Encouraging Empathy through Aesthetic Engagement: An Art Lesson in Living Compositions.

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how aesthetic engagement can encourage empathy and caring in the art classroom. As artful inquiry, this hybrid form of arts-based educational research and teacher research examines my own classroom practice and pedagogy exploring how aesthetics can become a philosophy of care. Part 1 outlines the Living Compositions Exercise, an introductory activity students play to introduce the concepts of space, relationship, and care, and a discussion on how this is an aesthetic experience that encourages empathy. Part 2, Inquiry into Piazza, addresses how student inquiry, artistic critique, and dialogue can lead to self-formation through art. The outcome of aesthetic engagement here is to promote empathetic response and action, which is manifested through the living inquiry of the students.

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