Alexandra Weinholtz

Alexandra Weinholtz
EDU 431
“Chairs, Cars and Bridges”

“The aesthetic experience may involve viewing something in a new way; provoking an instinctive response that promotes well being; reflecting personal goals and a hope to fulfill those goals; and/or leading to deeper knowledge.” In the article “Chairs, Cars and Bridges,” Robin Vande Zande discusses the importance of bringing aesthetics into the classroom. Seven components to frame the discussion about design aesthetics include, use, method, need, standards, association, milieu, and aesthetics. Each component causes the student to think through each point of art or objects allowing them to respond and reflect. These components are powerful communication tools that can relate messages to others through senses; this creates an awareness of the influences that play on our thinking and decision making. Aesthetics can enrich our classrooms and the lives of our students.
“Design function and the integration of aesthetic factors enrich life; they support the values of a community or an individual by making tangible examples of ideas and beliefs of the community or individual.” We as future teachers can integrate aesthetic ideas common to design that parallel to art. We can use aesthetics through context from which the object emerged, the creation, and responses to the created object in society, and the standards for judging the objects significance and interpreting its meaning. If we ask the right questions we can push our students thinking into different areas of the classroom such as, psychology, biology, sociology, and elements of art.