The Possibilities of Play in the Classroom: On the Power of Aesthetic Experience in Teaching, Learning, and Researching

This book reveals the nature, possibilities, and power of aesthetic play in teaching, learning, and researching at a middle school (Creative Arts Centre, Milton Williams School, Calgary, Alberta, Canada), which chooses to value the creating process across the entire school curriculum. Questions surface recursively throughout the book: What does it mean for teachers and students to experience and learn aesthetically? How is the aesthetic embodied in teachers’ discourses and discursive patterns as well as in students’ approaches to learning and in their work? What are the effects of learning through integration of the aesthetic into the school curriculum as a whole? The artistic form of collage acts as a literary device to address these questions from multiple perspectives.