CHAPTER 3: Teaching, Imagination, Creativity: The Core ARTs Course

In this chapter, I describe the central course for the ARTs program. As there are other chapters in this book devoted to the theory grounding the program, this chapter presents the central activities of the course along with detailed descriptions of the actual teaching, specific benefits which accrue from each activity, what I share with the students, and what principles animate the activity. Take these as “models” of activities, the foundations of which you can use to construct your own activities. I hope they will stimulate your imagination about what you might do to stimulate the development of aesthetic awareness in your students. That is the purpose of this course as the core introductory course of the program: to begin unfolding the students’ aesthetic consciousness so that they might go forward to invent many new ways of teaching the content requested. These descriptions will not only include the actual activity and its dimensions but also what I share with the students, how I teach with the activity, and what principles animate the activity. There will also be, at the end of this chapter, a sample annotated syllabus of the whole course.