AbstractEducational philosopher Maxine Greene called for the “centrality of the arts” to education at all levels decades ago, yet the aesthetic core of education has been often negated to the margin or completely forgotten in public education. What is desperately needed in formal education is what Greene termed as “wide-awakeness” or “being attentive to the beauty and cruelty of life, to “aesthetic encounters” and “living in the world esthetically.” Reflecting on recent conversations with her three school-age children, the author draws upon multimodel narratives, including her lived curriculum in mainland China and the United States and her children’s experiences with formal education in Canada, to warn of the potential numbing effects of school science curricula and pedagogy in public education. Finally a few strategies for centering the aesthetics are proposed to hopefully immunize ourselves and students against the potential numbing effect of school science.
“Trees Don’t Sing! … Eagle Feather Has no Power!”—Be Wary of the Potential Numbing Effects of School Science