What's Love Got to Do With It?

• In Event: Art, Jazz, and Love: Curricular Aesthetics and Poet(h)ics

Abstract

In this time of unrest, the kind education we are providing to the nation’s children and young adults is of paramount importance. A democratic education, following Dewey, is the keystone to a functioning democratic society. A teacher who teaches in the service of democracy in the United States,has three primary objectives: 1) To teach their students how to think critically; 2) To help their students develop habits of mind/body that are consistent with the demands of democratic life; and 3) To protect and nurture their students’ natural curiosity and creativity. In order for them to be able to meet these objectives, we must reassert the importance of what bell hooks calls an “ethic of love” into the praxis of teaching/learning.

Author

• Eric J. Weiner, Montclair State University