2022 Workshop Talk | 1:13:23 | 7-12, Culture & Faith, General Classroom, Virtue, Character, Discipline
Summary
Beauty and aesthetics are, many times, words that are used interchangeably. However, they are and should remain distinct. Aesthetics is a branch of the theology of Beauty, but Beauty is so much more than aesthetics. Beauty is objective, based on the unchanging splendor and glory of God; aesthetics is the subjective human response to God’s objective beauty. Unfortunately, by and large, we have reduced Beauty to the level of the subjective and only seem to focus on beautiful art, literature, music, cuisine, architecture, clothing, etc.
The tragedy of this is that we have made Beauty about our own self-expression, or personal taste. Just as the post-modern world has reduced truth and goodness to relativistic subjective interpretation, where individuals are the final arbiters of their own truth, reality, and morality, Beauty has been reduced down to the aesthetic of an individual, who then become the final arbiters of what they deem to be beautiful. Beauty is beyond the art we hang on our classroom walls or the music we expose to our students. These are important things and teachers should be intentional in exposing their students to great art, literature, and musical compositions.
Beauty as a transcendental needs to be recovered. The focus of this workshop will be to share ideas on how to bring Beauty as a transcendental to the classroom in real and practical ways. I will share my story in exploring Beauty and why it belongs with the True and the Good. I will discuss how objective Beauty has fallen to the level of subjective aesthetics, not only in our society, but also in our classrooms. Finally, I will discuss and share how I have incorporated teaching a theology of beauty to my 10th grade class for the last two years now, and what lessons I have learned from this time.
Speaker
Nicholas Duncan is the 10th grade humanities teacher at The Ambrose School in Boise, Idaho. He holds a BBA in entrepreneurship management from Boise State University, and a masters of divinity in global studies from Liberty University School of Divinity. Nicholas taught at the College of Western Idaho for four years before teaching at The Ambrose School. He is married to his wife, Jorie, and together they have two children.
Additional Materials
The Association of Classical & Christian Schools presents Repairing the Ruins, the ACCS annual conference, copyright ACCS. You may make additional copies of this recording for use by your school but please do not sell any copies of the recording, or post it on the internet.
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