* The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method *
Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method (K - 12)
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SEE ON THIS PAGE . . .

*Introduction to the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method

*In the Press: Articles with Lesson Plans & Descriptions:

•  Language Arts
•  Science Education
•  Arithmetic / Mathematics
•  Physical Education [& Special Education]
•  More [Racism; Privatization; Violence; Drugs]

*Articles in the Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known

*How to study Aesthetic Realism Method

•  In New York City
•  Outside the New York Area

Presented to the Aesthetic Realism Foundation  by the New York State Attendance Teachers Association


INTRODUCTION

There is no more important news than the fact that in classrooms where teachers use the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method, learning succeeds and students become truly kinder to each other!

For more than 25 years New York City public school teachers have tested this method — and we have seen many, many students, including young people who have been horribly deprived by the unjust economy, learn to read, learn arithmetic, history, art and science with excitement and ease — and stay in school.

And teachers have described their results and shared their knowledge in seminars, professional conferences, and articles since the 1970s.

Educators may attend workshops (every 2 weeks) and education seminars at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation.  For those who are at a distance,  there are other possibilities. Click here for How to Study.


Teaching Method Workshop
 Avi Gvili (raised hand - Language arts), Teachers: Barbara Allen (English, music),
Patricia Martone (ESL), Arnold Perey, PhD (anthropology), Rosemary Plumstead (science)

The Aesthetic Realism method succeeds because it shows students that every subject in the curriculum says something about the world and their own often-turbulent selves. Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism, poet and educator, explained that:

1. "The purpose of education is to like the world through knowing it."

2. The greatest interference to learning is contempt, "the lessening of what is different from oneself as a means of self-increase as one sees it." It is the desire to have contempt that makes a student declare triumphantly, "This is boring!" and motivates teachers to make belittling comments about their students.

3. There is a difference between the way the world is managed and the way it is made. The injustice both economically and ethnically that so many children meet—depriving them of enough food, decent housing, and stable lives—arises from a way of managing resources and seeing people that is profoundly disrespectful.

Yet, Aesthetic Realism shows, the world itself has a structure that is beautiful and can honestly be liked. It is described in this landmark principle, stated by Mr. Siegel: "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites."

Through the Aesthetic Realism method, students learn, for instance, that an algebraic equation like 3x+4=19 is a oneness of the known and unknown—as their parents, whom they may have summed up, also are. Young people studying geography see that a mountain—with solid base rising to a graceful peak—does what they are hoping to do: it is substantial and light, high and low at once—opposites they can feel are agonizingly separate in their moods. As students meet any subject through the Aesthetic Realism teaching method, they feel, "This is about the whole world, and it's about me!" They see the world with greater respect and welcome learning. They feel closer to other people, including those of very different backgrounds and skin tones, and they become kinder.

Articles in the Press

Language Arts / Lessons

HIGH SCHOOL

ENGLISH --  BEGINNING WITH A LESSON ON ADJECTIVES "Through Aesthetic Realism Interest Wins, Cynicism Loses" by Leila Rosen in The English Record: Journal of the New York State English Council, vol. 49, no. 1: Fall, 1998.  On teaching high school English.

INTERMEDIATE

8TH  Grade: ENGLISH --  LESSON ON PRONOUNS "Teaching Language Arts through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method" by Avi Gvili in The English Record: Journal of the New York State English Council, Vol. 53, no. 2: Winter, 2003.

ELEMENTARY

READING   Part 1 LESSON ON READING "The Rainbowfish" & Part 2 LESSON ON SPELLING "CAT" (AND MORE)" — The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Brings Out Every Child's True Intelligence — and Education Succeeds!" by educator Monique Michael (San Antonio Register).

And see  "Children Learn to Read through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method!" also written by Monique Michael of New York City (Southwest Digest).

READING   A personal account of the objection in children to learning reading and the success of the Aesthetic Realism explanation by New York teacher Helena Simon (Courier Publications, Queens, New York).

2nd Grade: READING, LEARNING, & KINDNESS   "The Answer to the Failure" by New York teacher Lauren Phillips in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, issue No. 1407, titled "The Teaching Method Children Deserve."

ESL (English As a Second Language)   The Success of the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method: Students Learn, Prejudice is Defeated! / Part 1 by ESL teacher and early childhood educator Patricia Martone (Tennessee Tribune, Nashville, Tennessee) and Part 2.

Includes ESL   "The Aesthetic Realism Method"  by Patricia Martone (Louisiana Weekly, New Orleans). 

3rd Grade: DESCRIPTIVE WRITING   See section titled "We Begin with an Object Lesson — What Can We Learn from a Sunflower about the World and Ourselves?" in this article by Helena Simon, "The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Is the Solution to the Crisis in Education—Teachers Tell Why!" (San Antonio Register, San Antonio, Texas)

Aesthetic Realism & Science Education / Lessons

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL--3rd Grade: SCIENCE   "Density; or, the Opposites of Full and Empty, Heavy and Light"--theory and an experiment with beakers of water and floating eggs--in the second part of Helena Simon's "The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Is the Solution to the Crisis in Education—Teachers Tell Why!" (San Antonio Register, San Antonio, Texas) [ Part 1 includes a lesson on descriptive writing.]

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL--4rd Grade: SCIENCE   The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method by Helena Simon (in The Deming Headlight, Deming, New Mexico). 

A science lesson I taught on light and color...enabled my 3rd grade students, who had been angry and failing, to see that the world they were confused by has a sensible, wonderful structure: it puts opposites together, such as hidden and shown, many and one.

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL: EARTH SCIENCE   "The Most Respected Teaching Method." This issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known (issue no. 1341) includes an essay by science teacher Bénédicte Caneill.

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL: BIOLOGY   "Teaching through Aesthetic Realism"  In the national magazine The Teacher (National Union of Teachers, United Kingdom) 

Christopher Balchin describes a lesson on symbiosis.  And children--including those who made "fun of each others' accents and skin colour" came to "have a tremendous sense of fellow-feeling" and learned!

HIGH SCHOOL: BIOLOGY   "Through the Study of Viruses, Prejudice is Opposed: Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method" by Sally Ross in the Missouri State Post May 19-25, 2005

Biology teacher Sally Ross tells about a lesson she gave on viruses as part of a larger unit on disease...Students were excited to see that fearsome viruses are made up of the same opposites—power and delicacy, large and small—that are elsewhere in reality.

HIGH SCHOOL: BIOLOGY   "Lesson on Blood: Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method" by Rosemary Plumstead in the Philippine Post Magazine 3/01

HIGH SCHOOL: BIOLOGY   "The Only Thing Big Enough" — Issue no. 1325 of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, August 26, 1998. 

Science teacher Rosemary Plumstead describes a lesson on the heart — how it is a oneness of power and delicacy — and more.

HIGH SCHOOL: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE   Part 3 & Part 4 (San Antonio Register)

About regions, trees, symbiosis, & more. Contains "Through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Knowledge Opposes Anger — & Students Learn!" by Rosemary Plumstead.

Aesthetic Realism and Arithmetic

KINDERGARTEN:   Part 1: "The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method: Students Learn, Prejudice Is Defeated!" by Lori Colavito. Part 2: "Through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Addition and Subtraction Oppose Prejudice" (San Antonio Register, San Antonio, Texas).

Physical Education [& Special Education] with Lessons

HIGH SCHOOL [Special Education] PHYSICAL EDUCATION:


"A Teaching Method that Is 'Scientific and Kind'" by Jeffrey Williams (New York Teacher: United Federation of Teachers, NY, NY). 

"The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method is the Solution to the Crisis in Education!" by Jeffrey Williams: with a discussion about the great baseball player, Sammy Sosa. (LaVida News-The Black Voice, Ft. Worth, Texas).


The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known

 
 

    The following issues of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known contain editorial commentaries by Ellen Reiss discussing the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method and articles by New York teachers about their own classrooms and experiences, including detailed accounts of lessons, with questions and answers..

    They describe the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method in the classroom--a method strikingly successful for three decades. In her commentaries Ms. Reiss describes richly the crucial place of Aesthetic Realism educational methodology and the underlying problems in the classroom which concern every educator and parent and which that no other method has solved.

Educational Method Is Poetic by Eli Siegel, serialized in 10 issues

    In issues of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known # 1448 –1457 this lecture is serialized, together with commentaries by editor Ellen Reiss as well as articles by teachers, and more.  This important series shows (1) how classroom education is related to things that usually seem separate from it, including love, economics, and friendship; and (2)  how children can successfully learn, how  teachers can effectively teach, how the growing difficulty learning and increasing anger in schools can be things of the past.

Education, America, & Lois Mason • September 19, 2007

As a new school year begins, we publish an article on the teaching method that truly succeeds in having students learn—students of all ages and diverse backgrounds and neighborhoods; students, too, who felt they'd never learn, who felt both scornful and hopeless about education. This article on the great Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method is by Lois Mason....

     Tragically, Lois Mason died this summer. She was one of America's most respected and beloved educators, and this issue of TRO is both an honoring of her and a presentation of that vibrant, practical, kind approach to education which she loved and which teachers on all levels are learning now.

Education, History, & Feelings / January 25, 2006

    In this issue about education and history, we're honored to publish two poems by Eli Siegel. With them is a paper that New York City high school teacher Christopher Balchin presented last spring at the public seminar titled "The Answer to the Fury & Failure in America's Schools: The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method!"

Education: The “Having-to-Do-With Other Things"  /  September 8, 2004 

    We are proud to publish five beautiful short poems by Eli Siegel, and also an article by elementary school teacher Barbara McClung, part of her paper in the public seminar titled: "The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Makes Every Subject Truly Anti-Prejudice—& Students Learn!”

    That title is true. And there’s no more important news for education—and, really, for America—than the statement in it. As Mrs. McClung describes lessons she taught in her public school classroom in keeping with the standard third grade curriculum, we see these two huge facts: 1) There is a teaching method that can truly end the failure and agony in education! 2) Prejudice—that horrible thing which people have felt was unstoppable—not only is explained by Aesthetic Realism but, through the Aesthetic Realism teaching method, it actually ends!

The Biggest News about Education  /  March 24, 2004 

    How important is it that through the Aesthetic Realism teaching method, as students learn the subjects in the curriculum they become kinder to each other? The horrible ethnic prejudice and inter-cruelty ends. There is nothing more important for America. 

    "Education principally," Eli Siegel explained, "is the pleasant finding out of how things can help us know who we are as we see them." I think that is a beautiful, and great, and true definition. It is what happens in classrooms through the Aesthetic Realism method-including in some of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, where young people's lives have really been bludgeoned by our viciously unjust economy. 

    This issue includes "To End the Crisis" by Avi Gvili, teacher of English, who writes:

    "In the over six years I have been using the Aesthetic Realism teaching method, I've seen students who had all but given up on school and said they hated books, come really to like reading and writing-something they never imagined could happen." ... more

Every Child's True Intelligence  /  March 6, 2002  Includes teaching a lesson on evolution.

Kindness and Knowledge at School  /  August 30,  2000

    Includes article by New York City science teacher Barbara McClung, from a public seminar of January 2000 titled "The Answer to the Fury and Failure in America's Schools: The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method."

The Teaching Method Children Deserve  /  March 22, 2000

    Includes Lauren Phillips on teaching reading - and kindness - in the 2nd grade, East Harlem, NY.

What Education Can Be!  /  December 1, 1999

    Includes teaching 8th grade science as presented in seminar titled "Through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Students Choose Knowing the World, Not Fighting with It!"

The Most Important News about Education  /  September 1, 1999 

    Includes teaching American history.

The Beautiful Teaching Method  / April 15, 1998   Includes teaching reading.

The Only Thing Big Enough  /  August 26, 1998

    Includes the article by science teacher Rosemary Plumstead describing a lesson on the heart - how it is a oneness of power and delicacy - and more.

The Most Respected Teaching Method  / December 16, 1998

    Includes an essay by science teacher Bénédicte Caneill.
The Right of Every Child  /  December 17, 1997

    Includes a commentary on the cause of learning difficulty and the cause of prejudice by Ellen Reiss; and article titled "Science, Earth, and Prejudice" by Barbara McClung. 

More Articles and Letters

"Young and Old Learn Answer to Racism at Brooklyn Children's Museum." Article in Brooklyn Daily Eagle 12/5/01 by Alice Bernstein, "Young and Old Learn Answer to Racism at Brooklyn Children's Museum," about class against racism for children and parents.  This class was given by filmmaker and Aesthetic Realism consultant Ken Kimmelman with elementary schoolteachers Barbara McClung and Lauren Philips.

Letter in The Philadelphia Inquirer on the Fight against Privatization 12/27/01 by Avi Gvili 

Letter in Queens Ledger 1/7/99 by NYC Board of Education Technical Support worker, Vincent DiPietro, "Teaching Seminar a Proven Success."

"Violence Must Not Ruin Schools" by Arnold Perey, Ph.D. (Atlanta Inquirer). On the cause of violence in schools and the solution.

"The Answer to Youth Violence" by Jeffrey Carduner (Ashland Daily Tidings), Ashland, Oregon

"Contempt Kills" by Rev. Wayne J. Plumstead (Bloomfield Life) on the murders in Littleton, Colorado, April 1999

"Teaching Method Can Turn Teens away from World of Drugs" by Rosemary Plumstead (The Sun, Lowell, Massachusetts).  [Rosemary Plumstead teaches science at LaGuardia H.S. in New York City.]

See New York Beacon article on seminar by NYC teachers: "The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Succeeds, and Answers the Question EDUCATION — WHAT  FOR?"

How to Study the Aesthetic Realism Method

You can study the Aesthetic Realism teaching method in person, and if you live at a distance, in the U.S. or abroad, there are other possibilities. See below.

1. In New York City

Workshop for Teachers in the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method.

Taught by All For Education, the workshop meets on alternate Saturdays seven times per semester. You can register for the semester (registration is $50) or audit workshops individually.       Continue

Seminars on the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method: given when announced at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation.     

Aesthetic Realism Consultations

In individual consultations a teacher studies the subject he or she teaches in relation to oneself-one's life, one's individual way of seeing the world.       Continue

Classes at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation

The diversity and comprehensiveness of Aesthetic Realism is reflected in the diverse subject matter of classes given at the Foundation.       Continue

2. Outside the New York Area

Studying via Email or Regular Mail

You can arrange to study via email or regular mail, using materials on the Aesthetic Realism Foundation website. This course would include your writing lesson plans on subjects you want to teach and commenting on assigned readings. All For Education would then correspond with you about what you've written. 

Workshops in Your School

All For Education conducts workshops in schools and at educational conferences. A seminar or staff-development workshop could be scheduled at your school or organization. 

Study Via Telephone

Teaching Method Conferences. You and several other teachers in your school or area can join together and have a series of telephone conferences with All For Education. These would, in effect, be workshops via telephone. 

Aesthetic Realism Consultations by telephone. See above for a description of these, and also see this link for information on consultations.

Further Resources

  • All Conferences.Com (Directory of Conferences in many subjects)—Directory of Conferences, conventions, exhibits, seminars, workshops, & more
  • The Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company
  • Aesthetic Realism Online Library
  • Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology & Sociology
  • The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method
  • "Is a Person an Aesthetic Situation?" by Eli Siegel
  • "The Ordinary Doom" by Eli Siegel
  • The Terrain Gallery / Aesthetic Realism Foundation
  • Aesthetic Realism Papers on Art History and Criticism
  • Friends of Aesthetic Realism—Countering the Lies
  • John Singer Sargent's Madame X, an Aesthetic Realism Discussion
  • Photography Education: the Aesthetic Realism Viewpoint
  • Self-Expression and What Interferes: An Aesthetic Realism Discussion
  • Aesthetic Realism vs. Prejudice: An Example from India
  • Aesthetic Realism and the Answer to Racism, ed. by A. Bernstein
  • The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known (TRO)
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