphor assists in this process by forcing us to attune to detail in two separate locations. Erosion is war, forces us to consider the details of both phenomenon in ways we perhaps had not before. On metaphor, abduction, and its connection to perception, Prawat (1999) comments, "According to Peirce, then, there is a perceptual or insightful element to abductive thinking. This, sensuous form of reasoning is very important in the early stages of the metaphoric process" (p. 62). Because of this attention to detail that metaphor forces upon us, the notion of expanded perception follows as a third path to the revitalization of concepts.

Re-seeing. Another method we have used in crafting ideas out of concepts is to emphasize the potential of content to transform the way we see and experience the world and to teach our students to "re-see" their world. Dewey (1934/1958) wrote that ordinary living, routine, un-observed interaction with the world causes us to lose touch with the uniqueness and originality found in the world, "apathy and torpor conceal this expressiveness [of ordinary objects] by building a shell about them." Art, however, "throws off the covers that hide the expressiveness of experienced things. Dewey continues, "it quickens us from the slackness of routine and enables us to forget ourselves by finding ourselves in the delight of experiencing the world about us in varied qualities and forms" (pg. 109-110). As we’ve read previously, science ideas, like art, have the potential to reveal and renew as well. We, however, must become proficient in the act of seeing the world through artful eyes. When this is actualized; when students begin to more fully perceive the world through the lens of particular science content, then they are not just understanding concepts, they are experiencing ideas.

Nobel-prize winning biologist Konrad Lorenz describes the intimate connection between deep perception and excellence in science while simultaneously acknowledging that deep observation falls typically in the domain of art. "He who has once seen the intimate beauty of nature cannot tear himself away from it again. He must become either a poet or a naturalist and, if his eyes are good and his powers of observation sharp enough, he may well become both" (Lorenz, 1989, pg. 237). This level of perception; deep, sustained, and inquiring must be taught.

We’ve found that if teachers explicitly teach students how to re-see ordinary events and objects through scientific and artistic eyes, the results are powerfully educative and engaging (see also, Csikszentmihalyi & Robinson, 1990). This re-seeing can be fostered by explicitly teaching students what it means to re-see and by modeling ways of re-seeing everyday objects and events (Author, 2001a; in press-b). Examples of students re-seeing are cited below.

Deep perception, the quality of which Dewey and Lorenz describe above, takes effort to train and time to unfold. In each of the cases above, we provided our students guidance, opportunity, and feedback in previous efforts to re-see through the eyes of science. We consistently ask our students to articulate how the world looks differently through the lens of new science ideas, how this lens help them to see things they had never seen before, and what, if anything, the new lens hides from view. Seeing differently may not always mean seeing more completely.

Along with Mead, Dewey worked out a theory of the social origin of mind (Garrison, 1995). Today, this theory and the work of Vygotsky (1978; 1986) are foundational to the situative perspective that views learning as a process of enculturation (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989; Greeno, Collins & Resnick, 1996). This perspective places emphasis on participation in sociocultural activity. As individuals come to participate more centrally in sociocultural activity, they appropriate the knowledge, skills, and values inherent in the activity and the culture it is a part of (Lave & Wegner, 1991; Rogoff, 1993). This general theory of learning has led to the development of apprenticeship models of instruction (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989; Collins, Brown & Newman, 1989; Newman, Griffin & Cole, 1989; Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Such models emphasize the need to enculturate students into such things as ways of thinking, problem solving, and comprehending text, often through the use of modeling and scaffolding techniques.

In our work, we have been interested in how this social theory of mind and the apprenticeship model of instruction might apply to the realm of transformative, aesthetic experience. It seems likely that there is a strong social component to the undergoing of transformative, aesthetic experiences due to the fact that our engagement in such experiences is often associated with membership in a particular community. For instance, membership in the artistic community seems to afford the undergoing of transformative, aesthetic experiences with art, while membership in the scientific community seems to foster transformative, aesthetic experiences with science. Each community enculturates us with particular ways of valuing, perceiving, and experiencing that can transform our relationship with the world. Hence, it also seems logical that classrooms, which function as genuine communities of learners, may also be contexts for enculturating students into particular transformative, aesthetic experiences. In our teaching, we have operated under this assumption, and have considered how modeling and scaffolding could be used (in classrooms that are genuine learning communities) to both illustrate what it means to engage in transformative, aesthetic experiences with the given content and to help students to participate in such experiences. Below we describe in more detail the type of modeling and scaffolding we have tried. As you will probably note, these methods of modeling and scaffolding go hand in hand with some of the approaches to crafting ideas out of concepts mentioned above.

Modeling of passion. Students first come to experience subject matter concepts through the eyes of their teacher. This puts a great burden on the teacher to portray subject matter in ways that captivate, motivate, and enervate students to give an honest effort in learning and seeing the world anew. A wonderful example again comes from the movie Dead Poets Society. As the character of Mr. Keating, Robin Williams shows what it means to be alive with poetry and literature. It rapidly becomes clear (to the boys and the viewer) that poetry is not just an academic subject for Mr. Keating. Rather it is a vital force that drives his life. Poetry, for Mr. Keating, is a catalyst for transformative, aesthetic experience.

Few of us (if any!) have Robin Williams’ talent for expression or even Mr. Keating’s passion for the subject matter. But we can certainly seek to be more passionate than we currently are. A study by Brophy and Kher (1986), involving observations of reading and mathematics instruction in middle-grade classrooms, concluded that out of 100 hours of classroom observation only 9 task introductions included information about the meaning, importance, or usefulness of the content to be learned. Further, even these 9 task introductions were so minimal that they were unlikely to convey (let alone foster) passion or interest in the content. Similarly, Newby (1991) coded 1,748 instances of teachers using motivational strategies in 168 hours of observation of first-year elementary teachers, and found that only 7.5 percent of these strategies involved explaining the value of the learning. It appears the we teachers either lack a passion for our subject matter or lack the knowledge/ability to express this passion (as an aside, a comprehensive body of research on teacher passion would be a nice complement to the extensive body of research on teacher knowledge).

Hence in our efforts to teach for transformative, aesthetic experiences, we have considered how we could better model passion. One thing we have focused on is simply developing a passion for what we are going to teacher. We found that further passion could be stirred by discussing the content with others and particularly by considering how the concepts could be crafted into ideas. Invariably, as we considered the original significance of the concepts, thought up metaphors to represent the concepts, and considered how the concepts cause us to "re-see" the world, we developed a greater passion for the subject matter. We also made deliberate attempts to have our own transformative, aesthetic experiences with the content. We engaged with the concepts as ideas and tried them out in our own lives. A second strategy we found helpful was to identify opportunities to express our interest and valuing of the subject matter directly when planning lessons. This may seem contrived, but, on reflecting on our teaching, we found ourselves to be similar to the teachers mentioned above. We often failed to take advantage of opportunities to express our interest in and valuing of the content. Identifying such opportunities ahead of time and even scripting how we might express our interest and valuing helped us to more successfully express our passion. Finally, we regularly took the time to talk about the transformative, aesthetic experiences that we did have with the content.

For example, while teaching about adaptations (Author, in press-b), one of us would often talk about how fascinating it was to understand animals’ adaptations and would model how he was using the concept of adaptation to perceive animals in the real world. For instance, at the beginning of one class he commented, "While driving here, I passed a bunch of Canadian Geese and I began to wonder, ‘Why do they have a black head and white neck? What’s the adaptive purpose?’" Similarly, Author (2001a) began a 5^th grade lesson on molecular motion by stating

The point of these comments was to show students what it means to engage with the content as an idea and to have your perception and valuing transformed by it. While the movie Dead Poets Society is a fiction, the notion that students can be infected by a teacher’s passion and perception is real. As an example, one of our students commented, "Its hard not to get interested in what our teacher is talking about. He’s always telling us about the war [erosion] that’s going on and how its happening everywhere and we can’t stop it. I start to think about it too."

We may not all have the charisma of Robin Williams, but we all can talk about what the subject matter does for us; how the ideas enrich our lives, expand our perception, contribute to the meaning we find in the world, and so on. Doing these things will help create a culture within the classroom where transformative, aesthetic experiences are valued.

Scaffolding of transformative experience. To further enculturate students into a particular way of seeing and experiencing the world through some content, we also employed scaffolding techniques. Specifically, we arranged a series of activities to help students move from peripheral to more central participation in transformative, aesthetic experiences with the content. For example, in teaching the unit on adaptation mentioned above (Author, in press-b), the author first modeled how he used the concept of adaptation to perceive animals in a personally meaningful, new way. Then, he guided the students in class as they practiced seeing animals in terms of their adaptation. Next, he provided opportunities to examine animals through the lens of adaptation while working in small groups. Finally, he encouraged the students to try out this adaptation lens in their own, everyday, out-of-school lives and he provided opportunities for the students to talk to each other about the out-of-school experiences they had of seeing animals in terms of adaptations. Hence, students were supported in moving from listening to the transformative, aesthetic experiences of teacher to engaging in and in sharing their own transformative experiences. In this way, the classroom community evolved into one that was focused on transformative experience with the content.

Clearly this work is in its infant stages. Future research is needed to more clearly articulate and define the ideas mentioned in this paper. In addition, significantly more empirical research is needed to validate the merit of these ideas. In particular, research is needed that moves beyond the action research/self-study techniques used to develop these ideas. Nevertheless, the initial data is clear and compelling. Teaching in ways that draw from Dewey’s aesthetics is one way to further engage, educate, and motivate students. However, another concern may be that this teaching is too labor intensive. It takes significant time to craft the content in an artistic way, and to develop and model a passion for the content. With teachers’ heavy loads and the common practice of teachers being asked to teach outside their main area of interest and expertise, we speculate that it would be difficult for teachers to teach for aesthetic, transformative experiences all the time. Instead, they may need to choose a few concepts and focus on fostering aesthetic, transformative experiences with these few concepts. Then over time, they could build up a repertoire of methods for teaching concepts in an artistic way.

Art stands to add richness and depth to our lives and experiences in the world in ways that few other disciplines can. Crafting educative experiences in ways that draw on artistic pedagogy and aesthetic ways of knowing is necessarily more engaging, powerful, and dramatic than learning that is not. We have tried to connect aesthetics and science more systematically through science education to enrich our students’ lives. Rather than arguing with students that they should learn science to help them get a job, help them earn a degree, or solve problems, we’d like to tell students they should learn science because, like art, it provides an interesting and pleasing way to see and be in the world.

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