I remember, as a very new and rather frustrated teacher, attending the Aesthetic Realism teaching method workshop for the first time. I saw myself as an educated person but I had never heard anyone talk about English, maths, biology, history, music, and other subjects, with such passion and at the same time such knowledge and care for detail. Thank you, Benedicte Caneill, for telling me about this workshop and urging me to go! Merci!

I had some very good teachers at school, including dear Hubert Moore, who taught me so much about Shakespeare, and who encouraged me to think for myself. At Oxford I was aware of being in a place of great knowledge and tradition, but either because of me or my teachers, or probably both, I never felt inspired to love the subject. On the contrary, there was a great deal of restraint and lack of passion.

But in the workshop I attended early in 1982 the teachers talked not only about the subjects, but also about the education of children with a conviction, kindness, and understanding I had never seen. What they taught was based on this principle by Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism: "The purpose of education is to like the world."

I was sceptical, and I had never heard of Aesthetic Realism before. I had also spent a number of years feeling that I was more sensitive than other people, and too good for this world. This, I learned, was contempt, the building up of myself by making less of other things. I got a false sense of importance from denigrating other things and people, and it stopped me from seeing things truly. When the teachers at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation talked about contempt as the greatest interference with a child's learning I could relate to that because I realised that contempt was the biggest reason why I wasn't more thrilled by the subects I studied at Oxford, and couldn't remember much of what I read.

Then they explained that every subject is aesthetic -- it puts together opposites, the same opposites that are one in a beautiful composition of music! That's why we should learn anything. The principle they quoted is "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites."  For instance, they showed that in an algegraic equation like

                                                     7x - 6 = 15

there is what we know, 6, 15, and the fact that 7 is multiplied by a certain number to make 15 -- and also the unknown. x!  The process you go through as you solve the equation involves going from the unknown to the known, the solution.  (I don't remember if that was the equation they used). Doesn't great music always have the known and unknown? -- something we can count on, a rhythm, key perhaps, and also something unexpected? Even if you've heard it 50 times before, there is still something mysterious, something that does something to us.  This is very swift and rough and does not do justice to what I heard that day, but I hope you get the point.   

Every English sentence is a thrilling oneness of rest and motion. The noun represents rest, the verb, motion. Take the sentence "The skinny black cat chased his brother all over the house."  "The skinny black cat" isn't in motion on his own.  Think of that phrase alone and you can see it's sort of stuck.  The "chased" (with the words that follow) brings him to life and gets him into action. This is true even with sentences that don't use "action" verbs.

For examples of how different subjects put together opposites I am going to give some links to the work of different educators who use this teaching method. Included are links to the Aesthetic Realism Foundation's education website and also articles I wrote on biology and history.

Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method workshop

Lessons and articles that demonstrate this method

Science teacher Rosemary Plumstead

Flutist Barbara Allen on Music and more

Leila Rosen on English -- including Poetry, Reading, and more  

Alan Shapiro writes on Music Education

Christopher Balchin on Vivaldi and what Aesthetic Realism is

The website of Ann Richards and myself-- education articles

Lecture by Eli Siegel, "Educational Method Is Poetic"

"Aesthetic Realism Can End Racism"
 
Benedicte Caneill -- Geology and Life

Lauren Phillips -- elementary education -- Listening, Reading, & "Charlotte's Web" 

Helena Simon -- elementary education -- Sunflowers & Density (physics)  

Professor Edward Green -- Music, Composition, & much more 

And this is a link to the kindest and deepest work about children that I have ever read: The Child, by Eli Siegel.  See for yourself.