The Artistic-Aesthetic Curriculum

Greene, Maxine. (2007). In Randall Curren (Ed.), Philosophy of Education: an anthology. pp. 561-566. Blackwell Publishing.

Greene quotes John Dewey's approach to art as experience: art clarifies and concentrates the meanings of things ordinarily dumb and inchoate; works of art can keep alive "the power to experience the common world in its fullness"

In this light, Green argued: "This would not happen, I am sure, if it were not for the ability to pull aside the curtains of habit, automatism, banality, so that alternative possibilities can be perceived." (p. 562).

For Greene, art education contributes to developing the sense of agency when it takes participatory approaches or the "reader response" approach. She put it:

"How, on the various levels at which you teach, can you create the kinds of situations where involvement with the arts not only enables you and your students to combat boredom and banality, but develops among all of you the sense of agency that is most apparent (or so it seems to me) in encounters with the arts? This takes me back, of course, to the participatory approach or to the "reader response" approach. I have in mind the notion that works of art can never be realized by a merely passive attention. There has to be an active, energetic reading out." (p. 564)

White Teacher and Whilte Privilege

Vivian Parley. (2000). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Parley narrates her interactions with black kids in an integrated elementary school. She keeps child-oriented perspectives and respects the order of social/interpersonal structure that those children create, as Dewey emphasized. I also read Rousseau's approaches shown in Emile when she punishes Steven, an unruly child. She seemed to struggle not ignoring race issues and took a similar position to feminists--difference exists but it doesn't matter. In the end, she confesses that she was still looking at black kids collectively, which signifies that she is not close enough to see individual characteristics. This seems true when many tend to identify a student from Asia as an Asian girl, who has no name. What about the other way around? In higher education setting, there are more white people, so any colored students may stand out, so they may be easily identifiable with its race. But will they try to learn their names?

Peggy McIntosh. (1988).
McIntoch further advocates breaking silence, in particular, about white privilege. Silence and denial perpetuate the 'interlocking' oppressions resulting from race, sex, class, religion and ethnicity.