Transformative Learning through Aesthetic Experience

Alexis Kokkos Professor of Adult Education in the

Hellenic Open University

WHY AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE DEVELOPS CRITICAL THINKING?

• It develops imagination (Dewey)• It makes possible the articulation of holistic

and delicate meanings (Gardner, Harvard School of Education)

• It activates the operation of the right hemisphere of the brain (Palo Alto Mental Research Institute – Watzlawick, Jackson and others)

• Frankfurt School: Contact with art familiarises with anti- conventional, holistic and critical way of thinking

WHY AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE DEVELOPS CRITICAL THINKING?

THE METHOD OF PAULO FREIRE

Sub-Issue ΑExploitation of

human resources

Sub-Issue ΒEmployment

relations

A synthetic, holistic examination of all the sub-issues of an issue (using as stimulus the observation of sketches)

Sub-Issue CAlienation

Sub-Issue DCompensation

System etc

Example: Issue “Labor”

Elements of the method“ Learning through aesthetic experience ”

1. Systematic observation and elaboration of works of art should be one of the central elements of the critical educational process.

2. Incorporate Freire’s idea for the holistic examination of an issue through aesthetic experience.

3. Use of authentic works of art. 4. Use of the criteria that the School of Frankfurt, K.

Kastoriades and others set on determining what constitutes an authentic art work (holistic dimension, exploration of deep human Truths, anti-conventional spirit).

5. Use of all forms of art. 6. Use of D. Perkins’s technique on the observation of art

works.7. Making sure that the artworks are familiar to the

participants.8. The whole approach is situated within the frame of

Transformative Learning.9. Use of two educational strategies, each one composed

by six stages.

Elements of the method“ Learning through aesthetic experience ”

1st STRATEGY: THE EDUCATOR UNDERTAKES SIGNIFICANT INITIATIVES

• Determination of the need to critically examine the taken for granted assumptions concerning a certain issue.

• Elicitation of the consent by the participants to further examine the issue.

Stage 1:

Stage 2:

The participants express their opinions about the issue

Stage 3:The educator examines the answers and identifies the

sub-issues that should be approached holistically and critically

etc.

Example on stage 3: Identification of the sub-issues of the issue

“Characteristics and attitudes of a thinker”

1. Is the thinker “always” a man, of mature age? 2. Which is his/her inner disposition? 3. How does he/she learn? (mainly from books?)4. How does he/she relates to others? To the society? 5. Which are the needed skills of a thinker?6. Which are the “dangers” and the “rewards” of being

a thinker nowadays?

Stage 4:The educator identifies several works of art as stimuli for

the elaboration of the sub-issues (the works of art are related to the sub-issues)

Use of authentic works of art : • Painting• Sculpture • Photography• Literature, poetry• Theater • Cinema• Dance• Music• etc.

Stage 5:

Consecutive presentation of the artworks

Each artwork is analysed and critically connected to the related sub-issues

Each participant expresses his/her experiences, feelings and thoughts

Rembrandt,

“The thinker in his study”

Rodin,

“The thinker”

Fresco from Pompeii:

“A thinker”

There are no days in our childhood as ripe as those which we spent reading a beloved book. We were brushing aside like obstacles in a divine delight: a friend, interrupting us from reading the most interesting part with his wish to play, an annoying bee or a ray of sunshine that forced us to take our eyes of the page or just change position.If we ever happen to leaf through one of those old books, we feel like they are our only and most precious diaries we kept at those days we lost.

Marcel Proust, “Days of Reading”

Raffaello, “The School of Athens”

PlatoAristotle

Socrates

Parmenides

Pythagoras

Euclid

Rembrandt,

“Aristotle contemplating a bust of Homer”

Stage 6:

• Critical review and enrichment of the participants initial opinions

• Comparison of the participants initial opinions with those resulting from the discourse

• Synthesis / Inferences

2nd STRATEGY: LEARNERS UNDERTAKESIGNIFICANT INITIATIVES

Stage 3: Identification of the sub-issues (with the participation of learners)

Stage 4: The participants suggest various artworks

Stage 5: The participants select the works of art and define the order in which they are going to be examined

Epilogue