Imagined he(art)s: A candidate teacher / artist-in-residence collaboration.

Alex de Cosson
The department of Curriculum Studies, The University of Brit

Kit Grauer
The Department of Curriculum Studies, The University of British Columbia

Kathryn Ricketts
The University of British Columbia

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     Last modified: March 13, 2007
     Presentation date: 07/20/2007 11:20 AM in Coast Hotel Bayside Room
     (View Schedule)

Abstract
This presentation unpacks an artist-in-residence model incorporated into the one-year primary teacher education program at the University of British Columbia. Working through the lens of a/r/tography, (de Cosson, 2007; Irwin & de Cosson, 2004; de Cosson et. al, in press; Irwin, in press) three artists utilize sculpture, dance and taiko drumming to engender heartfelt and imagined learning throughout the curriculum.

The artists’ work collaboratively with the candidate teachers to unpack pre practicum curriculum needs and re-house them through artistic projects in a three-session artist-in-residence practicum component. These artists have the potential to bring new understandings to the art of teaching.

To be an artist-in-residence has its risks; the question of how artists retain their artistic identity, while being subsumed into the school culture, is conflicted (Kind, et al, 2007, de Cosson, et al, 2005; Meban, 2002).

Learning Through The Arts™ (LTTA) found, among other things, that artists-in-residence change pedagogical understandings of teachers and teacher candidates (Kind, et al, 2005; Irwin, et al, 2005; Grauer, et al, 2001)

If, as the artists contend, it is their job to see the prescribed curriculum in new and different ways, then how can the artists engagement with the candidate teachers bring new meaning to the classroom experience, and how relevant may these insights be? And since this is all new to the candidate teachers how do they know if the differences are meaningful?

Through a series of performative explorations, an enquiry into the meaning making of candidate teachers university and practicum experiences is explored.


(LTTA is sponsored by the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto, Canada) and is designed to be a professional development model for generalist elementary classroom teachers wishing to learn how to integrate the arts into all subject areas within the curriculum. The program brings three different artists into a school to work with each teacher and progressively over a three-year period classrooms are added so that at the end of three years the whole school is involved.)

Bibliography:

de Cosson, A. F., Irwin, R. L., Kind, S. & Springgay, S. (in press). Walking in wonder. In Gary Knowles, Ardra Cole, & Teresa Luciani (Eds.). The art of visual inquiry. Halifax, NS: Backalong Books.

de Cosson, A.F. (2007). Sites of sculpture: (Walking/writing as an over/underpinning to frameworks of sculpture as a research methodology). Chapter 22, Three dimensional art forms, Sculpture. In G. Knowles & A. l. Cole (Eds.) Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues. NY: Sage Publishing.

de Cosson, A., Grauer, K., Irwin, R.L., & Kind, S. (Fall 2005). An Artist-in-Residence or A/r/tography in Praxis Educational Insights, 9(2). [Available: http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v09n02/exhibits/artography.html]

Grauer, K., Irwin, R., de Cosson, A., & Wilson, S. (2001). Images for understanding: Snapshots of learning through the arts. International Journal of Education and the Arts 2 (9). (Retrieved on December 18, 2005 at http://ijea.asu.edu/v2n9/.

Irwin, Rita L. (in press). Walking to create an aesthetic and spiritual currere. Visual Arts Research.

Irwin, R.L., & de Cosson, A.F. (Eds.). (2004). A/r/tography: Rendering Self through Arts-Based Living Inquiry. Vancouver, BC: Pacific Educational Press.

Irwin, R. L., Wilson Kind, S., Grauer, K., de Cosson, A. (2005). Integration as embodied knowing. In M. Stokrocki (Ed.). Interdisciplinary art education builds bridges to connect disciplines & cultures (pp. 44-59). Reston, VA: National Art Education Association.

Kind, S., de Cosson, A.F., Irwin, R.L., & Grauer, K. (2007). Artist-teacher partnerships in learning: The in/between spaces of artist-teacher professional development. Canadian Journal of Education, (30)2

Kind, S., Irwin, R. L., Grauer, K., & de Cosson, A. F. (2005). Medicine wheel imag(in)ings: Exploring holistic curriculum perspectives. Art Education 58(5), pp. 33-38.

Maben, M. (2002). The Postmodern artist in the school: Implications for arts partnership programs. International Journal of Education & the Arts 3 (1). (Available from http://ijea.asu.edu/v3n1/)