Aesthetics and Dewey's Theory of Education.

Much of Dewey's early interest in aesthetics centered around his theory of childhood education. In a work from 1896, “Imagination and Expression,” he stresses the importance of directing the psychical impulse that provides the motive for expression (Dewey 1896). Here, unlike later writings, he emphasizes the distinction between the idea to be expressed and the technique by which it is expressed. He argues that although technique should be subservient to idea, it should not be neglected. He rejects the notion that the idea is spiritual and the technique physical. However, in the idealist vein typical of this period, he insists that the child draws from his or her own image, not from the object, and concludes that teachers should help children to present and construct complete images having their own value.

Throughout his early writings on education Dewey emphasized the importance of aesthetic education. For instance, he writes about the educational role of museums in The School and Society (1902). He locates a museum in the center of his ideal school, his diagram of that school representing his effort to synthesize the arts and sciences in education (Constantino 2004).

In his 1915 book Democracy and Education Dewey stresses that taste is determined by environment. If a child constantly sees harmonious objects she will have a standard of taste, whereas barren surroundings will eliminate her desire for beauty. Standards are determined by the situations in which a person habitually lives. Thus taste cannot be taught consciously through second-hand information.

Dewey here emphasizes the connection between aesthetics and issues of social justice. Those in society who contribute to the maintenance of life or to its decoration cannot today have full and free interest in their work. Instead of transforming things and making them more significant, art today merely feeds fancy and indulgence. Dewey insists that this sad state of affairs is caused by the current separation between laboring and leisure classes.

He then asks what role the fine arts should play in the education of children. Although every adult has certain standards of aesthetic value, a danger exists that they will attempt to teach those standards directly to children. If this happens the values taught will be merely conventional and verbal. Working standards depend on what the individual has appreciated in concrete activity. If the individual has been accustomed to ragtime music (a popular form at this time) then his or her working standards will be fixed at that level.

For Dewey, the scope of appreciation is as broad as that of education itself. Habits are merely mechanical unless they are also tastes. The imagination is needed for appreciation in every field. Thus imaginative activity should not be limited to the world of fairy tales, or even to that of fine art. It is dangerous to associate imagination only with childish play and fancy, while excluding it from goal-directed activity. Even laboratory activities are best seen as dramatizations that may be appreciated aesthetically.

For Dewey, the sharp distinction commonly made between play and work is due mainly to undesirable social conditions. Both involve ends, materials, and processes. In play, the activity is its own end, although the activity may include considerable looking ahead, whereas work involves a longer course of activity with a greater demand for continuous attention (Dewey 1915, p. 202–204). The human demand for play persists in the adult need for recreation. Dewey sees art as meeting this demand. Play and work are prior to the distinction between useful and fine arts. These activities involve emotions, imagination, and skill, which are also required for

artistic production. They ground both useful and fine arts, and this shows that the distinction between the two should not be seen as rigid.

Dewey holds that appreciation is intensified valuing. The main function of the fine arts is enhancement of qualities that make ordinary experience appealing: they fix taste for later experience. They also reveal meaning and supply vision. They concentrate aspects of the good that are otherwise scattered. For Dewey, there are no degrees of value apart from a particular situation. Thus, if a man has been starving, and has had enough music for now, he will judge food to be more valuable than music. The only ultimate value is the process of living itself, This is the whole of which the various studies and activities involved in education are merely ingredients.

Dewey insists on not limiting aesthetics to art, or artistic to aesthetic value. Arithmetic and science, as much as poetry, should sometimes be appreciated aesthetically. Dewey believed that only when art is sometimes appreciated for itself can it also be used for other ends. The main value of fine art is not the enjoyment of leisure, but heightening meaning through concentration.