Education and Aesthetics

In such diverse fields as pragmatism, poststructuralism, and socioculturalism, and in the writing of scholars as divergent as John Dewey and Michel Foucualt, the notion of aesthetics principles applied to education have been explored. Aesthetics, generally defined is the process of sensory perception or the appreciation of beauty, form and function. Given that education is (if nothing else) a process of sensory perception and application, it seems reasonable to assume that principles governing aesthetics could be used within classrooms for varying purposes.

This is a new discussion forum that seeks to address the question of how aesthetics (infographics, images, graphics, design, art, for example) contribute to educational processes, within classrooms specifically and pedagogy more generally.

Cherryholmes writes, "Aesthetic values are unstable because they are dispersed and deferred. We continually interpret and criticize them. In education, control is desired sometimes, understanding sometimes, and emancipation from oppressive social relations at yet other times. But, disaster is courted if one fixates upon a single and rigidly defined set of consequences and aesthetic values. The world surely changes whether our visions of beauty change or not. Pragmatist researchers, administrators and teachers are artists and critics as they craft and subsequently criticize outcomes. Indeed pragmatism is a term of art where artistic conceptions and experiments remain moving targets. If one is interested in consequences, how could it be otherwise? (1999, p. 32)." 

As a way to generate some dialogue, I am beginning this thread with a question, in hopes that others contribute and we can begin to theorize and understand how these visual modalities can effect classroom learning. 

Question: can art or design (aesthetics) factor into education? If so, how? 

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Cherryholmes, C.H. (1999). Reading Pragmatism. (pp. 10-83). New York: teachers     College Press.