Miss Olivia Monte

The following reflection is based on my experience in art at a Perth primary school on an early practicum placement.

Prompt: How has an experience in a school influenced your ideas about the place of the arts (individually and collectively) in the Early childhood or Primary context?

 

Please note that pseudonyms have been used for names of places, students and staff in this reflection.
 

Reporting
My experience of visual arts in an educational setting occurred during my professional practice placement at Duckbourne Primary School in Perth, WA. Although there were many incidences which revealed the school’s attitude towards visual arts, the main event occurred on Friday June 05th 2015.Art lessons for Year 1 students in Sonya Brennedy’s class are taught on Fridays between recess and lunch. This is Sonya’s Duties Other Than Teaching (DOTT) day and it is when the children’s routine for the day is vastly different from the rest of the week; no numeracy or literacy lessons are taught and many ‘house keeping’ tasks are done, such as changing desk groups, counting group points and having free play time.The art class is intended to be taught by an arts specialist, however this year at Duckbourne Primary, funding has been insufficient and resultantly a school deputy -with no arts background- is teaching the subject to all students in the school. The deputy is often assigned to other duties during art lessons and was placed as the arts teacher because the principal felt that having numerous relief teachers to take the art classes would not impact the children’s education.The art lesson I observed was delivered by an inexperienced relief teacher who told me one day prior to the class that ‘nothing has been organised for the lesson and I’ll have to quickly search the internet tomorrow morning to find an easy activity’. The result was a disorganised and uninspiring lesson on collage. The children were given a generic brief, with no teaching of important elements of collage such choosing an appropriate subject, design composition, texture or how to effectively use the medium.

Responding
As a practising visual artist, I was deeply disappointed in the school’s poor attitude towards visual arts. I could see that there is an overall undervaluing of visual arts and resultantly, the children started to adopt the same mindset. I felt that the teacher lacked visual arts knowledge and did not inspire the students to produce exciting artworks or experiment with the medium.
Although I appreciate that an artistic headspace is more relaxed than that required for literacy or numeracy work, I could see that the children themselves didn’t take the lesson seriously and created sub-optimal work. I felt very worried when the teacher himself explicitly said to the children ‘don’t worry if your artwork isn’t very good as I’m not much of an artist myself’. I felt deeply disheartened by the whole lesson and the place of visual arts – and other arts areas- in Duckbourne Primary School.

Relating
As an explanation for the place of visual art in schools like Duckbourne, Bamford (2006) states that many generalist educators have low visual arts self-efficacy and are unlikely to have even drawn a picture since primary school. Studies show that most primary school educators possess greater confidence in their ability to teach literacy and numeracy than visual art because there is a lack of time to thoroughly learn the subject in general education degrees. Additionally, pre-service teachers often have little background experience in visual arts and this impedes their future teaching of the subject (Garvis & Pendergast, 2011; Bamford, 2006; Davis, 2008). 

Factors such as low funding and principal disinterest result in minimal exclusive teaching of all arts areas in the primary years. The emphasis in such schools is usually placed upon literacy and numeracy, which both require inexpensive materials, unspecialised teaching spaces and less preparation when compared with subjects like visual art(Duncum, 2001). As such, it is crucial for educators to embed the arts into core curriculum learning wherever possible (Bamford, 2006). Some schools and students have minimal engagement with the arts, so educators must proactively engage in professional learning of all arts areas in order to provide these students with substantial arts experiences (Roy et al. 2014). 

Roy et al. (2014) believe the arts are for all children and not just a select few. Students need high-quality and ongoing arts learning to be successfully taught and engaged with the subjects. Quality visual arts –and other subjects like music, media, dance and drama- learning experiences are those delivered by educators who value -and possibly practice- the art form themselves. Such educators perceive themselves as capable of making art and engaging in meaningful visual expression (Bryce et al. 2004; Roy et al. 2014). 

Regarding visual arts, authors advise that the art should be taught as a process by which children are allowed to experiment and build confidence in their abilities as opposed to a mass-produced, step-by-step approach. (Duncum, 2001). When children are stimulated, experience success and possess pride in their artwork, they are likely to continue engaging with visual arts (McArdle, 2005).

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Reasoning
Upon further reflection of my experience at Duckbourne, I realised that any subject is difficult to teach if the educator does not possess relevant background experience and self-efficacy. I can now see that in order to gain self-efficacy and competence in teaching all of the arts, generalist primary teachers have a responsibility to learn about all art forms, regardless of their feelings or the school’s undervaluing of the subject. My questions about teaching the arts include how will I, as a general primary school teacher, manage to improve the collective attitude towards visual art within the school? How will I convince a disinterested principal that the arts are important? As a visual artist myself, how can I use my knowledge to help other teachers gain self-efficacy in both their art making abilities and capacity to teach the subject? How will I trial my self-sought knowledge of other art areas (such as music and dance) in the classroom? 
 

Reconstructing
When I become a primary school teacher, I will engage in professional learning -during my own time if necessary- to learn about other arts areas beyond visual arts. My motivation for such learning is to be able to provide my students with authentic and substantial experiences of the art forms whenever possible. I will endeavour to include visual arts -and all other art forms; music, dance, media and drama- into my core curriculum teaching areas as much as possible. I will convey my own genuine passion for visual arts with the hope of inspiring students to adopt a similar appetite for the arts. I have the confidence to help teach other teachers about simple visual arts methods and this could lead to an exchange of arts knowledge between us. I could do this by hosting an afterschool workshop or sharing my classroom art ideas and samples with them online. 

To support my students’ interest in the arts, I will always encourage innovation and experimentation (as opposed to a mere replication of the demonstration). I will emphasise that there is not just one way to be an artist because I believe that everyone can be an artist. I will proselytise this message to my students throughout my entire teaching career.
 

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References

Bamford, A. (2006). The Wow Factor:Global Research Compendium on the Impact od the Arts in Education . Berlin: Waxmann Verlag.

Bryce, J., Mendelovits, J., Beavis, A., McQueen, J., & Adams, I. (2004). Evaluation of School-based Arts Education Programmes in Australian Schools. Camberwell, Vic: Australian Council for Education Research.

Davis, D. (2008) First We See: The National Review of Visual Education. Canberra: Department of Education, Science and Training. Retrieved fromhttp://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/publications_resources/profiles/First_We_See_

Duncum, P. (2001). Visual culture: developments, definitions, and directions for art education. Studies in Art Education, 42(2), 101-12.

Garvis, S., & Pendergast, D. (2011). An inverstigation of early childhood teacher self-efficacy beliefs in the teaching of arts education. International Journal of Education and the Arts, 12(9), 63-68.

McArdle, F. (2005). What if...? Art as language in early childhood. Every Child, 11(2), 6-7.

Roy, D., Baker, W., & Hamilton, A. (2014). Teaching the Arts: Early Childhood and primary education. Syndey: Camdridge University Press.