After reviewing much of the school, resources, site and curriculum with reference to the ‘place-based methods for researching schools’ (https://lkandiah.wixsite.com/sadr-journal/post/place-based-methods-for-researching-schools), I decided to turn my attention towards the aspect of the school that identified a new friction for me within art education. The difference in approaches to curricula. My Subject Study will expound this concept further, discussing how I have tried to respond to the fictitious environment of fulfilling the role of the student and the role of a teacher concurrently while also looking to understand how these differences in approaches may have emerged from the vague writing of the National curriculum.
While initially I struggled with adapting to this difference, I can certainly say that I have learned a lot by the change in the environment, however I feel it is important to recognise the advantages and characteristics of each as different environments will best suit different teachers.
In identifying the two approaches, I have named them: the project-based curricula and the skill-based curricula.
Project based Curricula:
Within project-based curricula, schemes of work are conceptually coherent and developed to produce and encourage learning towards the ends of producing a final artwork. This approach allows students to develop and demonstrate learning and understanding across lessons, towards a clear goal.
The learning applicability to students is evident through how the learning will support them to complete their final piece.
As learning is facilitated purposefully, student understanding can be measured through their capacity to engage with the themes of the project, develop literacy and respond to feedback.
Skill-based Curricula
Within Skill-based curricula, schemes of work are less curated and each lesson is almost entirely independent from the next. Vague themes establish superficial connections between lessons.
For example: A scheme of work around culture will explore a different culture in every lesson.
Scaffolding cannot be completed productively across lessons as the learning in the previous lesson will not apply to the explored themes, practices and methods used in the next lesson.
Relevancy is more difficult to persuade to students as lessons are disjointed and recall is not reinforced. If a student misses a lesson then it does not disadvantage them.
The lack of connections between lessons makes it more difficult for students to develop their own voice as ‘good art’ is modelled and lessons that are more restrictive are seen as more productive. Student work is preferred the more unanimous or cookie cutter it appears.
It is for this reason that struggled to adapt to the school and engage in effective teacher practices. The curriculum does not construct meaningful learning experiences, but instead is framed around providing only a surface-level experience of art, developing skills rather than understanding.
Here I define meaningful learning experience as that which best facilitates learning. the phrasing around surface level reflects the language used around the practices participated in.
The average lesson in the skill-based curricula requires a full demonstration, students follow steps as if they are recipes towards intended results, Learning is measured only by the final result rather than the process and analysis. Asking students to reflect on a lesson at the end of an activity, even at year 9 results consistently in 'I think it is nice because it looks good', 'If I were to improve it I would spend more time on it', these responses are only as deep as they are encouraged to be, learning is reduced to reminders of seven keywords learned in year 7. The formal elements. Students that are high ability will use the phrases "I think it is good because I can see shapes and lines'. The shallow reasoning behind oral and written responses leads teachers and students alike to see understanding activities as a 'waste of time'. This is only further encouraged as the skill-based curricula is impatient and cannot sustain attention or engagement. Beyond a single lesson in a subject, its processes are not returned to, its keywords are not reinforced, scaffolding is vacant and neglected. 'Teachers value results.' 'Results bring grades'. 'If I can do all but hold the pen for the student then they will achieve higher grades.' - this is the attitude I have seen in this school.
It is my educational philosophy that it is the role of the art educator to identify, nurture, challenge and develop the artistic voice of every student. However, this is not possible within a curriculum that does not give opportunity for such individuality and where even political art is reduced as a topic to a single lesson.
Recording Task 3:
In response to this I created an artwork:
Process This artwork utilises 'Joiner photography', a cubism inspired digital method I have used with year 11s and with year 8s to engage in photo manipulation in an easy and accessible way.
For this project photographed a lot of the school, its grounds, the displays, the classroom and hallways... but it was the student's work that I felt the most compelled to respond to.
The Cubism connotations felt fitting after the holistic approach of the place-based research reading, gathering a perspective from multiple angles at once.
Title The work is entitled 'Surface level' over my contentions and frictions over the Skill-based approach that art is taught at my second placement school.
Waves
In this work, there are two waves, joined together at the top of the page, emphasising the title 'surface level' visually.
On the left are the waves from a bleach painting lesson that took place before I arrived. The students were introduced to a process and then given the instructions to 'paint in the theme of nature'. If there's anything that I know about painting from the imagination, it is that without practice, understanding of constructive processes or examplars, the untrained student will draw the iconography of a given subject. this leads to surface level representations of the subject matter. Eyes reduced to concentric circle and the sea reduced to cursive strokes.
On the right are the waves from a bleach painting lesson that I led. Bleach painting is one of my specialist practices and as such I taught this after I arrived.
It is a niche process, but from an understanding of how we can create representational artworks, I made sure that students had both references to work from and a constructivist guide and approach to create more representational images.
The iconographic painting process of the waves on the left I emphasised their cookie-cutter nature by duplicating clearly the image three times, whilst the painting of the sea and the clouds sits alone in the hopeful distance.
Skull and flowers
At the front/bottom of the page, the skull and flowers echo this same sentiment. While it is clear that a reproducible set of steps have been followed to achieve these flowers, they are beautiful. This contrasts to the skull completed as a still life in the bleach painting, a deeper level of critical decision making is behind its creation, but the result may not be as visually appealing as the flowers. Is this deeper level of learning and technical understanding undermined by its aesthetic value?
The stenciled girl reaches for both, or perhaps between both of them to a compromise beyond these extremes? it is as unclear as I am.
Pandas
The panda heads represent that cookie cutter results of a class of successful students, in lessons I am often preparing stencil-like resources to save time and ensure that student focus is isolated on the point of the learning. They are taken from a year 9 Lesson where students used pre-prepared stencils to create the same unanimous image.
Students that require additional support are pushed more firmly through the cookie cutter, giving them even more restricted access to the task by preparing even mostly completed resources for them. This further makes me feel like the adaptive teaching processes for students with additional needs I am encouraged to employ are only selling the lie of their development. (This is tough though, the only reference for this I have is my previous school which commanded an incredible resource to offer TAs in every lesson for every student with additional needs.)
The panda head also serves to make students photographed in the work appear anonymous, fulfilling any GDPR/ Safeguarding responsibilities.
Mirrors
There are three mirrors presented in this artwork, they appear as the same, but they present three truths to the audience.
1 - The first mirror is vacant, transparent, empty. Where a mirror should be, there is no reflection.
This represents the lack of individuality I could see by looking through the students books. there was a process to creating effective work and all students work was a successful/not successful image of that.
When I design art lessons, I am always looking for ways to make them as individualistic as possible, relying on chance processes in Klecksographs and asking students to look into their own irises to find their voice. [On a side note, I have been encouraged at this school to always show my own example, even being criticised for completing an exemplary work and not bringing it to the class. - This contrasts to the advice given to me at university and installed at the previous placement.]
2 - The second mirror shows a broken butterfly
Students see that individuality that I have encouraged, those which are deviations from the unanimous norm as signs of failure or unsuccessfulness. It is difficult to stand out in a culture where you are expected to conform, but I hope through my practice of teaching to give students ore confidence to recognise the value in difference.
3 - The third mirror shows a watchful glaring eye. The text 'obey' is written above it.
This was used to show two things:
First, that the students are expected to obey under the watchful eye of the teacher, as if to realise that this aversion to personalism is installed by the teachers in the classroom.
And Second, that this was taken from the one lesson that was entitled 'political art' as if to reduce that personal voice of the student to a single lesson, framed within a small mirror.
Either way, the student is commanded to obey and any regulation or dysregulation is measured from a students ability to meet that conformitive standard. It too is worth reflecting on.
I will note, again, that as an Art teacher in training, I value immensely the learning and progress I have achieved at this school, but this is not the type of art teacher I want to be. Each lesson I feel I start a scheme of work from scratch. Even when I design it myself I feel that I am still trying to meet the expectations of the school and feeling the restrictions of the established and engrained approaches wrap tighter. It is valuable to me as a teacher to have experience in a wider variety of topics, it is valuable to me to deal with more difficult classes, it is valuable to me to try and adapt my teaching practices around tighter budgets and less resources, but the greatest contention is the approach to learning, which makes me feel that even when a lesson is 'successful' by the school's standards, that I do not feel that I am giving effective teaching.
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