Learning through the Arts: From Theory to Practice in California

Philip Jackson spoke of the “tight resemblance ” between teaching and art (2004). Drawing on John Dewey’s conception of the power of art to transform those who experience it, he quoted the paragraph from Art as Experience (1934) that is briefly excerpted below: A work of art elicits and accentuates this quality of being a whole and of belonging to the larger, all-inclusive, whole which is the universe in which we live … somehow, the work of art operates to deepen and to raise to great clarity that sense of an enveloping unidentified whole that accompanies every normal experience (pp. 195). Tying these insights to Dewey’s conception of moral faith, as expressed in the book A Common Faith (1934), Jackson explained that, for Dewey, faith was not bound to the creedal doctrines of any religion. Instead, it denoted a comprehensive attitude toward “ends so inclusive that they unify the self ” (p. 22). In Dewey’s view, all ideals referred to possibilities yet to be accomplished. Thus, “all endeavor for the better is moved by faith in what is possible, not by adherence to the actual ” (p. 23). Such faith required an ability to envision the promise inherent in relatively embryonic goods