THE ARTS AND OPEN-MINDEDNESS

摘要

Open-mindedness is typically considered an intellectual virtue that brings humans into (closer) contact with reality and its complexities. In this essay, Susan Verducci expands the ways we typically think of cultivating open-mindedness in classrooms to include the practice of engagement with the visual and performing arts. Working with the arts allows students and teachers to perceive and embody realities they would not normally experience. Specifically, the arts enable the drawing forth and exploration of multiple and subjective interpretations; the arts can therefore be uniquely productive in opening minds by helping one negotiate human perceptual constraints, by providing opportunities to enter standpoints other than one's own, and by encouraging the practice of living with uncertainty and ambiguity.