Soviet Psychology_ Chapter 13. Esthetic Education by Lev Vygo

8/8/2019 Soviet Psychology_ Chapter 13. Esthetic Education by Lev Vygo..

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Soviet Psychology: Chapter 13. Esthetic Education by Lev Vygotsky http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1926/educational-psychology/ch13.htm

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Educational Psychology. Lev Vygotsky 1926

Chapter 13. Esthetic Education

Esthetics in the Service of Pedagogics

The nature, ultimate meaning, purpose, and methods of esthetic education are still unresolved questions in the realm of

psychology as well as in pedagogical theory. From time immemorial and right up to the present day, extreme and opposing

viewpoints have been adopted towards these questions, viewpoints which, with each passing decade, seem to find ever newer

confirmation in a whole series of psychological investigations. Thus, the controversy not only has not been resolved and not only

is not drawing to a close, but rather is becoming increasingly more complicated, as if marching in step with the forward advance

of scientific knowledge.

Many writers are inclined to reject the thesis that esthetic experiences possesses any educational value whatsoever, and the

system of pedagogics which is associated with these writers and which has grown up from the very same roots persists in

maintaining this idea, granting only a narrow and restricted value to esthetic education. In contrast, psychologists who subscribe

to a different system in psychology are inclined to overstate the value of esthetic experience to an extraordinary degree, and to

see in these experiences a slightly radical pedagogical tool that can take care of absolutely all the difficult and complex problems

of education.

Between these two extreme points there is a whole series of moderate views on the role of esthetics in the life of the child. Inmost cases, these views are usually inclined to see in esthetics a form of amusement and a way for children to have fun. Where

some discover a serious and profound meaning in esthetic experiences, it is nearly everywhere a matter not of esthetic education

as an end in itself, but only as a tool for attaining pedagogical goals that are alien to esthetics. Esthetics in the service of

pedagogics,

as this may be termed, always fulfils exotic purposes and, in the opinion of some educators, should serve as a means and method

for the education of cognition, sensibility, or moral will.

That this view is misguided and irrational can now be considered established beyond all reasonable doubt. All three goals,


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Soviet Psychology: Chapter 13. Esthetic Education by Lev Vygotsky http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1926/educational-psychology/ch13.htm

expressed instead through extraordinarily subtle preliminary labor for the evolution of subsequent behavior Esthetic


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expressed instead through extraordinarily subtle preliminary labor for the evolution of subsequent behavior. Esthetic

experience disciplines our behavior. From the way a person walks as he leaves a concert, we can always tell whether he

had been listening to Beethoven or to Chopin thus writes one researcher.

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Soviet Psychology_ Chapter 13. Esthetic Education by Lev Vygo