It is an honor to print three short poems by Eli Siegel. And here too is a paper that New York City teacher Barbara McClung presented last year at an Aesthetic Realism public seminar titled "Through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Students Choose Knowing the World, Not Fighting with It!" She illustrates, through a series of science lessons, what occurs when this magnificent method is used — and there is, literally, no more important news for America: students learn, and they become authentically kinder. This happens even in neighborhoods brutalized by the obscene injustice of America's profit economy. And it happens even with students who had seemed to be against learning; and with students tormented because they thought they could not learn.

     The basis of the Aesthetic Realism teaching method is this principle, stated by Eli Siegel: "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." I think that what this principle outlines is the greatest, most beautiful discovery about the relation of self and reality there has ever been. Some of its might and kindness can be seen through Mrs. McClung's account of her science classes. And in recent months, teachers who use the Aesthetic Realism teaching method have conducted workshops at professional conferences in the fields of English, science, art, mathematics, and social studies; and the educators attending met, with excitement and gratitude, that great principle and what it can do.

     Students want to learn when they see that a subject presented in a classroom is not some remote thing or inimical thing, but is related to their very selves — is like them. For example, a student may see that the more and less, the large and small which are essential in every instance of mathematics, are a means of knowing herself better: how she goes from feeling big to feeling little, feeling superior to feeling inferior. In an English class, through the Aesthetic Realism teaching method, a boy might learn that every word is at once intimate and public: the very words we use as we think to ourselves in the privacy of our own minds were come to by people we never met, many centuries ago; and were used and passed along to us by millions of other people. As a boy sees this, he is seeing that opposites painfully divided in him can be one: because he has felt like such a different person alone in his room, thinking, from the person who jokes with many people at a party or in the cafeteria. 

     Eli Siegel is the educator who showed that the opposites that constitute our very lives and emotions and tumults, are the opposites made one in every instance of reality — in all the items of a school's curriculum. As students see their opposites in the facts of the subject before them, they learn these facts with pleasure.

     The principle behind the Aesthetic Realism teaching method — the showing that what is not ourselves has the very structure of opposites we have, whether the "not ourselves" is a person, or a fact of science or history — this principle is the great combatant of contempt. It is the means to achieve what Aesthetic Realism shows is our deepest purpose and the purpose of education: "to like the world."

     The horrible desire for contempt, had by the press and by persons who want to own the field of education, is what has stopped America from knowing about the Aesthetic Realism teaching method. This method has succeeded for over 20 years, and the press knows it. Press persons and careerists in education have hated the fact that the Aesthetic Realism method is no mere collection of "tips," but arises from a true, great, definitive description of reality and the human self. They have been furious that Aesthetic Realism is something they themselves need to study — not something they can patronize. And they have been furious at the immense scholarship, knowledge, and integrity of Eli Siegel, because they have felt they looked ignorant and shabby in comparison. So press persons have tried to keep his lifework from being known. In doing so, they are the cause of the shootings in American schools, the racism, the massive educational failure — because the Aesthetic Realism teaching method studied by America is what, simply and grandly, can stop all that!

     The three poems by Mr. Siegel that follow are short, and authentically, musically charming. But within them can be felt something of what Aesthetic Realism in its grandeur is. 

     The teaching method Mrs. McClung describes is taught to educators at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in the most important education workshop in America: The Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel As Teaching Method.

- Ellen Reiss, Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism

     What they felt, I believe, is described by Ellen Reiss in TRO 1238: "This world is not much good. I should get away from it, not let it get within me[:] ... facts or people or subjects taught in school." I was grateful to tell them on the first day of school that we would be seeing how, despite the sometimes unendurable situations a person may meet, reality itself — represented by the earth's crust, geodes, the solar system — is constructed well: it is a oneness of opposites, the same opposites we are trying to put together. As they saw that this world has a sensible, even beautiful structure, my students wanted to learn about it, not fight it!

     Early in the semester, we studied an aspect of scientific method called observation. I assigned the class to work in small groups looking at and writing about what they saw in everyday objects, such as a penny. I told my students: In scientific observation our job is to ask, What is this object? What properties does it have? Scientific observation, I said, is very different from the way people ordinarily "observe" others to find flaws: its purpose is respectful of the world.

     Jamal Hamilton² was a student who could be aggressive and intimidate people. Once, when I called on Michael Edison, a boy who had kept apart from the others, before Michael could say anything Jamal shouted "Nerd!" and there was laughter in the classroom. I said, "What you just did was contempt, and it was ugly. When we try to build ourselves up by making less of another person, it weakens us, makes us less intelligent. It's completely opposed to scientific method, the purpose of which is to see the meaning of something. We have a choice — what's going to take care of ourselves: trying to know and be fair to something, or putting someone down?"

     Jamal was very thoughtful for a moment. Then he apologized to Michael. He got everybody's respect. After this, Michael began taking part in discussion, talking more to other students, looking happier. And I was affected to see, as Jamal and his partner studied the penny, they did exact work, were proud of their findings, and had a good time.

     I asked, "As we look at the stars on a winter night, how do they appear?" "Peaceful and calm," answered Thomas Martin. Meanwhile, we saw — as we are quietly sitting at our desks, we are traveling with the stars at a tremendous, astonishing speed!

     We talked about how rest and motion are in things we could see outside our window. "Look," said Angela — "the flagpole doesn't move, but the flag is blowing in the wind!" Students feel rest and motion are painfully divided in themselves. They can go from agitated activity to heavy inertia. Their lives can seem frighteningly turbulent and also stuck. They were excited to see that these opposites are beautifully one in the universe; and this made them want to know about stars, because they saw them as friends.

     We learned that a star is created from gases and dust swirling in space which come together and form a nebula. The force of gravity brings the particles closer and closer together, creating a "protostar" at the center. This protostar continually contracts; pressure builds up, it becomes very hot, and a nuclear reaction begins. Our textbook, Earth Science [Glencoe series] explains: "The energy released radiates outward through the condensing ball of gas. As the energy radiates into space, stars are born."

     Students were excited to see an intense oneness of the opposites of contraction and expansion, and spoke about the fact that all those individual dust particles concentrated together make for a star's radiance — which goes out, reaching us on earth! They were thrilled to see, too, that these opposites of contraction and expansion are present every moment in our own lives. "Do we take things in, bring things to ourselves?" I asked. "Yes, food!" shouted Orlando. "That's right," I said, "the food we take in gives us energy to go forth, to do things. Do we also take in ideas, thoughts, and feelings and make them part of ourselves, then 'radiate' them in a new form back to the world? If we didn't take in anything from outside of us, would we be able to express ourselves?" Everyone saw the answer was no.

     I have seen that when a person has contempt, these opposites fight. A student can contract, withdraw into himself or herself; or thrust outward, attacking verbally and in other ways. And teachers, as I once did, can go for a false contraction: I wanted everything tightly under control in the classroom, feeling if one more unexpected thing happened I'd explode. Teachers have also "radiated" in a way that makes them ashamed, have gotten into contests with students — I did — to show the "magnitude" of their authority.

     Joseph Treadwell, who had had a difficult time in school, passed the test on stars and was so proud of the 100 he got on a quiz, he asked if he could take it off the bulletin board to show his father. Joshua Malone, who had always sat as if in his own sphere, changed: he began listening and taking part. His test scores went up. Becky Gomez, once ready to lash out at anyone or anything that got in her way, changed too; and she started to pass all her tests. When a student from another class came to borrow a celestial sphere (a star map) from our class, I heard her say, "Please take care of that."

     The Aesthetic Realism teaching method — kind, scientific, practical — enables students to learn successfully, respect each other, and feel proud in a big way. I feel passionately that every educator in America has the right to know it!