Aesthetic Realism in the Press

Teaching method can turn teens away from world of drugs

I want the people of Lowell to know that the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel as Teaching Method, which I have used as the basis of my teaching for 22 years in New York City high schools, enables students to learn eagerly, and I know firsthand, it defeats the way of seeing that makes drugs alluring. 

Eli Siegel, the great educator who founded Aesthetic Realism, explained the purpose of education: "To like the world through knowing it." No person who likes the outside world will want to get away from it through taking drugs. He explained in this landmark principle, how every subject can be a means of students honestly knowing and liking the world: "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." 

Through every biology lesson I teach, students in my classes are learning that the world has an aesthetic structure--it is a oneness of opposites. They are thrilled to see how the human heart is a magnificent oneness of motion and rest, delicacy and strength, opposites they want desperately to put together in their own lives. Through the Aesthetic Realism Method, students come to feel that the pleasure of seeing a well-made world and having respect for it, beats by a long shot, the pleasure of using a drug. 

I have learned from Aesthetic Realism that the greatest interference to learning, and the cause of the racism, violence and drug taking rampant in our schools is contempt. It is important for students and teachers to learn that through every subject, the world--with all its disorder, even ugliness--can be liked. 

ROSEMARY PLUMSTEAD 
Aesthetic Realism Consultant 
Bloomfield, N.J.