Exploring disobedient pedagogies in experience-oriented aesthetic education. The case of poetry slam

Abstract

Introduction: This article explores the intersection between Atkinson’s notion of disobedient pedagogies and experience-oriented aesthetic education, using poetry slam as an example to illustrate their shared potential to foster open-ended and unconventional learning. It challenges traditional frameworks of aesthetic education that privilege canonical knowledge and technical proficiency, proposing instead an approach grounded in a post-Kantian understanding of aesthetic engagement as an embodied and relational mode of encountering the world.

Research Aim: The study aims to explore how disobedient pedagogies intersect with experience-oriented aesthetic education to promote learning that is dynamic, participatory, and ethically attuned. Poetry slam serves as a practical example, demonstrating how such pedagogical approaches can facilitate transformative (aesthetic) experiences through unpredictability, risk-taking, and relational engagement.

Evidence-based Facts: Atkinson’s disobedient pedagogies frame learning as a largely unpredictable event that resists prescriptive standards and fosters exploration and responsiveness to learners’ diverse learning styles. Experience-oriented aesthetic education shifts attention from the transmission of cultural knowledge toward sensorial and socially embedded modes of engagement. Poetry slam – rooted in democratic and performative practice – encourages participants to engage with ambiguity, construct meaning collectively, and express individuality within a shared (aesthetic) experience.

Summary: This paper argues that integrating disobedient pedagogies into experience-oriented aesthetic education reconceptualizes learning as a co-constructed and anti‐transference process. Poetry slam situates this process within a lived aesthetic encounter, creating spaces where learners engage intellectually, aesthetically, and ethically through performance and dialogue. Such a framework redefines aesthetic education as a site of creative and ethical becoming.