  In this paper, we argue that a democratic approach to children's computing
education in a science class must focus on the aesthetics of children's
experience. In Democracy and Education, Dewey links "democracy" with a
distinctive understanding of "experience". For Dewey, the value of educational
experiences lies in "the unity or integrity of experience" (DE, 248). In Art as
Experience, Dewey presents aesthetic experience as the fundamental form of
human experience that undergirds all other forms of experiences, and can also
bring together multiple forms of experiences, locating this form of experience
in the work of artists. Particularly relevant to our current concern
(computational literacy), Dewey calls the process through which a person
transforms a material into an expressive medium an aesthetic experience (AE,
68-69). We argue here that the kind of experience that is appropriate for a
democratic education in the context of children's computational science is
essentially aesthetic in nature. Given that aesthetics has received relatively
little attention in STEM education research, our purpose here is to highlight
the power of Deweyan aesthetic experience in making computational thinking
available to and attractive to all children, including those who are
disinterested in computing, and especially those who are likely to be
discounted by virtue of location, gender or race.
