American
History:
Global
History:
Women
in History & Now:
|
The
Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method: |
| All education is a oneness of your own mind and the whole world of mind that was before you....The purpose of education is to see the worst of the world-don't fool yourself about the facts-and see that it can be organized in such a way that one can like it. [TRO 626] |
The honest way to organize the facts of the world, I learned, is through seeing that the world itself and every subject in it, is composed of opposites. When students learn, for example, that history is a dramatic study of individuality and relation, permanence and the moment, cause and effect, they see that reality has a structure which can be liked, and can teach them about themselves-and they no longer say, what teachers dread hearing: "This is boring!" or "What do I have to learn this for?" Instead, they are excited by the facts, the events of history-and really learn the subject. And as they do they learn about themselves, their families, boyfriends and girlfriends, a person of a different racial or ethnic background that sits next to them.
Before I met Aesthetic Realism, although I loved history in school, in front of a class I felt it was the force of my dramatic personality, not the facts of history, that would thrill my students. I alternately yelled and cajoled; pleaded and demanded. My students objected to my haughtiness by calling out, cutting class, throwing things-I wanted to stop teaching. Then in 1974, I began to study Aesthetic Realism. I learned about contempt, the "disposition in every person to think he will be for himself by making less of the outside world." I was asked for example, if I felt I was superior to people. I did, and my consultants asked, "Do you have a tendency to convey that to people?....How much do you want to be in a fight with people, in competition with them to prove that you are better than they are?" A lot-and this is why I could be so cold and mean in the classroom.
I learned, too, a new, beautiful, accurate way of seeing history, which I love, based on this principle of Aesthetic Realism, "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." History seen this way is both grand and immediate, has life and dimension, is truly useful. Eli Siegel saw that every fact, person, event of history shows what the world is and can teach us how we want to be. I am proud to owe my success as a teacher-who more than thirty years loves her job-and my happiness to Aesthetic Realism.
GLOBAL HISTORY
AND THE FIGHT BETWEEN
CONTEMPT AND
RESPECT
Most of the 14 and 15 year old ninth graders in this class of 32 to whom I taught Global History, were of Italian-American descent and live in the neighborhood. Some came from other parts of Brooklyn; two students were African-American, two Asian-American, and two from South America spoke almost no English.
The Global History curriculum includes the history, geography, culture, economic development and current events of India, China and Japan. As we studied cultures different from theirs I heard students say, "That's stupid." And I saw that when a student out of the neighborhood asked for a pen or pencil nobody "had" one, but if it was someone of their ethnic background there were many offers. And although there is worry about economics in Bensonhurst, as there is across America-Amy Polito told me, the electricity in her house had been turned off because her mother couldn't pay the bill-many of my students looked down on people who were less fortunate financially. During a discussion about proposed budget cuts, I heard cruel and disparaging comments about people who suffer from them, such as "those people are lazy, they don't want to work."
I knew it was emergent for my students, to see through history what contempt is and does so they could be against it, including in themselves.
CHINESE HISTORY CAN TEACH US ABOUT OURSELVES
I tell now of a lesson I taught about China's relation to the outside world during the late 1700s, which affected my students very much. Through it they saw their deep relation to people very different from them. And as they learned about contempt in China 200 years ago they were critical of contempt in themselves.
At the beginning of the lesson
we learned that the emperors of the Qing or Manchu dynasty which ruled
China from 1644-1912 saw China, as it had been seen throughout its 3,500
year history, as the "Middle Kingdom," which the textbook Global Insights
explains this way:
| The Chinese maintained...that China was the center of the world. In spite of contacts with foreigners through trade, the Chinese did not borrow new ideas and practices. They believed that their culture was superior to all others. [P.147] |
I asked, "What way of seeing the outside world is in the Chinese idea of 'Middle Kingdom'?" "They're better than everybody," said Connie Luciano. "If its not Chinese, its no good," said Trevor Johnson, looking at Jimmy Chan. "Everything revolved around them," added Sal Palermo.
To show what this meant in terms
of how the Chinese emperor saw and treated other people I read this from
the text:
| The Chinese viewed the world in terms of five culture zones....At the center was the emperor. Next to him, in the first zone was the royal family, the highest level of culture. In the second zone were lords who paid tribute to the emperor. In the third were the people who lived on the borders of China and who tended to adopt Chinese culture. In the fourth were barbarians, those uncivilized people who were partners of China. In the fifth zone, the lowest level of culture, were the barbarians who viewed China as a strange land. [P.147] |
"That's wrong," said Jimmy Chan. "Yes, its contempt," Trevor Johnson called out. I said, "I learned from Aesthetic Realism that contempt is always a false, unjust way of seeing opposites crucial in the life of every person-sameness and difference. And I asked how these opposites were in the five culture zones.
My students saw that the emperor and the people most like him-his family-were seen as different from, and superior to, all other people. They also saw that the Chinese made all people who were different from them-French, British, Italian, African-the same as each other-uncivilized barbarians.
I asked, "How many of you have ever felt, like the Qing emperor, that your family was better than other families?" My students were shocked to see almost every hand go up-everybody had thought they were the only one! And I asked, "Do you also make people different from you too much the same?" "You mean like all teachers are same-mean," asked Anthony DiMaggio. "Parents, they never understand," added Diana Hobson. My students were beginning to see that people who lived 200 years ago, spoke a different language, had a different culture were like them.
SAMENESS AND
DIFFERENCE UNFORTUNATELY
PLACED IN
HISTORY AND OURSELVES
I learned from Aesthetic Realism,
I told the class, that contempt is the most ordinary and the most hurtful
thing there is. Contempt, I explained, is the cause of not paying
attention in a class. It is also the cause of racism and war.
Contempt is reason people are shooting each other on streets in Brooklyn.
And I read these sentences from The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be
Known #225 by Eli Siegel:
| All we need to have the most hurtful contempt is sameness and difference unfortunately placed. We are disposed to think less of others because they are not ourselves; and that's enough. We are disposed to think more of ourselves because we are ourselves; and that's enough. |
Meanwhile, the Chinese, we learned, had good reason to be proud of their culture and civilization, and respected by others. During the Shang dynasty-1766 B.C.-1122 B.C.-they produced objects made of bronze of tremendous beauty. And important, kind thought, Confucianism, had come from China. They had invented paper, moveable type, and gun powder; made beautiful silk and the finest porcelain.
Beginning in 1757 the Chinese traded
with the West through only one port-Guangzhou. No Western representatives
could visit the Chinese court. They had reason to be suspicious of
the British. It was the British who had taken over their southern
neighbor, India, and parts of Africa; owned the thirteen colonies that
became the United States. Then in 1793 Lord Macartney of Great Britain,
was permitted to meet with the emperor. In China: History, Culture,
Geography Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler write:
| [Lord Macartney] brought presents for the emperor to show the kinds of products that the Chinese could hope to gain by wider trade with the British. The emperor took the presents as tribute, and responded, "We possess all things. I set no value on object strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country's manufactures." [P. 120] |
I asked, "What way of seeing the outside world does this show." "The Chinese thought they were better," said Julie Paderowski. "They thought they didn't need anything," said another student.
I asked, "Was this way of seeing the outside world as inferior good for China, did it make her stronger or weaker?" "They couldn't learn anything." said Julie Paderowski. And we made a list on the board of the things China could have learned from the British. Modern farming methods would enable them to grow more food; machines to make things people needed. I asked, "If we don't want to know and respect what is different from ourselves, just because it is different, do we hinder ourselves?"
I asked, "How do you think
the British saw the Chinese. My students said they weren't sure and
we read these sentences:
| [The emperor's] reply was a shock to Macartney, who believed that the Chinese would recognize "that superiority which Englishmen, wherever they go, cannot conceal." [P.120] |
"Wow," said Johnny DePaulis, "the English thought the same thing." In The Right Of Mr. Siegel explains: "Contempt for the world simply because it is different form oneself is an insane principle of great place in history." My students were learning that even as we can feel we are so different from others we can agree with the worst thing in them-contempt. And we learned what fifty years later this mutual contempt led to: The paragraph we were studying concludes, "The meeting was a clash between two empires that both believed in their own superiority. War would eventually decide the issue" (p.120).
It’s like us before with our families," said Justina Russo. Sal said he saw he had felt he was "smart" when he passed a test and others who failed were "just dumb." Julie said she saw she felt she was better because she lived in Bensonhurst and it was safe, other places were not.
As a result of this lesson and others, these students changed dramatically. Trevor Johnson, the African-American young man moved his seat closer to the other students. Sal Palermo, who after the first test asked other students what they got and when his grade was higher said, "I beat you!" began to sit with Jimmy Chan and Kai Yuan and I heard them making plans to study together for the final.
Twenty-five of the thirty students who took the final exam in this class in June passed, which is unusually high. When the principal observed me in April Carla told him, "I really like this class because we are learning about history and about ourselves too." In June I met Carla Mondano's mother outside of school and she said, "Thank you for what you have done for Carla. I used to fight with her to make her do homework. She hated social studies. I was worried she would fail. Now its what she does first and she likes it. We don't fight."
This article was originally given as part of a seminar at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York City.
