Aesthetic Education
Promoting aesthetic teaching practices and creative sensibilities
"We are interested in education here, not in schooling. We are interested in openings, in unexplored possibilities, not in the predictable or the quantifiable, not in what is thought of as social control. For us, education signifies an initiation into new ways of seeing, hearing, feeling, moving. It signifies the nurture of a special kind of reflectiveness and expressiveness, a reaching out for meanings, a learning to learn" (Maxine Greene).
Aesthetic education is essential for developing well-rounded, perceptive, creative, and empathetic individuals. It enriches personal experiences, promotes emotional and intellectual growth, and fosters a deeper understanding of the world and its diverse cultures. By valuing and integrating arts and aesthetic education into the curriculum, educators at all levels can cultivate a society that appreciates the world in which they live, encourages creativity, and pursues continuous personal and cultural development.
This website is a collection of thoughts, explorations, and examples of aesthetically informed ways of teaching and learning. Taking an arts-first approach, it aims to promote dialogue about how educators of all kinds can utilize aesthetic strategies to nurture reflectiveness, curiosity, and openness to the new and different in their students.
About me
Dr. Matthew Isherwood is a Lecturer in the MA Creativity and Art Education Program at Exeter University. He taught secondary art and design in Manchester (UK) before living in K’emk’emeláy̓ (Vancouver, BC), the place of many maple trees located on the west coast of Turtle Island (Canada). Dr. Isherwood holds a PhD in Curriculum Studies, with a concentration in Art Education, from The University of British Columbia. His dissertation, Towards a pedagogy of disidentification : the promise of queer aesthetic sensibility as a cultivated disposition, was awarded the CSEA/SCÉA Doctoral Dissertation Award and the SIG Arts Researchers & Teachers Society: Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2024.
Matthew’s research draws from the fields of aesthetic theory and queer theory to open perspectives on alternative and potential ways of being in and with the world. It asks what it means to cultivate aesthetic dispositions attuned to the promise of possibility and open to difference. His work advocates for an approach to teaching and learning that places the arts at the heart of personal and social transformations, openings, and beginnings.
Inspiration
Explore innovative teaching practices driven by aesthetic curiosity.
Community
Learning
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