Art, Reflection, and Belief

Just a few provocative quotes about education:

"An artist actively expands people's sense of the world, taking them into the verbs of art while avoiding the tripwires of the nouns. Entertainment happens within what we already know; art happens outside of that. Becoming a teacher puts you in a synergistic relationship with art; it is, in fact, one of the only sustainable ways to keep genuine curiosity alive. Art is learning, and learning is art." --Eric Booth

"Reflection is essential to learning--to life. Unfortunately, we live in a belligerently anti-reflection society. The etymology of the word 'reflection' is to 'bend back toward.' We must help students bend an artistic experience back towards themselves." --Eric Booth

"In the believing game, the first rule is to refrain from doubting. We return to Tertullian's original formulation, credo ut intelligam: I believe in order to understand. The monopoly of the doubting game makes people think the doubting muscle is the only muscle in their heads, and that belief is nothing but the absence of doubt.  But the believing muscle. . .puts the self into something.  By believing an assertion we can get farther and farther into it, see more and more things in terms of it or 'through' it, use it as a hypothesis to climb higher and higher to a point from which more can be seen and understood--and finally get to the point where we can be sure it is true." --Peter Elbow