Understanding Teaching And Learning From The Aesthetic Perspective

It is an understanding teaching and learning from the aesthetic perspective. We can take the unity of "action" and "acceptance" in teachers’ behaviors and students’ behaviors as an entry point to understand the aesthetic characteristics of the unity of opposites in the teaching and learning activities, and take full advantage of a variety of the opposing factors training perfect humanity to promote the overall development of students.If we examine the teachers’ behaviors in aesthetic terms, taking teachers’ responses for example, we can find a more serious problem for teachers in teaching: the absence of the "acceptance". There is lack of observing the students carefully, listening to them attentively, accepting them modestly, respecting them sincerely in the teachers’ responses, that is, lack of adequately sensitive "acceptance" of students and their discourses. Lacking "acceptance" leads to teachers’ ignorance of students’ prior knowledge, experience, needs, ways and processes of thinking, and so on. It enables the teachers to act in accordance with their intentions or established plan merely. In other words, lacking "acceptance" leads to teachers to "act" by the routine or subjective willfulness, even for their own interests despite of the physical and mental development of the students. Teachers should be adequately sensitive to "accept" students with aesthetic perception, regardless of personal practical purpose and utilitarian desire, in order to insight into the students’ intellectual and emotional tendency, respect their experience and thinking process, participate in and communicate with students to achieve the purpose of education.In the educational relationships of teachers and students, teachers are always positive actors. Teachers must take the initiative to "act" to promote the development of students’ physical and mental health. The "action" of teachers is embodied in planning carefully and actively promoting the teaching and learning activities, participating in learning activities with students, meeting students’ growth needs constantly, and so on. In order to "act" adequately and appropriately, teachers must be fully sensitive to "accept". In the teaching and learning activities, teachers are both senders and recipients, that is, teachers are both educators and learners. The "acceptance" of teachers is embodied in teachers’ keen perception of students’ needs in their growth and changing education factors in situations. It’s also embodied in bearing students’ behaviors as a result of teachers’ behaviors, and being restricted to various objective factors actively, such as educational intentions, subjects and situations, and so on. The "acceptance" of teachers enables them to avoid acting routinely or subjectively. It enables them to "act" with creativity and generative nature. In the unity of "action" and "acceptance", teachers take an active attitude to act, and take a passive attitude to accept humbly; teachers use their reason to grasp both the direction and purpose of teaching and learning, and use their sensibility fully to conform to the developmental needs of the students and situation changes; teachers are not only free and autonomous, but also accept restrictions. Teachers’ behaviors should be the unity of sensibility and reason, activity and passivity, freedom and restriction. Only in this way can the main role of students in learning be respected, the interaction between teachers and students can be achieved, and the effectiveness of teaching and learning can be assured. So, through the unity of "action" and "acceptance" in teachers’ behaviors, we can understand the process of effective teaching is realized in unification of the various opposing factors.At the same time, through the unity of "action" and "acceptance" in students’ behaviors, we can understand the process of effective learning is achieved in the harmonious development of students’ body and soul, emotion and intellect, activity and passivity, individuality and generality, and so on. As learners, students should take advice from teachers and accept knowledge, ideas and experience inherited from past generations. The nature of effective learning is acceptance, and education must be realized by students’"acceptance". The effective "acceptance" means that one can be impressed by the heart and enjoy independent binding ability. It is the cycle and unity of activity and passivity, and it means that their practical experience and living belief are generated. However, it is far from enough to merely rely on rational thinking or mental activity to make students "accept" efficiently. Aiming at achieving students’ efficient taking in of human beings culture and knowledge, teachers ought to design rich learning activities, let students concentrate on "acting", take advantage of physical and mental activity, diverse communication and mutual interaction with the world, profound thinking in realistic situation and active attempt to construct meaning, so that students can really effectively accept human culture knowledge. The "acceptance" and "action" of students must be balanced and unified. It can guarantee the co-activities of students’ mind and body, the simultaneous utilization of their emotion and intellect, the perfect combination of active trying and passive accepting, the interaction between direct experience and indirect experience. Only when the balance and unity between "acceptance" and "action" are achieved can the students obtain meaningful knowledge and experience and facilitate the sound development physically and mentally by body and mind activities.The healthy development of students’ bodies and minds means the balanced development of health and soul, sensibility and reason, activity and passivity, and it is virtually the formation and development of perfect humanity. Like the perfect art, the perfect humanity results from interactions of various factors in contradiction. Perfect humanity is the balanced development of body and mind, the mutual promotion of sensibility and reason, the perfect combination of activity and passivity, the complementarities between individuality and sociality, the unity of opposites of freedom and the limit. Perfect humanity is the purpose of providing teaching, the foundation of receiving education, and the condition of acquiring happy life. Perfect humanity is being formed and developed in the aesthetic state constantly, so, the ultimate goal of teaching and learning is the formation and development of the perfect humanity of students by aesthetic teaching and learning activities.