Martin Buber on Dialogue in Education and Art

Martin Buber on Dialogue in Education and Art. By: Shtelman Rina The Kaye Academic Educational College

The concern of the educator, while educating, should be remaining a true mediator, a selector, and a giver of direction. This should be done through real dialogue, responsibility, and faith. The model for such education “remains the classical master, through him the selection of the effective world reaches the pupil”. In the same article Buber states that:

“Art is then only the province in which a faculty of production, which is common to all, reaches completion. Everyone is elementally endowed with the basic powers of the arts, with that of drawing, for instance, or of music; these powers have to be developed, and in education of the whole person is to be built up on them as on the natural activity of the self. ”

Each attitude accords with a primary word. One primary word is the combination I-Thou, the other is I-It. The I-It attitude and the relations, which spring from it, govern most human concerns in everyday life. In dealing with these concerns a person is usually not relating with one's entire being. Buber states clearly that the I-Thou is spoken with one's whole being; in contrast the I-It is never spoken with one's whole being. He writes:

“I perceive something. I am sensible of something. I imagine something. I will something. I feel something. I think something. The life of human beings does not consist of all this and the like alone. This and the like together establish the realm of it. But the realm of Thou has a different basis. ”

As Buber often repeated in I and Thou: ”The Thou meet me in a moment of grace”.

Furthermore, in relation to art, explaining may often cloud the immediate encounter with, say, a painting, by diverging the student's attention from what addresses him or her in the painting and directing him only to the ideas explained. Thus, when a teacher relies on explaining art, rather then educating towards experiencing the painting or the sculpture. Only very rarely, such an approach will lead to a personal change in the way of life of the student, which may alter his or her manner of creating and relating to art, or towards creativity. Buber states that:

” This is the eternal origin of art that a human being confronts a form that wants to become a work through him. Not a figment of his soul but something that appears to the soul and demands the soul’s creative power. What is required is a deed that a man does with his whole being: if he commits it and speaks with his being the basic word to the form that appears, then the creative power is released and the work comes into being. ”

Joseph Mallord William Turner. "Snowstorm-Steamboat off a Harbor's Mouth". Oil on Canvas. 324 on 241 inch, Tate Gallery, London

Relating with one's being to other persons, Buber stresses, requires retaining the innocence that is at the basis of all genuine dialogue. The educator's role is to appeal to the innocent gaze of the student and to help the student guard this innocence when he or she encounters art.

“This instinct is therefore bound to be significant for the work of education as well. Here is an instinct which, no matter to what power it is raised, never becomes greed, because it is not directed to “having” but only to doing; which alone among the instincts can grow only to passion, not to lust; which alone among the instincts cannot lead its subject away to invade the realm of other lives. Here is the pure gesture which does not snatch the world to itself, but expresses itself to the world. ”

Pablo Picaso. "The Violin and Guitar". 319 on 425 inch Paris.

George Braque. " Les Jour". 350 on 272 inch, oil on canvas. Paris.

The other example, pointing towards a free approach as Buber puts it, enables the students to make free choices, and express a spointain approach, carried out authentically. Criticism and instruction are important, but they have to be encountered after the creative performance occurred. That is the way, Buber explains to encounter a scale of values. The more unacademic this scale of values and the more individualistic this knowledge will be, the deeper will be the encounter.

The dialogical truths that are enlightened by Martin Buber’s writing concerning education and art are existential. As Buber would have said: during most human concerns, in everyday life, relations are mostly governed by I-It attitudes. Even Education and Art can sometimes become or switch to I-It relations. But, persons, who endeavor to open themselves to a dialogical way of life, relating as a Thou, may find partners in each sphere. Such are worthy relations and worthy ways of living in the world.