Aesthetics and Learning: The Future of Education, Conference Proceedings

This paper is built on our book "Aesthetics and Learning", Hans Reizels Publishers, Copenhagen 2010. In this book we describe the relationship between aesthetic creative activities and children’s development and learning, based on among other the theories of Malcolm Ross (1988), Hansjörg Hohr (2000) and Bjørn Rasmussen (1998). According to these theories aesthetic activities are an integrated and irreplaceable part of all children's socialization. Essential activities that develops creativity and enables the child to use the aesthetic languages to reflect and communicate feelings, experiences and impressions, and develop understanding of herself, the others and the world she is a part of. ”In order to grasp this potential, we need to deconstruct both the concepts of "Aesthetic" and "Education" to find new ways to organize what we shall label as cultural-aesthetic and playful education” (Rasmussen and Wright 2001).
We will in this paper, based on a modern aesthetic comprehension, present a theoretical background for using aesthetic learning processes as an integrated part of the curriculum.