Reading Reaction - Greene's "The Artistic-Aesthetic Curriculum"

In Maxine Greene’s “The Artistic-Aesthetic Curriculum,” Greene is concerned that students are not being moved to self-reflectiveness or critical awareness because much of today’s curriculum does not include an artistic-aesthetic component. Greene believes that students will better understand experiences with the inclusion of artistic-aesthetic curriculums. However, Greene focuses mostly on those subjects that naturally have artistic components and are easily identified as forms of self-expression; art, music, theater, reading, foreign language, and dance. I believe that an artistic-aesthetic curriculum can be applied to the other subjects that are taught as well; social studies, math, science, and physical education. “If we can teach people to notice what is there to be noticed, if we can enable them to reflect upon the medium in use (the language, the paint and canvas, the clay), if we can move them to release their imaginations and break with literal expectations, we are more likely to do justice to a range of works of art, even if we can make no final judgments about their quality.” An example of artistic-aesthetic components being found in other subjects is anatomy and physiology. Because I am an athletic trainer, I find an aesthetic quality in the human body and how it functions. One way to incorporate an artistic-aesthetic component to an anatomy and physiology curriculum, or even biology, could be to take the class to this amazing exhibit called Body Worlds: The Original Exhibition of Real Human Bodies (http://www.bodyworlds.com). This is an exhibit of real human cadavers set up in different positions so that you can observe all the muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, organs, nerves, vessels, etc… This exhibit gives a person a different perspective on the human body and creates a better understanding and value for the information. There are artistic-aesthetic values to just about everything, it just depends on that particular person’s perception. I agree with Greene in that adding an artistic-aesthetic component will help the student to understand more and value the information.